| Tuesday April 30th 2002 It's that time of year again, when I get an itch to actually keep track of hockey scores and statistics. Stanley Cup playoff season has sparked an interest in me ever since I moved to Ottawa in 1998, when I was finally living in a city with an NHL team to call its own. I see the Montreal Canadiens unexpectedly defeated the Boston Bruins in the first round, as did the Sens against Philly (come on, you never saw that one coming, Sens fan or not). Strangely, the Leafs may be the one east conference Canadian team that doesn't make it - odd because they were doing the best among the three all season. Wow - I know more about hockey than I thought. I think it stems from that tabletop hockey game my parents bought me when I was a kid - the kind with all the little plastic hockey players on the sticks, and you twist them to shoot the puck. Had some pretty cool games with that, and got pretty good at it too. Totally destroyed the thing with over-use within three or four years, as I recall. Had some kind of fascination with the Flyers then, guess I just liked their logo. My cousin and I would stage play-off matches, where we'd each take half the teams and work our way up through the rounds - until all his teams were eliminated, at least. Pretty fun stuff. I've got an air hockey game now, and fun though it is, it just ain't the same. You can never recapture some things about your childhood, no matter how much of a kid at heart you are. Speaking of kids and hockey, saw an interesting news program about how hockey violence is perpetuated by the parents attending little league games - cheering when fights break out on the ice as if they're watching an NHL match, instead of realizing that's their brat beating the heck out of somebody else's son. Where do parents' minds go? Humanity in general has some excuses - cultural, perhaps media related, etc. - but parents specifically, with cases involving their own kids? Bizarre. If I have kids, I'm not so sure I'd put them into hockey. I wouldn't deny it to them either, but I'd at least give them a few alternatives to think about. Guess I'll just cross my fingers and hope they pick ballet or something. |