“MacGyver: On Thin Ice”: The Game Diary

How have we been spending the first week of our off-season? By watching “MacGyver” on DVD, of course. After plowing through the first two seasons, we discovered this gem of a plot synopsis on the back of Disc Four of Season Three: “Before he can help his old hockey coach take a Minnesota team to the state championships, MacGyver must first rein in the star player’s violent temper.” IPB read that as: “Paulie Martin Paulie Martin Paulie Martin MacGyver Paulie Martin Paulie Martin MacGyver”. How could we not share this amazing episode with you, Gentle Reader? So sit back, relax, and enjoy “Thin Ice”.

0:56 The opening credits (Schnookie: “It’s amazing how much more awesome the credit montage makes this show look than it actually is.”) leads into a setting-establishing shot of what is supposed to be the main drag in a small Minnesota town, but is really some part of Vancouver. There is a banner hanging over the street that says “Welcome to the Minnesota State College Hockey Championships”. Because the Minnesota State College Hockey Championships are very small-town.

1:11 The setting is further established as we hear radio play-by-play (“He shoots, he scores!” That’s how people in the ‘80s knew it was hockey) and see shots of various small-town storefronts with homemade signs boasting of being “Raiders” fans. We can only assume that Paulie threw a couple of his NCAA championship rings at the TV when he watched this and realized this wasn’t about the Gophers.

1:17 The Minnesota State College Hockey Championships is being hosted in a very tiny arena, with a sign out front that says, “Kerrisdale Arena”. Because it’s rinky-dinky. We see a bunch of hickish people in the bleachers, and then pan across one of the benches. MacGyver is striding along behind it, wearing – gasp! – a suit.

1:42 Mac voices over that he, like all Minnesotans, “could skate before [he] could walk.” Paulie: “Damn straight.” He then explains that his old college coach called him up to ask that Mac coach the team to the totally insignificant College State Championships (The NCAA: “Not sanctioned by us, losers.”), and he couldn’t say no to doing him a favor. We are flummoxed by this. Why wouldn’t the coach just have his, we don’t know… assistant coach take up the reins if he was incapacitated? Why has he asked in this political/environmental consultant from L.A.? Pookie: “Well why didn’t the Devils just bring in a guy from GreenPeace last year?”

1:54 Paulie wings another championship trophy at his TV – the Raiders are playing in a best-of-three series against the “Waverly Hawks”. Of Waverly (State? U? College? Community College? Correspondence School?) the US Department of Education says, “Not accredited.”

2:03 Uh oh! The plot thickens! Mac voices over that “the hockey is easy” but the hard part is the team’s best player, “Number 17, Derek Kirby.” We implicitly distrust all number 17s (*cough*PetrSykora*cough*). They’re just bad news. Derek’s troubledness is hammered home when the hockey-playing montage shows him sitting in the penalty box. Hiss! He took a penalty!

2:39 Kirby leaps over the boards of the penalty box (we can’t speak for the verisimilitude of a College Hockey Championship being hosted in 1988 by an arena that doesn’t have glass in the penalty box), then makes a fancy play to construct a nice rush that ends with him scoring on a wraparound. Boomer: “Wow. Everyone in the building knew he was going for the wraparound except the goalie.” Pookie: “Well, you know Waverly A&M…” We pause the DVD for a moment just as the camera cuts to fans celebrating in the bleachers, and we freeze the frame on a guy in the back row (played by Clu Gulager!), wearing a brown suede jacket and a fedora, listening to the play-by-play on a wireless radio. Boomer: “Heeeey… Isn’t the story that this guy is betting against the team or something?” This trip through MacGyver this summer has been a delightful revisiting of our youths, and it’s been remarkable how much we remember from each episode. It’ll be interesting to see if Boomer’s right. So far she hasn’t missed.

2:44 When we resume play, we see that Clu is cheering, “That’s my boy!” The radio play-by-play explains that Kirby got kicked off Team USA for being a douche. Paulie wonders if that’s why he didn’t make Team USA in 2006, either.

