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Back by popular demand, it's The HOCKEY-L "Ode to Joy" !! It's become
somewhat of an annual tradition here on HOCKEY-L ever since I first posted
it back in 1991, so here it is again in the same light-hearted spirit I'd
intended from the start. For all you HOCKEY-L veterans: Try it Again, For
the First Time :-) For all the newcomers .... Enjoy !!
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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 in the late 1980s, and was
sent to me by a friend in Boston whose first date with his future bride in-
cluded a UNH hockey game (an 11-5 Wildcat thrashing of Army; the perfect way
to get a hockey-centered relationship off on the right skate :-) and who to-
gether still plan their winter social calendar around the Wildcat icers. 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 history 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* sure like to meet her .... !! Cheers, Jim
Jim Love (*grin*)
[log in to unmask]
Go 'Cats Go !!!
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