So Friday night I was in a small pub trying to catch the Canucks-Blues game. Rick is once again a genius for not doing this, am I am certainly a moron for it. Why bother to hang out in a public place with everybody (except for myself) supporting for one team while I was anti that same team?
I sat in a corner with a Canucks fan and a few others who were with him. One whole section of the pub was a language instructor and all his students, all wearing blue and/or Canucks shirts. Of course, that instructor is a fan, while none of the students knew anything about hockey.
But that didn’t stop them all from wearing “Sundin 13” shirts – which they bought because it was 5 bucks or something.
Anyway, on to the game, it was an exciting but tense game, with no score for the first 38 minutes. But everyone was cheering on every Luongo save, booing every “bad” penalty against Vancouver (led by the instructor).
Every time Sundin was on the ice, the students were all screaming because they recognized that name from the shirts they’d bought. Sure, it was a cool experience for all of them, but for me, it was irritating because Sundin was an awful player (this year)… and the bottom line was these people knew nothing about hockey!!
Needless to say, when the puck trickled past Chris Mason in the final minutes in the second period, the whole place errupted with joy… and it had to be the ‘bum’ Sundin who tipped in the puck – the eventual game-winner. (You can only imagine how that section near me was pumped when they saw it was 13 who’d scored.)
And, needless to say as well, as soon as the second period ended, I got up and left in disgust. Nothing to cheer about for two whole periods, and having to endure all this environment.
Hey, I’m all for having foreigners enjoy and experience Canadian culture/lifestyle/hockey, etc… but the bottom line was it was irritating cuz they knew nothing about hockey and were just cheering for a player whose shirt was worth 5 bucks. :-(