3:07 We pan to the broadcast “booth” atop the bleachers, and the announcers explain that they are being joined by “top NHL player agent Brent Thompson”. Boomer points out that Brent is wearing what she calls “a German red plume” in the band of his fedora. It’s the distinguishing mark of NHL player agents and ex-Nazis the world over. Pookie: “Don Meehan dresses like that.”

3:13 When asked whether anyone in this game has the talent to play in the NHL, Brent totally violates the play-by-play guy’s personal space by leaning over him into the microphone and says, “Well, that Kirby kid seems to know where to put the puck. He’s just the kind of material the Mustangs are looking for.” The play-by-play guy refrains from saying, “Yeah, but what about NHL-caliber players?” We wonder if Paulie grew up despondent that he couldn’t be like his Raider hero Derek Kirby and play for the Mustangs. He’s probably watching this right now, weakly waving his Mustangs pennants and wishing things could have ended differently. (Pookie: “I wonder where the NHL Mustangs play. Minnesota somewhere? Calgary?”)

3:32 Brent and his sinister hat feather (and even more sinister mustache) head back to the seats and settle in next to Kirby’s dad. Are there any kinds of NCAA violations going on here? The NCAA: “We said these schools had nothing to do with us. Leave us out of this!”

3:38 As Clu urges Kirby to look tough out there, and while Kirby and some faceless Waverly Polytechnic kid jostle at the boards, we get a shot from behind of Mac on the bench. The mullet! THE MULLET!

Mac’s a pussy, and is shouting for Kirby to stay cool.

3:52 Okay, Kirby’s a total douche – Waverly School of the Arts sets up a great scoring chance thanks to Kirby’s sucky-assed approach to D, and as the Waverly kid is setting up to take a pass for a one-timer (although, to be honest, there isn’t ever any action in MacGyver fast enough to be called a one-timer. The kid would take the pass, stand there for a minute, tap the puck back and forth a bit, then crank a gentle wristy slapper), Kirby skates up behind him and blatantly slew-foots him. Mac is horrified. As are we. As is Paulie. As is Mustangs management – we mean, they aren’t the Flyers.

4:01 Kirby gets called for tripping, and then the Waverly Dance Conservatory captain, a hulking brute, skates up behind him and gives him a shot in the shoulderblades. Kirby wheels around and starts scrumming, and as Mac has to restrain his charges from storming en masse off the bench, a full-on melee breaks out on the ice. Tempers are short in the Minnesota College State Championships.

4:22 When the lineman pulls Kirby off the Waverly Theological Seminary captain, the ref shouts, “That’s it, Kirby, you’re out of here.” Kirby is aghast, and asks why he’s getting the gate and Waverly’s captain isn’t. The captain snarls at him, “You have a hard time finishing games, Mr. Olympics.” OUCH! Pookie: “I’m fairly certain that’s what Sean Avery said to Zach to try to goad him to fight.”

4:47 The play-by-play guy exposits that this infraction was exactly what got Kirby booted off the US Olympic team, and as he skates off the ice, Mac looks earnestly disappointed. We are informed that there are under 30 seconds left in a 6-6 tie, and now Waverly Secretarial School is going on the power play. We’re astonished by the score – we guess Mac isn’t much of a defensive coach. Pookie: “Maybe it’s a good thing the Devils didn’t hire a guy from GreenPeace.”

It should be noted that Kirby is a total pipsqueak, by the way. He’s of the Brian Gionta oeuvre of goons.

5:07 We watch Kirby pause in the tunnel as we hear the play-by-play… and Mac’s skills as PK coach are sorely lacking, because it takes Waverly Gemological Institute about two seconds to score the go-ahead goal. Kirby smashes his stick against the wall.

5:43 After the game, Kirby is sitting in the rink’s on-site restaurant/lounge/school cafeteria with Brent and Clu. Some Waverly School of Mines punks stop on their way out to razz Kirby (“7-6 Hawks. Waverly is number 1!” OUCH!), and Brent assures Kirby that his loss of composure on the ice was fine. “Some officials will throw you out for breaking a fingernail,” he scoffs. “And some will throw you out for a dangerous stunt, like the one Derek tried to pull,” says a serious, unsmiling voice. It’s Mac, striding into the screen. Brent glares uneasily at him. Is Brent the bad guy? It’s so hard to tell with this show.

