Black Ice Issue #28 — Oil Blank-it

This had to have been the worst game of the season for our beloved Canvouver hockey squad. There were bodies on the ice, but there was no soul. If the boys in blue, green and white where thinking of making a selling point for Mats Sundin, should he decide to take the money (and the travel) and head west, they failed with heart augmented by zero goals.

Now as a long time follower of the Canucks, I have to say it hurts slightly more losing to Edmonton then losing to Calgary, but Jesus if tonight did not feel like a kick in groin with a frozen Bauer blade. Every single one of Sanford’s failures (3 to be exact) was the failure of the entire team. The was no speed, no skill and no upside (Coach Vee’s favorite word when assessing talent). Sure this loss came at the tail end of a long, stupid road trip that saw Canucks playing 7 games straight on the road.

It was one of those typical (or is that stereotypical?) Vancouvers losses. The type of loss that makes you want to hurl your beer can at the television screen and scream invective at the fading signal until the police arrive and they commit you to the pysche ward at St. Paul’s. For six days they have you on suicide watch, heavily medicated to the point of sedation, you slur various forms of scatological rambling at the nurses that come and go, but in the end they release you just days before Christmas.

Some fucking Christmas. Now you have all the time in the world (since you have now been fired from your job) to spend obsessing over Vancouver’s favorite cock tease — our local professional hockey franchise.

Send me back to St. Paul’s. Maybe I’ll have more time to spend reading The Russians and suffering over my various metaphysical barriers that can no longer be channelled through the insipid brutality of grown men on skates, beating the shit out of each other for the right to smack a tiny vulcanized-rubber disc into a 6×4 net. Yes, I find many of life’s lessons in the pursuit of the game of hockey, vis-à-vis the Vancouver Canucks, and someitmes I think it will drive me insane. What came first? They might ask. Was it the insanity or the game? Maybe hockey is merely a trigger for a pre-existing condition. Well I can say this, hockey may be the single greatest joy and the single greatest disappointment in my life.

Perhaps my life needs a drastic overhall. Perhaps, so too do the Canucks. And medication for the pain?

Hint: rythmes with Fats Mundin.

Next Up — Florida