Still Thinking…

Sorry folks, another sports post.

So DH indulged me with 2 tickets to the Canucks vs Phoenix game last Monday evening. It was some kind of a reward for his wife’s good behaviour, so instead of a hot fudge candy, I get to go to GM Place and watch the guys kick some a..

Oh man, was I excited! I WAS so anxious I couldn’t sleep the night before. It didn’t help that I was having a long day of different meetings, but I was so determined that nothing will stop me from watching my super spring chicken Mason Raymond live in action, get myself drowned in the thunderous singing of the national anthem O’Canada, and of course – watching and joining the thousands of back-bencher coaches shouting at professional athletes how to play hockey better.

At the last game we went to, I had embarassed DH by shouting “Oiii!!! Booddddoohh” to the rink whenever the players make a stupid pass, in a sea of Canadian fans. I realised that when it comes to your natural reflex, your native tongue takes precedence. Now in a given time, I am pretty sure my appropriate Malay vocab might just give way to something way more dangerous, those power-words in Hokkien. I was genuinely afraid of that moment. The moment the Hokkien apek crawls out of my brain and out through the mouth and splat onto the rink. By then, someone may just be shoving chilli onto my face to shut me up. There ARE kids watching hockey all around me. So I sticked to Malay, religiously. “Bodoh” is oh-so-mild.

We got really good seats, right at the centre-ice on the upper bowl where the real (read: non-corporate and beer-happy fans, urrrgh) are. I was surrounded by a spectrum of them. Above me was an annoying 17 year old who called EVERYONE in her entire universe on her cellphone, shouting and screaming how SHE is watching the game live and her friends are not. Her conversation goes something like this:

Annoying girl: Ohhhh myyyyy Gooooodddd!!! Do you know where I ammmmmm??? I am at the gammmmeee!!!!! Oh my Goooddddd!!! Did you see Taylor Pyatt???He is sooooo HOOOTTTTTTT!!!!

Friend on the other end: (because I can’t hear, I can only speculate). Repeat same dialogue as above. Replace “I am at the gammmmeee” with “You are????”

Annoying girl: Ohhhhh myyy Gooodddd!!!! I am so gonna call you at the first goal okaaayyyy??? He is sooo hooottttt!!! This is soooo coooolll!!!! Love youuuu!!!! XO!!!

Man, who has conversations saying ‘XO’ at the end? DH and I looked at each other and we both thought the same thing, it felt like we were reading transcripts of an MSN conversation. I figure that if I want to get into the groove, the next time I call my mum in SG I should also be spewing,“Maaaak. Mason Raymond sooo hoootttt maaakk!!!. Ok, Uja dah nak pergi goreng mee ni. XO!!!” Sigh.

Anyway, the annoying girl behind me was complimented by a pair of very veteran looking hockey fans on my left.They were at least 60 years of age, and was doing nothing but a running analysis of the entire game. I am talking abt BIG TIME analysis here. The kind where if you replace the hockey terms with financial ones, you will probably make some money in some dodgy hedge fund. They coulnd’t stop talking, albeit in hushed tones. With the annoying girl behind me, I didn’t mind them. I bet they were as much as in a mood of “aku nak lempang ajer budak belakang ni” mood as I am.

Then, on our right are the quintessential hockey dudes just out there for a good time. They were a riot. Half the time we were laughing our heads off with their jokes and banter, and boy – can they really talk to the rink!

But alas, no game is uneventful – especially when it is NOT a free ticket and you spent money on it. The last game I went to, there was no Mason Raymond and we arrived late, which means I missed the anthem. This time, we arrived really early so I won’t miss it (even when I don’t know how to sing it). And of all days…they HAD to choose some koyak hipster to sing the otherwise majestically beautiful song. It was so bad, the spectators couldn’t keep up. Watch for yourself and judge. Man, the Canucks looked pissed.

And oh, his Star Spangled Banner was much worse. Even Bush would have sung a much better rendition with his toy banjo on a one-legged donkey.

And then, as if that was not a bad start, my super spring chicken Raymond got a bad hit and end up not being able to play for the next 4 weeks. When that incident happened and I realised that he was not getting up, I was so panicky that my motherly instinct came through. “He is just a boyyyyy!!!! Don’t hurt him!!!!!” He is just a boyyyy!!!“, I shouted in an ocean of sounds. Like anyone cares. I was beginning to sound like the annoying 17 year old behind me. The only one who cared was DH. He was shaking his head.

But, hey we won 3-1 that night. I almost hopped and skipped back to our car. In fact, I did, but maybe because it was freaking 5 degrees outside and we had to walk for 10 mins to the parkade in the cold.

I am still sore about being shortchanged for a rousing, live anthem experience. I wanted to be moved, the way I always do when I watch it on TV. I guess it wasn’t meant to be, and that guy really should have been hit with a hockey stick the moment he went sooo off-key.

Disclaimer: I have not shifted loyalties. This is still my number one anthem. (Sung at the 2004 FIFA World Cup Qualifier in Japan)