6:02 Clu explains that Brent is a player agent trying to set something up for Kirby with the Mustangs. Brent smarmily says that, based on the way he played tonight, Kirby “is Mustang material.” Mac is not impressed. “Yeah, well… Mustang material isn’t what I’m looking for,” he high-and-mightys. Pookie: “I think this is how it went down with Kyle Okposo.”

6:13 Mac takes the high-and-mighty up another notch and rips into Kirby (and by “rips into” we mean “as much as MacGyver’s inherent dorkiness ever lets him rip into anybody”), lecturing that “knocking heads” might have gone over well with Team USA, but not on MacGyver’s Raiders. “If you do that again, I will can you myself. State Championships or not.” Pookie: “I’m pretty sure this isn’t how things went down with Downie and the Flyers.” Kirby glances nervously at Clu, his adam’s apple bobbing with conflict. Hm. Is there some kind of underlying tension here? Is poor, young, confused Kirby being pulled in opposite directions by the authority figures in his life? It can be so hard to tell with this show.

6:28 Clu rants, “Who the hell does he think he is?” as Mac storms off, and Kirby tries to calm him with some “He’s just thinking of the team” platitudes. Brent oozes to just ignore Mac, because “if I can get the Mustang coaches to fly down for the next game, and you can play like you did tonight, you can kiss this hick town goodbye forever.” There are horrified gasps all around the living room of stately IPB Manor, and likely at stately Paulie Martin Manor, too. What gopher would want to leave his hick town? Pookie adds, “Since I’ve never heard of the Mustangs, I’m not sure they’re exactly in some great metropolis.” Boomer: “Seriously. ‘Fly down’ from where? Prudhoe Bay? Baffin Island?” Brent and Clu clink beer mugs, and behind them, Kirby looks shifty and nervous.

6:53 An exterior shot establishes that we’re at Kerrisdale Memorial Hospital, and then Mac makes his way down a hallway with a sign indicating it’s the Cardiac Ward. He’s still wearing his tie (Pookie: “It’s like they’re worried we forget who he is”), and strides into a room in which the team’s real coach is looking bored, tossing cards into a hat. The two discuss the game a bit, and Mac exposits cluckingly that the coach isn’t supposed to be getting any excitement, so he needs to stop worrying about the championship. The coach says that Kirby is the Raiders’ only change, and Mac grouses, “For every point he scored he spent four our six minutes in the penalty box. What did you ever see in this kid for the US Olympic team?” The coach says, “I saw the next Gretzky.” Pookie: “Eric Lindros? Paul Kariya?” Boomer: “Pavel Bure?”

8:11 After a bit of expository conversation, we discover that the coach was on the 1960 Olympic team, and felt that Kirby has “that special something that can make him a champion.” He also thinks Kirby has a lot of MacGyver in him. We thought the two were mutually exclusive, but who are we to question? This softens Mac up immediately, and his stony glare is gentled into that unmistakable, “I am going to reach this kid, and make things right” look that served him so well in the episode where he was saving gang kids by taking them hiking in the mountains.

The coach also says that Kirby’s success means more than winning – it would give the people in the town something they “can stand up and be proud of.” Boomer: “Because the coal mine is running out.” The coach’s speech concludes with a direct edict to Mac to turn Kirby around.

9:05 The scene shifts to an auto body shop decorated to the rafters with hockey trophies and memorabilia. Boomer: “Oh, I remember the body shop! Wasn’t the dad someone who tried to be a big hockey star and failed?” Okay, we’d give her credit for remembering that, but honestly, couldn’t anyone have made that up? We mean, what are the chances that he’s not? Anyway, Clu grumps that Kirby’s not there, and Mac earnests that he didn’t come for Kirby. He says he wants Clu to keep Brent and the Mustangs away from Kirby, “so he can play the right brand of hockey.” This is like every interaction Lou has ever had with the Devils players! He probably says exactly that to every one of their parents every summer, in the hopes that they’ll never be drawn to terrible things like “offense” and “excitement”. If only Carlos Gomez hadn’t been as shallow and selfish as Clu.

