Hockey Night in Ashland

Turns out I can really care about hockey.

There have been signs pointing to this all year.  On New Year’s Day I turned on the Winter Classic from Fenway Park and saw the Bruins score two goals in the last five minutes to win the game.  Then I watched a couple Olympic games including the very exciting US-Canada final.  I tuned in for the post Savard concussion Penguins-Bruins matchup (disappointing and boring), and Game 6 of the Bruins first round playoffs (appointing and interesting).

So that’s five games in four months, or roughly three games more than any four month period in the past 15 years.

So maybe my momentum was headed in the right direction when I heard that the 8 seed Canadiens were ahead of the 1 seed Capitals after two periods.  I started searching my cable system to see the final period, finally realizing it was on some channel called VS.  By time I could find the channel there were 13 minutes left in the game.

And it was riveting.  I don’t really know why, but my heart was pounding as I watched Montreal try to hang on.  I had a rooting interest since the Bruins would have a much easier opponent in the next round if the Canadiens were to win, but still, my attachment was way out of proportion.  It may have been the most vested I’ve been in any sporting event in the past year, including Red Sox/Celtics/Bruins/Patriots playoff games.

And that showed me: hockey is a great sport.  Well, at least playoff hockey is.  When it is a game 7, and the whistles are few and far between, and the players are not mucking around and posturing for the next fight, it is incredibly captivating.  I even knew 2 players on the ice: Ovechkin, who kept making breathtaking end to end runs, and Hal Gill, a former Bruin who made a handful of great plays to propel the Canadiens to victory.  I saw two goals, and desperation play that you just don’t see in the constantly interrupted games of baseball, football, and basketball.

So now the Bruins play the Flyers.  And I can name more players from the 1975 Flyers than I can for the 2010 Bruins.  But I’m now up to six games watched in the past four months, and I have a feeling by the end of next week I’ll be praising and cursing a whole host of Bruins and Flyers by name.

Clarke, Leach, McLeish, Schultz, Parent, Van Impe.....if the Bruins get the trophy in the front row in this picture, I'll need to learn at least seven of their names

Copy Dad

Molly: Dad, Emma keeps repeating everything I say.

Me: Dad, Emma keeps repeating everything I say.

Molly: It’s really annoying.

Me: It’s really annoying.

Molly: Aarghhhh!

Me: Aarghhhh!

It’s really fun being a Dad.  Must be frustrating at times to be Molly though.

After the Flood

The USA Today row of weather icons for the week shows a few clouds, some sun, but no hint of snow.  It feels like winter is safely behind us.

And looking back on the surprising winter of 09-10, I have learned the following: Rain is the new snow.

Here in New England we spent most of the winter worrying about snow storms that never turned into anything significant.  The forecasters had a really bad season, just when I thought they had this whole gig down pat.  It was as if all the Doppler Radars conspired to rise up against the media outlets in some sort of technological rebellion.  Schools canceled classes on the mere prospect of snow multiple times only to have kids laughing by noon as they ran through the sprinklers (okay not quite).

The rain on the other hand was truly frightening.  The month of March was so wet that I almost bought my first umbrella.  I found myself sending Molly and Emma downstairs to the basement every other day to see if there was any water damage (I’m still recovering from my torn achilles, and hey, the basement can be kind of scary even when it’s not raining).  Eventually I took the advice of my friend Neil who told me his secret for making sure there was no flooding in the basement: don’t check.

So as we move into the much happier spring of 2010 I am glad that we don’t need to deal with any more snow false alarms.  And that I still don’t own an umbrella.