Making It Up As I Go Along #407

Hockey Night
Some food to be avoided.
Tanked topped exercisers talking from beaches
Tell us through TV’s to drink water, eat vegetables
Avoid fast food.

We pull into the parking lot.
To the counter and place an order.
Minutes later a brown and orange bag with waxy cups.
We leave with our fast food.

Parked at the lake.
Where young couples may look for romance
Or drug deals could go down.
We munch our burgers and rings, and sip root beer.

Talk is of hockey.
Players back from the bigs or hot shots on the visiting team
Hoping to see a particular goalie.
The lake glistens in front of us, reflecting lights of homes and the yellow moon.

Food clued up.
Last wrappers crumpled and the smell of onions seeps into the car.
A check of the time, a wipe of the mouth, tickets checked.
We walk towards the lake.

Rounding the shore path.
Ducks sputter within the reeds
Discussing duck days before bedding down.
Cars ahead, coming from all around, guiding in by vested runway workers.

Through the doors and tickets torn.
Like thousands of those murmuring ducks
A hum of conversations echos the halls.
Great voices bellow above, “50 50", “Programs”

Make a right, in and out.
The maze of people maneuvered
Reaching stairs, worn smooth with use
Up we go. Up towards the rafters.

At the top, minor league coziness.
Nothing above us only cross beams
Yet still only twelve rows from ice level.
Groups of men hang in the concourse having a last chat... as the zamboni wanders the white.

We reach our section.
The same for years in the middle of the ice.
Two of three seats nuzzled against a post.
A giant Q painted there as a picture on the living room wall.

There we sit in wooden seats.
Those below us the same people as last game.
A mustached man dad sort of knows, his fur coated wife.
A squish faced man with hair cut by way of salad bowl.

And the players enter in home ice white.
Rock music accompanies them.
The visitors arrive seconds later.
Lead by the goaltender I hoped would play.

Vendors come and go.
Intermissions sometimes brings a stroll.
Other times we stay seated, chatting of what we’ve seen.
Sharing our coaching strategies, and who we think doesn’t quite have it tonight.

Final buzzer.
Hoards depart for the parking lot.
We hang there, standing in our row of three, allowing that third to squeeze by.
We watch for the three stars, seeing if the visitor star is good enough to come out and wave.

Back down the worn stairs.
Slipping into the stream to the doors.
Breaking free into the night air
We give our final recap of the game as we reach the path back to the lake.

And back to the shores.
Ducks are more silent now.
Boots scuff along the path
As we continue to critique tonight’s action.

Back to the lot and dad skips ahead.
My door unlocked and he entering his
Just as I reach the car.
A&W greets us in perfume form.

Home.
Mom greets us, asking how it was.
Neither of us share much.
“Good game, yes pretty good”.

This is hockey night with dad.
Every other night of live hockey is compared to these nights.
None, NHL, minor league or junior.
None match those nights.



MONDAY...
— Medical day. Beat up my knee playing ball yesterday and go to the doctor today. Looks like cartilage damage with a strained ACL to go with it. Off for the rest of the week as walking and driving isn’t too easy right now.
— Physio in the afternoon. Start early to get things fixed up as well as can be. Then it’s the rest of the day where I’ll likely be most of the week... on the sofa with the leg elevated.

TUESDAY...
— Laying around with ice and elevated leg... it is feeling better than yesterday but a walk is still not a very easy thing.

WEDNESDAY...
— Boredom setting in. Watch two movies today... Step Brothers is low end Will Ferrell and Observe and Report is weirdly bad Seth Rogen.
— Physio again. The boredom continues and the knee, although improving, still swollen.

THURSDAY...
— Cold and knee do battle to see which can make my day worse. That’s sickness cold... not opposite of warm.

FRIDAY...
— Knee is feeling somewhat better, especially after physio today. Walk, in the brace, with barely a limp now. Still feeling the cold though. Speaking of sickness... why is it that the hardest disease in the world to diagnose is now the flu? You never hear anyone in the news say “he has the flu”. Hockey players are out with “flu like symptoms.” And Cory Haim died this week... and had been also suffering “flu like symptoms prior to it. With all our advances in technology... somewhere along the way... we lost track of what a flu is.

SATURDAY...
— Watched the movie, Swing Vote... much better than I expected. I liked it. Watched Habs vs. Bruins on HD on the French feed. Really need to get CBC Montreal in HD.