10:00 Clu has a rebuttal for the “right brand of hockey” thing – the trophy case crammed with MVP and championship hardware, things Kirby won “without [MacGyver] holding his hand.” He concludes with the stunning riposte, “What do you think of that, hot shot?” Mac sasses back, “I think it would look a lot better with an Olympic gold medal in there.” Clu’s ready for that, though, and says he thought so, too, “until they put an Olympic torch in my boy’s hand… and burned him with it!” Damn! This episode won an Emmy, right?

10:18 This episode is like a theoretical discussion of the Philadelphia Flyers; it’s timely even in this day and age. Mac asks Clu if maybe Kirby himself had a little to do with getting booted off the Olympic team, and Clu self-righteouses, “My boy plays hard-nosed hockey! My boy plays to win!” Mac implores, “He ignores the basic rules of hockey!” Pookie: “This immediately makes me think of Gionta. He ignores the basic rules of hockey… like staying onsides.”

11:10 The plot thickens in a totally unexpected way, as Clu tells us that Kirby only cried twice in his life, “when his mama died, and the day he got off that plane from Finland.” He vows that he’ll do everything in his power to make sure that Kirby gets what he wants from life, namely: professional hockey. Mac isn’t impressed. “For what?” he bursts Clu’s bubble, “So he can get a fat paycheck for being a hitman on skates? Because that’s all the Mustangs are looking for.” Hey, violence sells up in Prudhoe Bay. Don’t knock it, man. Clu growls that Mac better not get in his way, or he’ll… and Mac cuts him off, “Don’t say it.” He is wearing the same facial expression after receiving a direct death threat as he was in the hospital room while talking hockey with the coach. Richard Dean Anderson won an Emmy for this, right? Boomer looks at the auto shop setting and says for Mac, “Don’t say it. Don’t make me turn your electric sander into a death ray machine.”

11:25 The music swells dramatically as Mac sadly thanks Clu for his time, then steps back out of the shop, resplendent in black jeans and white Reebok high-tops.

11:44 The next scene has Mac leading a shooting practice; we see an artful angle of the hockey-uniformed legs of a line of skaters taking turns shooting on the whistle, and then we cut to Mac shouting around the whistle in his mouth, “Okay, low, hard and on net!” We’re stunned. The Devils practices probably involve John MacLean shouting, “High, soft, and nowhere near the net!” Or, “Try to aim as hard as you can at your teammates, so they’ll make sure to never go anywhere near the crease ever again.”

12:17 The Raiders practice devolves, as they often do, into a fight between Kirby and some kid named Chester. Yup. Chester. Anyway, Chester accuses Kirby of costing the team the game thanks to his “hot-dogging for the Mustangs” and Kirby comes back with the always infuriating “Why don’t you just shut your face?” and before Mac can respond really slowly, Chester and Kirby are throwing down the gloves.

12:43 Mac breaks up the fight by shouting, “You guys knock it off!” a few times, then screams, “Now set up for the fish hook. We’ll run it as a team.” Ooooh… The fish hook. Mac means business.

13:36 The fish hook, as it turns out (or rather, “The Fish Hook”), is a set play that involves Kirby dishing to a guy in the slot (and to be fair, the person they have skating as Kirby actually does a pretty neat buttonhook), the guy having a week to shoot (either he’s playing the Devils, or the action is paced like a MacGyver episode), the guy in the slot scoring, and then Kirby and Mac exchanging meaningful nods. Schnookie, slowly: “Oh, so The Fish Hook is the play they’re going to win the championship with.” Pookie, shocked: “You think?”

