I could have written this yesterday. A yawning chunk of time became available after my 1001 Nights record, because the working time usually allotted to Rated A for Awesome was going to run into the final game of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Ready to work, I was in the minority. Places of employment cleared as early as 1 o'clock. Files blew around in the wind tunnels left by the wake of fleeing office workers. People scurried to get home. I overheard one desperate youth on his cell phone: I don't care! Anywhere with a screen! 

Hockey fever here has been very, very intense. While I cheered the Canucks when it seemed required, I can’t watch hockey. I do love my city and I enjoy my fellow citizen’s enjoyment the way I enjoyed watching my dog single-mindedly chomp a bone. It’s endearing. But I prefer other food.

If there were dance numbers and a bit of clever dialogue, I might just have managed. If there was Kung Fu. A fiddler or two. If it was actually in water rather than on ice. But there are emphatically not those plateaus in hockey where the likes of me is won’t to walk their eyes… ?

No idea what I just said. Perfect. I won’t edit it.

At the salon the other week, women were having their nails painted in Vancouver Canuck colors. Those were no flukey females. It’s an epidemic. Neighbors have their extended clans over every hockey night, and as I walk my cats past their houses I see their roofs lifting off as they hoot at their tellies.

 The wrap party for Dinosaur Train was held on a playoff night. The actors in that show love, love, love the team that was flying in from Los Angeles to celebrate our last show: but the party threatened to go poof. Until they got a telly put into the posh restaurant they had rented out.

Now the dust settles the day after Vancouver lost to Boston, (where I was actually born, and where I’m still not capable of being interested in hockey). And we find that here in our convivial town, some little gerbils have been very naughty indeed. Riots! Not because of invasion, lack of food, or feudal hardship. No, because of a game.

Sure, it’s a game that’s left some lads with smashed backs and heads. But a game. 


Shouldda cut off his head with a skate!

Oh, dearie, dearie me. Hard surfaces, blades, hideous lighting, the same dreadful rising chords on a tinny synth. Anthems and Flags (Ridiculous! A player can be traded into any team anywhere) It wants balance.

I’d really like to argue for Bangara numbers in the middle of hockey games. Also, perhaps some colorful frocks for the players. Instead of sticks, why not pillows? The identical game could be played. The puck can be a pair of socks. Very accessible.  A half time episode of Care Bears.

Why don’t people take me seriously? It’s viable. I’d be perfectly willing to watch a bunch of virile young men hit each other with pillows.  I’d go to the bar and have a tomato juice to see that.

Puffy eyed from drink and sorrow, people piled back to work today.  Fellow toon Actress Sarah Edmundson discovered that the car on flames they were showing on TV as Vancouver rioted, was in fact, her car. 

No one seems to understand how downtown became Planet of the Apes yesterday.  

I think it’s the lack of theatrical values endemic in hockey.  Makes people think it’s ‘real life.’ But it’s a game. And games should not only be fun, they should look like fun, so you don't forget. Costumes, wigs, lights, dance, proper music, a proscenium arch.  And what was most absent? Humour.  Speaking of. Here's the outake reel from Dinosaur Train S2