.... that the Elis taught the world to play - college hockey !!!
 
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  Back by popular demand, it's The HOCKEY-L "Ode to Joy" !!  Quite by acci-
dent, today's 5th Anniversary of its annual Valentine's Day posting to the
List coincides with the 100th Anniversary of the first US intercollegiate
hockey game ever played, a 2-1 Yale victory over Johns Hopkins in Baltimore
(and all this time I've lived in Maryland I've always considered it somewhat
of a college hockey backwater - silly me :-)  For all you HOCKEY-L veterans:
Try it Again, For the First Time <grin> For all the new-comers .... Enjoy !!
 
  P.S.  No flames please, from the outraged SLU fans/alums who take offense
to the characterization of SLU as "Larries" .... I'm not about to step into
the middle of *that* debate - just remember I'm only the messenger ....
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    For many years the Boston "Phoenix" would publish a special section on/
around St. Valentine's Day that chronicled reader testimonials of Cupid's
hits and misses.  The following excerpt appeared a number of years ago, and
was sent to me by a friend in Boston whose first date with his future bride
included a UNH hockey game, and who together still plan their winter social
calendar around the Wildcat icemen.  I think we *all* know people (of both
sexes) who could have written the following:
 
    "I blame it all on a goddamn college hockey game.  Oh, sure, you're
thinking, maybe I should blame myself.  Well, the hell with all of you.
 
     The light of my life, she was - or so I'd convinced myself over the
space of the three weeks we'd been taking the same political science course.
Our eyes met during a lecture on Grover Cleveland, and I was hooked.  I
asked her out for a beer after class; she mentioned that she had an extra
ticket to that night's game against St. Lawrence.  At the time, I understood
less about hockey than I did about Grover Cleveland, but so what ??  I would
be with HER.
 
     That night, I learned that the St. Lawrence icemen are known to one
and all as the 'Larries'; for all I knew, there could have been a bunch of
Moes and Curleys down there too.  The problem was .... *she* knew.  Worse
yet, she CARED.  And she was appalled that I didn't.  Which is why she then
launched into a lengthy and aggressively condescending discourse on the
subtle differences between cross-checking, spearing, and aggravated assault,
intermittently punctuated by her emphatic observation that the referee was,
as she put it, a 'blind motherf**ker.'  All hope vanished at the moment she
realized that I didn't count Snooks Kelley as one of the five greatest in-
spirations of my life; her lips were silent, but her eyes said 'wimp city.'
 
     Dreams die hard - but none so hard as those shattered by a bunch of
hyperthyroidal Canadians with knives on their feet and sticks in their hands.
Goddamn college hockey game.  Maybe I'll become a priest ...."
 
    Well, *I'd* STILL like to meet her - even five years later .... !!
 
Cheers - Jim Love (*grin*) / [log in to unmask]
Go 'Cats - the playoffs are a second season !!
 
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