13:58 We cut from Fish Hook practice to Mac and Kirby playing bubble hockey in the rink’s lounge/clubhouse room. After Mac engages in some enthusiastic bubble hockey play-by-play, Kirby says wistfully, “You really love hockey.” He then asks Mac what turned him on to the sport, and Mac says that it was first just growing up in Minnesota (Paulie: “Word”), and second, Turk Donner’s (the hospitalized coach) gold medal from Squaw Valley, which just happens to be in a display case right next to their table. Kirby listens to Mac gushing about how great Turk Donner was, and then says that Donner was the reason he made the Olympic team. Mac tries to build up Kirby’s self-esteem by saying it was his ability to play hockey that got him on the team, but then shifts gears to ask what got Kirby kicked off the team. Kirby swaggers that the “Finnish steamroller put me into the boards, and I gave it back. End of story.” Pookie: “Oh come on. Like any Finns hit anybody back in 1988.”

15:19 Mac tries to untangle Kirby’s complicated psychology by saying he wasn’t asking what happened on the ice, but rather, what happened inside his head. He gives a heart-felt, sensitive speech that Kirby’s got the skill, speed, and smarts to win, and doesn’t need to “bang heads”. We’re wondering what kind of “banging heads” Kirby’s doing that’s only earning him four or six PIM a night. Maybe this episode was preemptively arguing against hooking and holding? Was Kirby trying to kill hockey?

15:53 Uh oh. Kirby explains that he needs to go for the NHL contract so he doesn’t let his father down again, like he did by failing at the Olympics “by playing the only hockey I know.” Mac encourages him to chase his NHL dream, but Kirby insists that he only knows how to play goony, four-to-six-PIM-a-night hockey. Mac retorts that he needs to learn to win without fighting (four-to-six-PIM-a-night fighting, of course), and Kirby cries, “It’s all I know, MacGyver. Hockey’s in my blood!” “I understand that,” Mac says, “Just take the blood out of your hockey.” It brings a tear.

16:25 Mac tries to get through to Kirby by asking if he’s noticed yet that the only NHL team showing interest in him is one “with a fairly bad reputation.” Not a fairly bad reputation! That would be terrible! Harsh words from MacGyver.

17:58 We’re back at the Kerrisdale Arena for Game 2, and the play-by-play guy is telling us that Kirby has come to play tonight, and as soon as he says it, Kirby scores on another wraparound. This is starting to look like the David Clarkson Story.

19:09 The play-by-play guy lets us know that the Mustangs coaches, with nothing better to do in their jobs than fly down from Prudhoe Bay for a non-sanctioned US College championship game, are indeed sitting with Brent and Clu. We cut to them, and then cut to Coach Donner, listening on the radio in his hospital room. Kirby is hot-dogging on the ice, hogging the puck, darting all over the place, overstaying his shift, and is suddenly crosschecked on the fly by a thug from Waverly Online University. He goes down hard and is slow to get to his feet, so the play-by-play guy posits that he’s probably diving. It’s added that Kirby hasn’t taken a penalty yet in the game, and we cut to Coach Donner, pumping his fist and cheering, “Way to go, MacGyver!” Please, Turk. Save it for when Mac builds that death ray out of the electric sander.

19:42 Kirby gets back up, watches as the Waverly guy goes to the box, then glances at Mac. Mac makes the secret hand signal calling for The Fish Hook.

21:14 Disaster strikes, as Kirby leads The Fish Hook (using much of the same footage from the practice sequence; Pookie: “This all looks so strangely familiar.”), then, when the time comes to dish to the guy in the slot, he glances up at Clu, Brent, and the Mustangs coaches, then refuses to pass. The Medical School of Waverly guys are no dummies, and they block all his shooting lanes, then strip him at the point, go down for a two-on-none, and score. This is followed by a series of earnestly disappointed reaction shots, from the Raiders bench, Brent, Clu, Coach Donner… everyone.

