Where I’m Coming From
After a visit to the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, we stopped by a Subway where an Asian woman with a strange accent made our sandwiches.
“Have you been to the Hockey Hall of Fame up the street there?” I asked her.
No answer.
“It’s great!” I said. “We came all the way from California to see it.”
“I came from Buffalo,” she said.
“Really? Where’d you come from before Buffalo?” I asked.
“I saw Niagara Falls,” she said.
Downtown Toronto
Downtown Toronto looks pretty much like downtown anywhere else, but it is the first place I’ve ever seen a street performer playing a set of bagpipes . . .
Airline Safety
As we’re waiting for the plane to leave the gate, my son’s looking over the airline safety brochure, which shows multiple scenarios of people sliding to safety out of a downed plane — onto grass, into water, etc.
He says, “None of these things is going to work if the plane is going–” here he makes a plummeting motion with his hand, along with a plummeting sound effect.
“The plane is on the ground in those pictures,” I say. “You’re not supposed to slide out of the plane while it’s still in the air.”
“I know. I’m saying there’s no solution if the plane actually crashes.”
“That’s right. Do you want to get off?”
Canadians are Really Into Hockey
I already knew that, but one of the TV stations at the hotel seemed to be showing nothing but ball hockey — no skates, just guys running around with sticks trying to hit a ball into a net.
I asked a Canadian: “What’s up with all the ball hockey games on television?”
“It’s the playoffs!” he explained.
Welcome Home!
My owner and his boy are back! I am so happy!
My owner’s wife let me sleep on the bed while they were gone. Usually I sleep on my own bed downstairs. When someone says, “Lightning, go nite-nite,” I used to go and lie down on my bed. But now when someone says, “Go nite-nite,” I run upstairs to the bedroom. I’m a fast learner!
I sniffed my owner’s clothes when he was gone because it made it seem like he was close by. And I went into the boy’s room sometimes to see if he was back yet.
I’m going to be an extra good dog so they won’t go away any more . . .
— Lightning 
Force of Habit
Our hotel room in Canada had a king-size bed, which I slept on, and a pull-out sofa that my son slept on. The first night we were there, I picked out my side of the bed and went to sleep.
It wasn’t until the second night that it occurred to me: Hey I could sleep right in the middle of this bed if I want to! There’s nobody else in it!
“I still slept on my side of the bed when you were gone,” my wife said later.
Another Thing I Learned in Canada
Our hotel room had a fridge, so we went to the market to stock up on a few drinks and snacks. We weren’t planning to buy a lot of stuff so instead of a cart we just put the items in a hand basket.
At the checkout line, the girl asked me, “Do you want bags for this?”
Am I missing something? “How else are we going to get it to the car?” I asked.
“I’m going to charge you for them,” she said, “so I have to ask you if you want them.”
Plastic grocery bags in Canada will set you back five cents apiece . . .
Twitter: 2009-07-15
- Flamboyantly gay flight attendant on our Buffalo-to-Newark flight. In-flight entertainment: Bruno. No they didn't show a movie. #
Show Me the Canadian Money
I handed the girl at the McDonalds drive-thru a Canadian 5-dollar bill and asked her, “Who is that guy?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I only came here three years ago and I’m not really into money.”
When we got back to the hotel, I asked the guy at the front desk the same question. He had no idea.
I was dumbfounded to discover that Canadians don’t know the people on their money!
By googling “canadian 5-dollar bill,” I learned that the gentleman is Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the seventh Prime Minister of Canada.
The prime minister is like the president in the United States, isn’t he? Wouldn’t this be like an American not recognizing Abraham Lincoln?
Twitter: 2009-07-14
- On runway in Buffalo. Delayed by wind. Will miss connection to LA. #
A Long Story About a Chair
Our hotel room has a bedroom, where I sleep, and a living area with a pull-out sofa where my son sleeps. Between the rooms is a door that I close at night when I go to bed.
I got up this morning, opened the door and almost fell over a desk chair that shouldn’t have been there.
“Why’s this chair set up here like a barricade?” I asked my son.
“It’s a long story,” he said.
“Really? What’s the story?”
“We were talking in the lobby last night and Ian got in trouble with his dad for being out of the room so late. Chris couldn’t sleep in his room because his mom and dad had some guests come by so he was going to sleep in Ian’s room but then he didn’t want to because Ian was in trouble so he came in here. He was going to sleep in the armchair and put his feet up on the desk chair. I had it all set up but then Ian called and said it was okay to sleep in his room. I just didn’t move the chair back.”
“That was a long story.”
Why I Don’t Go to Sandra Bullock Movies
Some of the hockey moms here at the tournament went to see The Proposal and are giving it rave reviews — “Classic Sandra Bullock!” Blah blah blah . . .
“Sandra Bullock used to be pretty cute,” I say, “but now she looks like a guy, don’t you think?”
“Are you kidding?! For 45, she looks amazing!”
When I unscrunch my hard-earned dollar bills to see a movie, I want more than “looks good for 45.” I can get “looks good for 45” at home . . .
