Last Splash

The gene pool could use a little Chlorine.

I've been spending a lot of time at nhl.com lately, checking out stats and standings and numbers, and I was nervously browsing around online last night because I couldn't watch the 3rd period (or overtime, for that matter) for fear of a nicotine panic attack. I'm just not ready to see the season end, and apparently neither is Montreal. Anyway, I was very excited to find that I could listen to the game online as announced by the French Canadian Montreal station carrying the play by play. It was perfect...I could only understand enough bits and pieces to know who had control of the puck, and when we scored. There was a slight delay, however, so I unfortunately knew we had won the game about 15 seconds early when J started cheering in the living room.

In other good news, I congratulated J last night on his pre-season prediction that if he stays with the team, Eric Staal will one day be our captain. I knew this was true last night as I watched his post game interview (which none of you saw because apparently we are the armpit of the NHL and get no OLN love). He was the ONLY one trying to make a real effort to win Monday's home game, and had a ton of great shots in the overtime periods. Last night after scoring the game winner he could have easily pointed out that he really got no help from the rest of the team's offense, but instead blamed himself for the OT loss Mon., saying his shots were too low and he really focused last night on getting them up higher, which is why it worked.

By the way, I really hate the way Canadiens say "O-fence".

posted by: Cannonball14 at 17:47 | link | comments (6) |
the sports report

You know how when you watch a hockey game on OLN most of the camera coverage is at center ice, and that's also where the commentators sit, up at the top of the upper level? Well, we have games 2 and 7 of every playoff round (although after the start to our playoffs we may have Game 2 of round 1 and not much else) and our seats are about 15 rows down from there. The first row of the upper level, center ice, facing the players bench. Bliss...bliss, I tell you. No more end zone hockey for me. These are, as far as I'm concerned, the best seats in the house. Next year I will cut back to 5 hockey games per season just so that I can pay the $24 dollars to sit there instead of the $12 to sit behind our goal in the upper level and go to 10 games. Well, maybe I'll go to more. Oh, listen to me...already looking to next season. What a sad, sad girl. I wish I could explain the first game, but I can't. I think we laid back too much in the weeks since we clinched playoffs, because the intensity was non-existent. And then last night, poor Gerber...I don't know what's up with him, but once we put Ward in we caught them. And our defenseive players got their heads out of their asses and realized that it wasn't all the goalie's fault since they weren't bothering to protect the lanes. Amazing come-from-behing game. It was so exciting to go to a double-OT game. And other than the 1st period, the Canes played really well. But Montreal is more aggressive and physical than they've been all season, and we've got some old guys that just can't take longer shifts against them without getting knocked around and injured. So, 3 players had retired to the locker room over the course of the game and we just couldn't keep up with them in that 2cd OT. Let's hope for the away sweep, and that's all we can really do. Hell, we were uphill against the same team in '02 and took them, so you never know what could happen. And if we lose? I guess I'm pulling for Buffalo or Ottawa, because they really deserve it.

posted by: Cannonball14 at 15:31 | link | comments |
the sports report

Oh, how I love living in the South. Really. I love it. Although Raleigh is a fairly medium-sized city with all the amenities a girl could ask for (pro hockey, great downtown scene, a beautiful park) the nearby towns are really just that perfect, down-home, Americana life that I'm after. We spent Easter with his family, since mine was out of town, and the weather was gorgeous! I took a nap on mother-in-law's porch, we drove around and looked at houses in that area (it's a 45 minute commute but what do I care now that I have a car with an AC and CD player). It was so nice to ride with the windows down and just smell the air...more grass and trees and open land...more driving on all those back-country roads. It's beautiful out there, without being in "the sticks".

Later at the grandmother's house, she was passing around all these old notes and yearbooks she kept from the kids growing up. Let me tell you...I was looking through a 1966 yearbook of 1-8 grades, and spotted more than a couple people I've met. (I was not alive in 1966.)  Family members, cousins of J's mom, I even saw the name of one third grader and said "hey, I think I sat next to him at church this morning". It's really kind of neat...as much as the pace of life has changed, here is this community that is much the same as it was fourty years ago. J's mom lives on a street with pieces of land and houses belonging to two sets of aunts and uncles. His grandparents (paternal) live across the street from their brother and his wife. A set of sisters married a set of brothers...nothing shady going on there, for those of you with that picture of the south...the gene pool was just a lot smaller then...you met people at church, and through your other friends, and if they lived more than 1/2 hour away it was a long distance relationship. So, basically his great aunt is married to his great uncle. They all live in the same place they grew up, which is touching and quaint to me.

I can imagine us settling there and in ten years I might still be "the outsider" because my great-grandparent's farm was one county over, and I grew up in the "city". Well, hey, I may have grown up in the 'city' but we had woods and a swamp behind our house, too, and I pretty much grew up a tomboy b/c only boys lived on my street and we built forts and went to the creek to catch frogs. My dad lived near the coast for a period of his life in a place that we call "Down-East". You may have heard the accent, but most likely it's only presented as the "Ocracoke" accent to you. They are very similar. My dad doesn't have the accent because he was already 9 or 10 or older when they moved there, but he does say "house" like a Canadian. My mom grew up in downtown Raleigh, so she's really the city girl of us all, although I think she's probably the most Southern of anyone.

What's amazing is that everyone else around the country thinks of Southerners as closed in and "yokel", but my parent's and J's family are some of the most well-traveled people I know. Brazil, Germany, Australia, Italy, Alaska, Japan...my dad spends half of his working life in Taiwan. He eats sushi and goes to fancy business dinners, even though he's a big old redneck.

Anyway, back to J's family...anytime you get sent home from Easter with homemade bread pudding (or "plain-boy") and homemade apple butter, you have to count yourself lucky for being from the South!

posted by: Cannonball14 at 13:11 | link | comments (2) |