22:19 Coach Donner’s lady doctor walks into his hospital room and catches him listening to the radio. She chastises him for not following her orders not to have any excitement, and he goes off on what’s probably supposed to be a charmingly curmedgeonly rant about how he’s being let out of the hospital in a week, and when he does, he’s going to find the first hockey game he can, “even if it’s peewees on a pond.” His lady doctor melts at his cranky old man-ness, and asks what the score is. “We’re up by one,” he grins, “Pull up a bed and have a listen.” Boomer is distracted by how deliciously “‘80s TV show” the set is – she points out it could double as a police interrogation room, with the X-ray light doubly as a two-way mirror. Coach Donner also doesn’t have a single IV or medical monitor or anything. Pookie explains, “It’s a hick town. They haven’t heard of modern medicine.” When the lady doctor asks how Kirby’s doing in the game, Donner says, “Right now I bet he’s in the dressing room and MacGyver is asking, ‘What were you thinking? Johnson was open!’”

We cut to Kirby in the dressing room, where Mac is shouting, “What were you thinking? Johnson was open!”

23:36 Kirby seems to take Mac’s intermission pep talk about winning as a team to heart, but as he’s making his way to the ice for the third period, Brent cuts him off. He reams into Kirby for making a fool of him after he brought the Mustangs coaching staff all the way down from Prudhoe Bay. “I brought them here to show them that you can play Mustangs hockey, not to see you trying out for the Ice Capades!” he shouts. Kirby tries to explain that the team can’t win with him in the penalty box, and Brent finally makes it clear to us that he is, indeed, the bad guy: “I don’t care if you win! I want to see the hard-nosed stuff!” This is the story of Paulie’s life.

24:30 Kirby gets his chance to goon it up when Waverly’s captain roughs him up on the boards, but it looks like maybe Mac has gotten through to him, and he skates away. The Mustangs coaches exchange an unhappy look with Brent and Clu, but then suddenly Kirby skates back to his nemesis and trips him in open ice. The captain charges after him, and the two start fighting right in front of the goal mouth, complete with TV-fight punching sound effects.

25:16 Things take a tragic turn all of a sudden – the film slows down, we see a shot of a wild-eyed Kirby taking a swing around the official trying to break up the fight, and when he strikes the Waverly captain, the captain flies back to hit his forehead on the crossbar of the goal. Then he falls in more slow motion, the sad music welling dramatically, and hits the back of his head on the ice. He has clearly suffered a massive, grievous head wound:

Brent rushes to contact Marc Crawford’s lawyers. Meanwhile, the Flyers coaching staff hops on the next available flight to Kerrisdale. The referee leans over the fallen Hawk, dabs at the blood on his forehead, and says dully, “Better call the paramedics.”

26:15 The next scene has Mac and Kirby gazing worriedly into the Waverly captain’s (his name is Henderson) hospital room. We can tell things are serious because, unlike Coach Donner’s room in the same hospital, there are all kinds of beeping medical apparatuses. The lady doctor steps out of the room and Kirby asks if Henderson is going to be okay. She explains that he’s still in a coma, and that the blow to the head caused a skull fracture. She intones gravely, “He could be disabled.” Kirby is horrified. “Disabled???” (Yes, on MacGyver, just plain old “disabled” is a medical term.) Boomer: “Now he’s going to lose his dance scholarship. And to think, the scouts from the Bolshoi Ballet were coming in tomorrow.”

27:09 Mac leaves Kirby in the hallway, and Kirby steps closer to the window of Henderson’s room. “I’m sorry Eddie,” he whispers. “No one was supposed to get hurt.” Music swells. Wait, who’s Eddie?

28:00 The scene shifts to the auto body shop, where Kirby is banging his anger out on some car part, while wearing a brown jumpsuit. Clu comes in and the two exchange words about the incident. Kirby is heavily burdened by guilt, but Clu insists it wasn’t his fault, since Kirby didn’t make Eddie take off his helmet, and didn’t make him fight. Pookie: “I wonder how many times those exact words have been spoken in the Flyers dressing room.” No sooner does she say that than Brent bursts in, all excitement and happiness. The Mustangs were very impressed by Kirby, and are offering him a contract. And no joke – Brent says his first game is in Philly tomorrow. “The owners can’t wait to see you take a piece out of the Flyers,” he exults. We’re fairly confident the Flyers can handle Kirby.

