Hockey Hurrah?

News today that the NHL lockout was over had about as much effect on me as my neighbour’s cat having kittens. Although for some, perhaps the Mayan calendar was right about the end of the world.

The newscaster assumes hockey is everybody’s game, and we are all waiting breathlessly for it to start again. I’m breathing quite normally thank you, even though the media hype suggests that this makes me almost un-Canadian; perhaps not even really human.

It seems to me, the more virulent the raving over the game, the shallower that individual’s world is. After all, it’s not playing the game but winning at all costs that counts—so much so it incites violence on the rink and riots outside, aping soccer riots in worlds other than our own.

Hockey is one of several things that make me different to the average. I remember buying my wife a card which had a cartoon guy standing on his head. The caption sums up how I feel: “Maybe it’s the world that’s upside down. We’re the ones who are the right way up.”