Well I must say, I'm pretty pleased with myself. I have ventured into the scary worl of HTML codes and it has been, interesting...to say the least. A little tweak here or a tweak there and you've got new colors and a different font...sweet.
The font on the title of my blog is actually beautiful Celtic knot letters. The big let-down is this. Unless people have that font in their computer, they will not see it and it will appear as dopey ol' block letters. Bummer. If anyone wants the font I'd be happy to send it along. Just click the little celtic button and email me.

Last night the Lovely One and Myself watched the Devils game. Hockey has always been my favorite sport. Ever since I was old enough to watch tv I got into hockey. It is fast, physical and exciting. My parents were both hockey fans. My dad played when he was younger. No college or anything, just shinny with his friends. He was a Montreal Canadiens fan and my Mom likes the Bruins. I watched the Bruins from day one but as I got older ( and wiser) I realised sadly that the game was more about money than the love of playing or actually putting a competitive team together. If you're a Bruins fan you will understand this more than any other fan of any other team. To say the Bruins are cheap is a grotesque understatement.
When I was younger, as a treat on school nights, I'd get to stay up to see the first period, maybe second of a Bruins game. My Dad was always willing to let me stay up later than my mom was and one night it bit me in the arse. In Catholic school I had a teacher named Sister Ann. And one day the whole lot of us failed a test miserably. Well ol' Sister Ann felt the need to dish out a little Catholic School Justice. She demanded we all be in bed at 8 o'clock that night and that she would be calling to make sure we were. Yeah right.
Well at 813 the phone rings. I am cuddled up on the couch between my parents enjoying the game immensely. What follows is my Dad's half of the conversation. " Oh hi there. How are you?" "No. He's right here." now almost annoyed "He's watching the hockey game with my wife and I." and then, fake seriousness for this next part. "Ohh..I see..Well, yes I will right away. Goodnight Sister."
He looked at my mom then me laughling. "Are you supposed to be in bed?"More laughing. I explained the whole thing and my Dad laughed. "Don't worry about it. Just tell her I sent you right to bed." While my mother didn't like that, and protested to the fact I was instructed to lie to a nun and that I'd surely burn in Hell, or at the very least spend a good amount of my time in the afterlife in Purgatory... it forever cemented my dad's image of the good cop.

Back to the money thing..........
My first encounter with an NHL work stoppage occured in the early 90's. I was on a bus trip to see the Bruins play the hated Montreal Canadiens. A bus ride from Rhode Island to Montreal is about ten hours. Although there was onboard entertainment. A group of folks ( some of whom were actually policemen) were sauced by 9am. Or, roughly Worcester Massachusetts. We were even pulled over in Vermont for speeding. Our bus driver, a tiny Frenchman from Woonsocket, whom we dubbed 'Frenchy' for the trip told us, "okay you guys, I do the talking. Nobody of you say nothing." Well, Frenchy got nailed by a Vermont State Trooper for speeding. He explained we were all Bruins fans on our way to the Forum, but to no avail. Well he comes back onto the bus, stomping his feet and holds up a ticket. There is a collective groan from the group and then silence. We were about a mile down the road when one of the guys from the back said quietly "Don't worry Frnechy. I gave him the bird for you." Laughter rustled throught the bus and Frenchy raised his head and look into the rearview mirror with a slight grin on his face.
We were at a lunch stop in White River Junction when the tour leader told us the news. "Okay guys. It's official. There is alock-out." Well the boos that we gave shook the poor man to the core. HE looked abit worried and tried to appease us. "But don't worry, we can get you guys tickets to the Expos (baseball) pre-season"
"The fucking EXPOS!!?? Tell us you're kidding." Well that was as close to a riot as I ever hope to be. Thankfully the alcohol that had soaked into the brains of most of the group was clearly steering logic. "S'okay, there's some good stripclubs downtown." And the crowd rejoiced again.
I sat thinking of the unfairness of it all. No hockey and two days in a foreign country with nothing to do. Hell I wasn't even old enough to get into one of those strip clubs!

Flash foward to last year. A full season cancellation. You are shitting me right?? No hockey for a YEAR??? The news was so traumatic that one the day in question, the Lovely One came home work to find me in the corner, curled up in the fetal position, twitching & chewing on a puck.
Don't ever tell me it's NOT about the money. I'm too old and too smart for that.
This year, though, I have really started to enjoy hockey again. The league made several changes, 90% of them for the good, although I'm not crazy about the 'kinder,
gentler' NHL. The new rules regarding hitting have made it nary impossible the just clean someones clock as they pass through center ice or to put them into the first row of seats. A defenseman can no longer ride a speedy foward away from the net, even if he does it clean using the body.
I mean, nowadays if you pass gas next to someone you're going to the box for two.
The league has greatly improved a poor product and now if they could just tweak a few little things, the NHL will be the supreme package it was many years ago.