Chasing Sidney: By Icing (Chapter 3)

You’ve read the first two chapters… now read Chapter 3!

Chapter 3

Three gleaming fuselages sparkled in the late September sun. But even they could barely match the output of sparkle that emanated from Ryan Getzlaf’s grin. They may have had a chance, but he had in fact used teeth-whitening strips the night before and so the wattage of his giant teeth was even more powerful than usual.

Nearby, Ilya Bryzgalov sat grinning as well, his arms wrapped around two toasters, while the cords wound their way around his torso in a gesture of affection. Beside him sat the young phenom Sidney Crosby, while the airport waiting room chair strained to contain his massive caboose.

In a nearby waiting room, Marc Crawford was nearly permanently blinded in a freak accident that occurred when a beam of sunlight hit Getzy’s teeth and then banked off of a pilot’s reflective CHIPS glasses (recently purchased on eBay), directly into the right eye of Coach Crawford. One would have thought this experience might have caused him to rethink his life, gather new insights (no pun intended), but, regrettably, he still clung to the notion that Dan Cloutier was a top-notch goaltender.

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Reasons We Love Hockey Part 102

The 102nd of our 118-part series.

The sounds of the game

No, we don’t mean that stupid feature on dumbed-down national broadcasts that don’t have players wearing mics (you know the ones. Where, during a pause in the action, the producers decide you really need to hear a replay of a puck hitting off a goalpost for the 10,000th time). We mean just the wonderful, unique noises hockey makes. First and foremost, there’s the schuss of skates on ice. Then there’s the crack of pucks on sticks, amplified by the ice and the cold air. There’s the boom of a slapshot hitting the boards, the gunshot sound of a wristshot hitting the glass, and the rattling glass and stanchions when a big hit is thrown. We love to hear the tap-tap-tap of Zach Parise percussively letting his teammates know (constantly) that he’s open, and the crack-crack-crack of Marty letting his teammates know from his crease that yet another fruitless power play is winding down, and the bang! of someone on the bench using his stick and the boards to let a ref know he just missed a call. We’ll even admit that we love the clarion clang of a puck ringing off the goalposts, as long as it’s not the Devils hitting the posts, and as long as the TV people don’t assume we’ve never heard such a thing before.

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Reasons We Love Hockey Part 101

The 101st in our 118-part series.

No Worries

We fully put forth that we are worrywarts. Schnookie must always be at the airport 3 hours before her flight boards, Pookie tops off her gas tank as soon as the needle tips the teeniest inch towards empty, and our cross-country road trip in 2003 was less free-wheelin’ adventure and more pulling over constantly to make sure neither of us had left our wallets at home. All these neuroses completely slip away, though, the minute we step inside a hockey arena. As soon as the crisp arena air and the sounds of skates on ice hit our senses we know there is no point worrying if we left the stove on or if we forgot to put the mortgage check in the mail. For the duration of the game it’s all just about the hockey. Obviously, during play there’s plenty to worry about. Will Travis Zajac manage to win a draw? Was Marty just playing drama queen when he had the trainer over to the crease? What is up with Colin White? But during intermissions, we can sit back, soak in the atmosphere and enjoy having nothing else to do but contemplate the game, and nowhere else to be but right there.

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