29:14 It dawns on Kirby very slowly what the deal is. “Wait a minute. Are you saying,” he dullards, “that if I hadn’t have put Eddie in the hospital then the Mustangs wouldn’t have anything to do with me?” Hold the phone – is that what’s going on here? What’s the message in all this? And when is Mac going to have to make a smoke bomb? Pookie grouses, “This episode would have really sucked if you were someone who was a fan of MacGyver for the reasons it’s MacGyver.” Brent scoffs, “You’re starting to sound like that MacGyver.”

29:30 Brent is insulted by Kirby’s sudden dawning of conscience (and Kirby’s wondering how he’s going to play for the Mustangs in Philly tomorrow if he’s playing the final championship game then with the Raiders), but Clu tries to shut him down by saying, “It’s a deal!” Kirby physically busts through their handshake, though, and says, in a line that probably made some MacGyver writer really proud of himself, “I don’t want your blood money!” That’s way better than “Ah don’t want your lahfe.” Brent storms off in a huff, shouting, “The name comes off the back of this jersey as easy as it went on.” We wonder how many times those exact words have been spoken in the Devils dressing room.

30:13 The immediate fallout of Brent walking out is the inevitable moment where Kirby declares he’s quitting hockey. “What?” Clu is stunned, “But you’ve wanted this your whole life!” “NO!” Kirby screams, and we are all able to shout in unison before he even says it, “YOU DID!”

Clu then runs over to the trophy case and taunts, “Did you want all these?” With the synthesizer strings welling, Kirby throws his hands against the glass of the case and gasps, “No.” Then he topples the entire case, glass breaking everywhere, and asks tearfully, “What kind of trophy do I get if Eddie dies?” Pookie: “Well, Todd Bertuzzi got a $4 million contract from the Ducks…”

31:19 The next scene starts with an overly long, wordless stretch of practice, wherein Mac leads his players in some quick-move grapevines, dropping to their knees, hopping up, rolling over (rolling over? Really?), and whatnot. Finally the sequence is ended by a player trying to sneak in late. Mac spots him, and he explains that he’s only late “because Kirby is in the dressing room. He says he’s quitting.” We suspect this happens every single morning at Devils practice, too – “Sorry I’m late, coach, but it’s Patty. He’s in the dressing room and says he’s going to quit if we don’t get more hugs.” This is probably why the Devils never have practices.

33:32 Mac confronts Kirby in the dressing room, and as Kirby throws his equipment into his bag, he explains that he’s quitting because, “I don’t know who to play for anymore. If I play the way you and Turk want me to, I lose my contract with the Mustangs. If I play the way my dad wants me to, I practically kill Eddie.” He flaps the quilted sleeves of his sweatshirt in frustration and sighs, “I’m done. It’s just not fun anymore.” Lou Lamoriello runs in and signs him to a contract on the spot. “It’s not supposed to be fun, son” he explains. And they all live happily ever after.

33:28 Wow – Mac just threw a verbal improvised smoke bomb at us! In an effort to tell Kirby that he’ll regret quitting, he reveals that he, too, was once on the cusp of a pro career. But he “busted himself up” by “playin’ stupid”, and his injuries were bad enough that he decided he’d never be able to play again. Basically, he’s saying he was a pussy. And now he wonders every time he laces up his skates whether he could have made it or not. “And you know what, Derek? I’ll never know.” We just got chills.

34:43 Practice resumes, and as the guys do three-man shooting drills, Kirby sneaks out onto the ice. Everything screeches to a halt, and the Raiders all stare in bitter silence at him. Kirby skates to center ice and says earnestly, “Look, I’ve been really messed up lately.” He then apologizes to his teammates, and asks them to take him back. Chester snarls, “Is this you talking, or are you just setting up another dog and pony show for your dad?” Dude, the trash talk on this team! It’s brutal! Kirby says that his dad is out of the picture now, and there is a perky synthesizer flourish as Chester (Pookie: “He looks like Staffy!”) flips the puck to Kirby. And they all live happily ever after.

