Kick Them when they're Down (3d period)

Next year, same time, things will probably be somewhat different from where I am now. These are the classified reports keeping the home front informed about what's really going on in Canadia.

After these commercially inspired intermissions, we continue with more hockey (*).

Ice hockey, “the game Canadia put on the map”, starts off with singing the national anthem. A necessity because the NHL features both Canadian teams and teams from their anthem loving southern neighbours. The average American activity nowadays appears to demand a gung ho style kick-off, including a song identifying the individual on one or more national or institutional level(s). Because the Canadians cannot let the Americans get ahead in the game, they too started singing their national pride. Ultimately, this results in a pre-game cold war, where the other team is subtly dissed by the singer or the singer suddenly “forgets” the words altogether... oh well, shit happens and their anthem is crap anyway: have a good game chaps !

After the musical or slightly musical start, the hockey activities start.

To the untrained eye, it may seem like ice hockey is actually the activity in between a series of breaks. A hockey game consists of three periods of twenty minutes each. After twenty minutes, the teams get a full 15 minute break. Every period is broken in several sessions that are marked by the beginning and end of commercial intermissions. Furthermore, each session is halted by a face-off as soon as a team commits a serious or less serious foul, the goalie somehow traps the puck (grabbing it, falling on it or any other method also counts), or if a goal is made. Occasionally, two (or more) players may opt for a break by taking off the gloves, helmet and dropping the ice hockey rules all together in favour of boxing regulations.

Going for the flawless victory [cats-mania]

If all these breaks still leave a player without breath, he may decide to substitute himself for a fellow team mate. The latter results in entire teams getting substituted every thirty seconds or so. Apparently, this has nothing to do with a baseball like constitution of the players, but more with the fact that dragging around several kilograms of equipment manages to wear out the highest of the high-end athletes pretty quickly. Suggestions to wear less and play longer seem to conflict with other properties of the game, such as the temperatures required to maintain the ice, the obsession with skating into each other, and the puck which has a nasty tendency to leave bruises when caught with an unprotected body part. If implemented, it would probably result in a pussied-down version of ice hockey, much to the dismay of real men (tm).

The game, or rather the interbreak activities that pass off as ice hockey, are fast paced and highly enjoyable to anyone who loves a good team game. It didn't take much before I too found myself cheering for the Vancouver Canucks and yelling “Go Canucks Go” along with the mob. To 'R's and my delight, the Canucks defeated the LA Kings with a score of three to two. This victory brought Vancouver the third place in their division. The end result is important because a good ranking offers certain perks in the post-season playoffs.

[www.piperreport.com]

The NHL playoffs are better known as the Stanley Cup, an over-the-top multi-layered silver icecream-cup. After the regular season, the best 8 teams of the west coast decide who faces the best of the east coast. These teams play each other in a series of the best of seven, to decide which team is the best ice hockey team of the northern Americas. Sadly, the Canucks won't win the Stanley Cup this year. After a tight 4-3 victory in the first round, Vancouver was over classed by the team with possibly the cutest name in the NHL... the Anaheim Ducks.

Showing its usual editorial brilliance, my favorite free “news”paper, the Metro, came up with the killer headline... “No, Canucks, No”. Nothing better than a bad punchline when they're down...

(*) After various complaints from the SO and Mr Jones, I promise this will be the last hockey episode. For a while at least

A flag for freedom, liberating "The number" [http://www.badmouth.net]

On the void that binds us

Next year, same time, things will probably be somewhat different from where I am now. These are the classified reports keeping the home front informed about what's really going on in Canadia.

This blog could discuss my ski – trip up Grouse Mountain, just 37.43 minutes outside Vancouver

advertised view from Grouse Mountain

It could, I mean it was a great trip. We were skiing like true pros, or so our instructor told us, and naturally we believed him. Going up and down the slopes of the mountain like skiing was all we ever did. Sadly, unlike the aforementioned promotional picture from the top of the mountain, our view was more like this:

representative shot from the lifts of Grouse Mountain

Besides the dense fog, we had to deal with other funky weather issues. The weather report, as ever, managed to live up to its worldwide reputation: they expected less rain... and sure enough, it ended up raining nonstop.

