puck you

I've spent most of my life really hating sports. Playing them, watching them, hearing about them - just hated it. But sometime around my junior year of high school, I started to realize that hockey was pretty cool, as far as pro sports go (this revelation came about in part thanks to my burgeoning obsession with Canada at that time). At some point since we started dating in college, my DH came to the same conclusion, and really went nuts for hockey. He and his brother even went so far as to get the hockey package on cable back when he'd first moved to Syracuse and they were roommates. Since he became totally hockey-mad, I've had little choice but to go with it, and honestly, I've really learned to like hockey.

Last year was a pretty rough one in this household, with the lost season and all. I was just starting to get into the game, learning players' names and actually sort of caring who won the Stanley Cup, and they had to go and screw up a whole season. That's the kind of thing that can kill a sport, if it's not doing so well, and by many accounts hockey is struggling nearly everywhere south of the U.S.-Canadian border. Heck, they're not even on ESPN for most games this season, let alone on network TV like football (blech!) or baseball (the other sport I have sort of begun to like, if only because I like the Red Sox and the Mets and the Orioles and I love to hate the Yankees) or basketball. But at least they're playing again. Even if all the teams are mixed up, with people like LeClair on the Penguins now and Lindros on the Maple Leafs (my team! Too bad he's past his prime...). Even if they've got all these new weird rules, like the game-ending shootout in case of a tie (bad news for my team, who lost their season-opener in the first shootout under the new rules). Despite all the changes, it's okay, because it's finally hockey season again. *ahhh...*

The DH and his brother and a bunch of their friends have done a fantasy hockey league before, so we're trying to get one going again this year. The DH christened it the Lake Effect league - we're on Yahoo! Sports, and we were hoping to have our draft finalized before the real hockey season opened on Wednesday, but people are (okay - ugh, I had a whole long post written, and then Safari crashed, and all I could recover was everything up to this point, so I am going to try to recreate the rest of the post from memory as fast as I can, because it's past my bedtime and I'm tired) - uh, what was I saying? Oh yes, people are being slackers about joining up. We've only got 4 teams so far (I think we were expecting at least 6), so if anyone reading this wants to join, drop me a line and I will send you the password. I named my team the Maraschino Protest because I saw that phrase in the subject line of a spam e-mail I got once, and it made me giggle. Of our 4 teams, 3 of them have names related to food (go figure).

So in real hockey, as I mentioned, the team I root for is the Toronto Maple Leafs. Here's why: first, they're Mike Myers's favorite team, and he is one of my absolute favorite Canadians ever, so if they're good enough for him, then they're good enough for me. Second, they're Toronto's team, and I like Toronto. I haven't been there in ages, but I really enjoyed it when I visited there. Third, do you remember last post where I mentioned that my mom's maiden name means "leaf" in Chinese? Quelle coincidence, no? If you ask me, it just indicates that me + the Leafs = meant to be. Also, one of my online handles is "Maple" - I chose it mainly for reasons unrelated to the Leafs, but they were already my team by the time I picked it, so I considered that an additional reason to choose that name. Ok, here I think I mentioned something about how this season has already been unkind to my team, what with their captain Mats Sundin taking a puck to the eye in the season-opener (they say there's no damage to the eyeball, but the orbital bone is broken, and there's no telling how long he'll be out recovering - ouch), and then them losing in that shootout to the dippy Ottawa Senators (whom the DH, his brother & I saw beat the Penguins two weeks ago in a pre-season exhibition game in Binghamton, home of the Senators' farm team). I guess that means there's nowhere for their season to go from here but up, right? Always look on the bright side of life... You can read nhl.com's opening-night recap here.

My other favorite hockey team is my hometown AHL team, the Norfolk Admirals (not to be confused with the other AHL Admirals, those imposters from Milwaukee). I love the (Norfolk) Admirals! I love 'em so much that (here's how you can tell I'm getting a little carried away with this whole hockey thing) I was going to buy one of their jerseys this season. But, because I don't live in Hampton Roads anymore, I didn't know the Admirals changed their team colors and logo last season to match their affilated NHL team, the Chicago Blackhawks. The Admirals' colors were always blue and white with yellow accents, even back when they were still an ECHL team called the Hampton Roads Admirals. The colors and the logo were, y'know, nautical and stuff. The new colors, black and red, are not nautical at all. The new logo keeps a bit of the nautical theme: it's a battleship (okay, makes sense) - firing hockey pucks from its guns (*groan*). I pretty much agree with this site's assessment: "The destroyer in the logo is well executed…unfortunately, the rest of the logo reeks of Limburger."

So I don't want one of the new-style jerseys - but it seems I missed their old-stock clearance sale already, so I will have to resort to eBay to find one of the now-vintage jerseys I desire. Actually there's a guy who just had (and here is roughly where I was when my damn browser crashed before, because I was trying to open up eBay in a new tab so I could paste the link to this) an old-style jersey up for auction, but 1) it's an Away jersey (blue background with white writing) and I'd prefer a Home jersey (white background with blue writing) and 2) it's way huge. I want a jersey in a size I can actually wear without drowning in excess fabric (meaning, probably, nothing above L; XL and XXL are right out). Is that asking too much? Maybe so... but I'm on a quest now. Will y'all please keep an eye out for me, too? I'm also going to have to scour the local sporting-goods stores next time I'm home.

*Whew* Okay, I think I remembered to mention everything I was planning on mentioning when I started this post. These things always end up taking way longer to write than I intend them to take, and always end up way longer than I intend them to be. I just can't keep my loquacity in check, I guess. I oughta work on that.

Oh yeah, and for those of you who are wondering: yes, there is a post about knitting coming up in the pipeline. Mostly, it's going to be about how I haven't had any time lately to knit. Bummer. And about how it's looking less likely by the day that I will be able to go to Rhinebeck this year like I want to. Bummer x2. Eh, well, we'll see.