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The Good Ol' Hockey Game

Posted by Ray on 07/27/05 at 10:41 AM • News • Permalink


The Globe reports on hockey fandom.

How much damage did the National Hockey League inflict on itself by cancelling an entire season?

According to a Toronto research company, the 2004-05 lockout cost the NHL two million fans in Canada.


What's weird is that I'm completely the opposite - for the first time in a while, I'm actually looking forward to the NHL season.

Let me explain.

Eleven years ago my employer at the time moved me from Vancouver to Toronto. This was right after the comeback Canucks had made their almost Cup-run in 1994. Everyone was giving me the same old "how could you leave Vancover for grimy old Toronto" yada yada yada - this from people who'd never been east of Calgary...but I digress.

I went east with the idea of experiencing the REAL hockey fandom of the Leafs and Canadiens - not the latté-licking, bandwagon-jumping temporary insanity of the west-coast hockey fan once one of their teams makes it past the first round - you real hockey fans in BC KNOW WHAT I MEAN - and was looking forward to actually having a beer in one of Don Cherry's drinking establishments and staying 'til one in the morning for the double-header to be over on Saturday night.

So I went east...

...during the strike of the '94-'95 season.

And the sports bars were empty on Saturday nights.

Eventually I found other things to do. When hockey came back, I didn't give a damn anymore, except around the occasional game that happened to fit into my schedule, rather than me making any kind of special arrangement to move my activities around seeing a game...

If it was on TV, I'd watch a couple of minutes, get bored, then pick up a book or surf the net...There would always be another game on somewhere.

The NHL had lost me. Like Star Trek had lost me with too many shows of questionable quality, the NHL had lost me with too many teams of questionable quality.

For years I couldn't really care about NHL hockey at all. I can't even tell you who the last five Stanley Cup winners were.

Then the NHL went away.

They gave me time to miss them.

I know I know. This wasn't about me. Intransigent owners, greedy players, unions and management run amok, yeah yeah yeah.

But the result is the same. I began to MISS them.

I'm actually planning to watch when it comes back, which is a damn sight more than I wanted to do before the interruption happened.

Could it be that polls and surveys might be wrong? tongue wink

Go Canucks!
Go Leafs!
Go Avalanche!
Go Bruins!
Raging Kraut

  1. Being an Avalanche fan I was thought my interest would wane with the retirement of Roy and it did to a certain extent but with the strike and my only way to get a hockey fix being through the minors I'm ready for the NHL to come back.

    Despite Jeremy Roenick being a jacka$$.

    Posted by Randy  on  07/27  at  11:26 AM

  2. My god, all that time in the East did rot your brain. Go Leafs? You are back in BC now so repeat after me:
    Leafs Suck!
    Leafs Suck!
    Leafs Suck!

    At least Mothercorp is letting Jim Hughson do the Western Games, so we don't have to listen to Bob Cole, who should used the strike as a good excuse to retire gracefully.

    Posted by  on  07/27  at  09:55 PM

  3. I refuse to bend to your mind-control mantra. I can support whomever I want.

    Posted by Ray  on  07/27  at  10:09 PM

  4. I always took hockey for granted. But now after losing the season, I have to admit - even if they are a bunch of greedy bastards - I missed them. I would wistfully look at the $5 Bills and think, I remember that....

    I will be back wearing my Bert jersey in the fall and the winter will seem normal once again.

    Happy birthday, btw! Hope it was a good one!

    Posted by Sue  on  07/28  at  09:30 PM



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