To my occasional Dutch reader: And you think the Dutch rain is wet ?!? The Canardian Rain is Wetter. The wetness goes straight through your front “waterproof”(!= wetproof) clothing, your body, and exits through the back of your “waterproof” clothing. Hence our activities consisted of an innovative mashup of scuba diving and sliding down the hill.

Because of the lack of accurate or interesting photo material, I will postpone the skiing reports until a later date... Say when I am capable to actually ski down the hill with a camera and not break my neck. Suffice to say we had lots of fun and we're considering moving out of the game development and into professional skiing.

But, as said, my ski trip is not what this blog is about.

This blog could also discuss the new words I learned this week. I mean it just could, given the weight of these words. One of these words comes from the same person who accompanied me on (and arranged) the ski trip: co-worker and full time Brit in Canada, Steve. One of these words is “Merkin”. I invite you to click on the link, read it and wonder how we came to discuss this word. All I can say, because I don't clearly remember how, is that it involves a couple of guys and beer(s). The other word of great weight was "Gunt". I'll leave that as an exercise to the reader.As you can I see, I'm getting educated in the more refined aspects of the Anglo Saxon derived culture.

Since I expect the reader of this blog to be a slightly above this level of male beer talk, this Blog won't be about newly learned words either.

In fact my original idea for this week was a common ground, a shared Dutch Canardian value, a shared source of information, quality news, the Metro.

The concept was to collect an entire week's worth of Metros (*) to give you people an accurate impression of what's playing in the Vancouverian scene. I guess one could say "i tried"... alas, the result is far from impressive. Here's the meager reapings of what I managed to extract:

• The upcoming (2010) Winter Olympics are coming to Vancouver. This happening has locals running wild and about in the spirit of pre-fun all over: if the Olympics are having a bad day, it makes news, if the Olympics sneeze, it's a breakthrough, if the Olympics fart, it's cause for a news flash update. You get the picture. Tuesday's front page news featured an anti Olympic demonstration. In unrelated news: Britney Spears got a couple of lines of paper space as well.
  
  

• On Wednesday the Metro congratulated itself, on the front page, with it's second anniversary. The age fits the maturity of the content. No gossip on Britney today.
  
  

• After leaving the Olympics alone for a day, Thursday brought the Olympics back to the front space, personified by Paralympian (physically challenged Olympic Athlete) Jeff Adams. Jeff rebuked Monday's demonstration, by stating the Olympics also bring good things (such as an overheated housing market). Britney found love in the rehab ?
  
  

• Friday's episode is called the Weekend episode. That's a bit of a stretch as one only needs five minutes or less to go through all the “news”. “Premier meets Governator” is the most important news fact according to the Metro Editors. It's not that much, but luckily there's some news on Britney Spears being very demanding and obnoxious in rehab.
  
  

Concluding: the Metro is a waste of good trees. If it wasn't for the latest news on Britney's latest burp, there would absolutely be no reason to go through the effort of obtain a Metro from a metro dispenser and wasting five minutes (or less) of your life on it.

one of the many metro dispensers improving Vancouvers Scenery

So there it is, the topic of this week's blog. Not the ski trip, not the bar adventures in downtown Vancouver but an information void. Given my obvious talent in that area, I expect some offers from the said newspaper for the role of senior editor soon...

"After every attempt at being sarcastic ask questions, ‘Was that sarcastic?', ‘Did you think that my comment was clever?'. Learn from your mistakes, and do not be afraid to ask for help to further develop the comments that you find are not sarcastic."

Sarcasm: A Beginners guide
http://www.sarcasmsociety.com/howtobesarcastic/

(*) People who actually are not too lazy to count, will notice only four metros here. People who know a (work) week contains more than four days will realize one is missing. The missing one is the result of the complexity of the metro dispensers. On Monday I was figuring out how to get a metro from one of the dispensers as my bus arrived. I had to abandon that task. The next day however, I was more lucky as I was able to spot a native performing the trick.