36:55 Mac visits Clu’s body shop, and the entire MacGyverism for this episode comes down to him fixing an old compressor with the spring from a flashlight. We want our money back! As he works, Mac says, “You know, when something’s broken the easiest thing is to throw it away.” Pookie: “Is he talking about something else here? Nah. He’s just talking about the compressor.” With this show it’s hard to tell.

37:57 Clu grumps when Mac hands him the repaired compressor, “It seems you’ve got a knack for fixin’ things.” Mac says, “Well, there’s one thing I’d like to fix that I can’t – the split between you and your son.” Wait, really? So he was getting at something else! This show is so subtle and clever!

39:00 Clu gets a monologue wherein he pouts that he didn’t spend all his time and money on Kirby’s youth hockey for Kirby to end up rotting in this hick town. “You’re thinking about tonight’s game,” he snarls, “And I’m thinking of the rest of his life.” Mac earnests, “The rest of your son’s life starts… with tonight’s game.” He then flips on the machine that the compressor goes in, and says, “There are a lot of ways to fix things.” This is the finest television show we’ve watched all night. And if that wasn’t the lamest MacGyverism of all time, we don’t know what is.

40:45 We’re back in the dressing room before the big game, and Mac is speechifying. He exhorts the team to “remember who brought you here: Turk Donner.” Then he pulls a slip of paper out of his coat pocket and says that Turk always started every season when Mac was in high school by reading from the Olympic oath. He starts in on it, and after a few words, Kirby takes the reins. The music builds triumphantly, and when the oath is done, Mac says, “All right! Let’s play some hockey!” It’s straight out of the NHL Network commercials! Pookie: “If 100% of this MacGyver episode gave 75% even 15% of the time, it would still be better than it is right now.” Mac and Kirby exchange a meaningful look before heading out to the ice.

41:27 Just before Mac gets out of the tunnel, Coach Donner bursts in through the door, saying he begged out of the hospital. He’s brought the director of player personnel for Team USA with him. It’s Kirby’s second chance! Who ever would have guessed? Oh, and while we’re hastily tying up loose ends, Coach Donner heard from the lady doctor that Eddie’s going to be all right! He’s not disabled after all!

43:11 You know, it shouldn’t be hard to beat Waverly Culinary Institute, now that their captain is in a coma, but apparently, it is. The game is 4-3 Waverly with ten second left, but right at the buzzer, Kirby finds Chester in the slot, and Chester forces OT. That was… unexpected?

44:50 OT starts immediately, and Waverly doesn’t waste any time going after Kirby along the boards, the kind of roughing-up that normally leaves him seeing red. For a breathless moment we wonder if he’s going to snap again, but instead, as synthesizer trills fill in where our excitement should be, he gets to his feet, looks up to his dad’s usual seat, and sees it’s empty. Oh no! He gets over his disappointment and gets the puck… and then perfectly executes The Fish Hook! The Raiders win! The Raiders win! Turk and Mac embrace on the bench, and their moment of jubilation is interrupted by the player personnel guy who says, “Excuse me, gentlemen, but I have a call I have to make to Team USA.” Deftly written, MacGyver staff.

46:27 Kirby skates away from where his teammates are in a group embrace, and the sad music starts up once more. He’s scouring the crowd for that one familiar face, but Clu isn’t there for his moment of triumph. Or is he? Sure enough, from behind the rejoicing fans strides a nonchalant Clu, wearing a warm smile for his son. He strolls down to the bench, opens the door in the boards, and wanders out onto the ice, just they way we all do when we’re happy about our teams’ big wins. The sad music segues into the MacGyver theme, and we end on a shot of Mac smiling from the bench, as he admires his handiwork at fixing the rift between Kirby father and son.

And they all live happily ever after. Except for Paulie, who, no matter how many guys he’s killed on the ice, still hasn’t gotten that Mustangs contract.