Childhood memories differ from person to person - not the individual content mind you - but the way in which we hearken back to a time forgotten, best forgotten or sorely missed. For me, early memories take me back to Southern Ontario and something that will forever define a part of my identity and likely yours: hockey.
Entering a certain arena in Toronto, fully resplendent with the sights, sounds and smells of the National Hockey League in 1973 will have an effect on you, one that will last a lifetime. The NHL scent gets lodged in your memory. It's a mixed perfume of hockey gear, popcorn, something resembling ammonia, tobacco, Old Spice, and the smell of a damp parka - and it's something never to be forgotten.
When we moved to Prince George in 1974, we had the luxury of two television channels that gave us the Saturday evening option of one game, Leafs, the Habs or on occasion that new team from Vancouver.
There was Peter Puck, Shoot-Out and no double-header. There was the tragedy of Brian 'Spinner' Spencer's father who after hearing his son was finally playing and being televised, drove to CKPG's television station in Prince George from Fort St. James and demanded the Leafs game be played instead of the Vancouver/Buffalo game. The demand was accompanied with a loaded rifle and the local RCMP, sadly, responded in kind.
For the most part, outdoor rinks here were frozen tennis courts and not ponds and none of us were punished for coming home late on a school night if we were playing hockey under the lights. We had our boots filled with snow and later as we got older, filled the boots of others. We used a tennis ball, boots for goals when we didn't have nets and as we got older fashioned ourselves as superstars combining NHL jerseys with gloves, toques and designer jeans to boot.
We all, no matter our team loyalty, owned an Oilers jersey in 1981 in homage to the young kid ripping-up the NHL. Number 99 was on every wall owing to free 7-Up posters at every gas station and we all yelled "Gretzky scores" when we ourselves slotted one in.
We played the game, watched the game and wore the game. Playing shinny was almost as important as the play-off games being televised at the time and we could all quote lines from Slapshot despite not having seen the movie.
We reveled in the Atari 2600 and video cassette recorders, we watched teams like the Colorado Rockies, Cleveland Barons, Kansas City Scouts, Atlanta Flames, Hartford Whalers and the "soon to be gone but back again one day" Jets. We saw and enjoyed the time of the enforcer, the draft of Tretiak by the Montreal Canadiens and the birth of Russian players into the NHL.
We were on the cusp of something; hockey still recognizable to those who played "old-time" hockey and a new generation that included blue lights and red streaks on the TV, hockey in the desert and a female goalie in Tampa.
Hockey is now played in Florida, where shorts and flip-flops are after game attire and parkas and block-heaters an unknown. The players now make more than entire teams cost during the original-six era and despite being bigger, faster, stronger and fitter, there is no doubt in some people's minds that the Canadiens, Oilers and Islanders teams of the seventies and eighties would have the upper hand.
I wear the blue and white with pride still and hope that one day the cup...sorry, "The Cup" will come home. Original Six, Roch Carriers' The Sweater, pond hockey, the Great One, the Magnificent One, the Next One...Zamboni, wrister, goalie, shinny, "don't pitchfork," "bend your knees" and Don Cherry are all part of Canadian dialect and life as much as Mountie and Maple Syrup. Never to go out of style, constantly changing but always staying the same, we live it, love it and at times hate it.
The next time you see a jersey - Canucks, Jets, Habs, Red Wings, an old Nordiques jersey or a Leafs sweater - don't snicker, don't deride and do not call them out. They're your friend, your brother, part of a fraternity that is uniquely our own, a special breed, not a sports fan but a fan of hockey, a Canadian fan of a Canadian game that we can call our own no matter how many world championships they hold in Sweden.
So everyone go to the rink and everyone throw their sticks in the middle, wear whatever jersey you like, tennis ball it is and we have nets so pick two guys to play goal and one more thing...despite the score or in spite of what the score is, next goal wins.
And Go Leafs Go...