NARCh – Day 4
The Devil Dogs would have liked to be playing today but weren’t after last night’s 2-1 quarterfinal defeat to the Cougars.
In the semifinals, the #5 seed Cougars got smoked 6-1 by the #2 seed Detroit Mission Stars 92, while the #1 seed Adrenaline, another Michigan team, beat the #6 seed ISCA Grizzlies from New Jersey 10-4.
In the final, the Stars beat Adrenaline 5-2 to win the gold medal. As the highest-seeded semifinal loser, the Cougars earned the bronze medal.
Everyone who’s played a sport for a while has been on the wrong end of last-minute losses. If you can’t take the occasional tough loss, you always have the option of not playing the sport.
But I have to admit that the coaching decisions at the end of last night’s game are going to haunt me for a while. Putting the wrong team on the rink in the last minute cost the team a medal. In my opinion.
Notice that I’m saying the right players weren’t in the game — not the “best” players — because different players are best in different situations. Are you ahead? Are you behind? Are you tied? That determines who should be on the rink.
For example, if you’re protecting a one-goal lead, having your big, fast guys on the bench in favor of smaller guys and scorers does not give you the best chance to win the game. In fact, it gives you the best chance to lose the game. If you’d been next to me with a minute left in that game, you would have heard me say that exact thing: “They’ve got the wrong lineup out there.”
Casey was crushed by losing the game in the last minute and doubly crushed by having to watch it from the bench. You can’t know what would have happened had he been in the game, but in his heart, he knows what would have happened.
Team chemistry on the Devil Dogs was really good this season. Some of the boys are model young men and some aren’t, but as a group, they were a team in the best sense of the word. Most of the boys were in the hotel lobby last night till 2 a.m. talking amongst themselves and with a few kids from another team. They’ll bounce back. They’ve bounced back most of the way already . . .
NARCh – Day 3
Quarterfinals: The Devil Dogs led 1-0 most of the game, but gave up two goals in the last minute to lose 2-1. They’re out of the tournament.
My son was crying after the game when he came out of the locker room — not weeping, but he had tears in his eyes. Don’t tell him I told you. He never cries after games. I was this close to crying myself when I saw him.
I’m now going to violate my policy of never questioning coaches’ decisions. Hockey’s a team game, but if I’m going to lose a game in the last minute, I’m going to lose it with my strongest players on the rink.
I was looking out there with a minute left and a 1-0 lead and I couldn’t see how having the two biggest, fastest kids on the bench gave the team the best chance to win that game. The fact that one of those kids is my kid may be clouding my judgment but I don’t think so.
The last-minute goals came on defensive mistakes. The Dogs have a good goalie who can stop the kind of shots he faced in the last minute, as long as you don’t let kids on the other team stand in front of the net and tip them. It’s not that complicated. Would having different players on the rink prevented those goals from being scored? I say yes, but again, I admit that I’m not totally objective.
It’s pretty sad around here right now . . .
Seedings
Seedings are up for single-elimination. Devil Dogs seeded #4 and will play the #5 seed New Jersey Cougars tonight.
Cougars were undefeated in round-robin — two wins and two ties. The ties were strange: they tied the #2 seed Detroit Mission Stars 92, but they also tied a not-so-good California team that got knocked out in round-robin . . .
Postgame
“What did the coach say to you guys after the game?” I ask my son.
Long pause.
“I can’t remember,” he says. “But I absorbed it.”
NARCh – Day 2
The Devil Dogs beat the Revision RBK Buffalo Wings Black 4-0 in the morning game. That clinched them a spot in the single-elimination round, which starts tomorrow.
In the night game, they lost to the Detroit Mission Stars 92, 4-2. The Stars were also undefeated coming in, and by winning the game, will get a better seed than the Devil Dogs in single-elimination.
A little background on age divisions in roller hockey: The Devil Dogs play in the Bantam division. You could think of it as a 16-and-under division but in roller hockey, the season runs almost year-round and the divisions are actually based on birth year.
This year’s Bantam division, for example, includes kids born in 1992 or later. Most Bantam players are 92s (born in 1992) or 93s (born in 1993) because 94s and younger can play a division lower in the PeeWee division.
When a team has a year in the name of the team — like Detroit Mission Stars 92 — it means that all the kids on the team were born in that year. One advantage of having a team with all kids born in the same year is that the team can stay together from season to season, without having some kids “age up” to the next higher age bracket.
The Devil Dogs Bantam team has only one 92 player, mostly 93s, and a few 94s playing up a division. As a result, the Stars players were a lot bigger, a lot stronger and a lot faster, but I didn’t think they were better hockey players. The game really came down to the Stars goalie outplaying the Devil Dogs goalie, who ironically had won the goalie skills competition earlier in the day.
The Dogs have to play their best game to beat a team like that because of the physical mismatch but they can do it.
They should seed somewhere in the middle of the eight-team single-elimination round, but anything can happen in single-elimination . . .
Twitter: 2009-07-10
- The hotel we're staying at just opened. About to get a baptism of fire hosting a full house of junior hockey players… #
A Cool Thing I Learned About Canada
There’s a picture of kids playing hockey on the back of the 5-dollar bill: