Remembering Mr. Hockey

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family, gordie howe, hockey

I’m repeating something I wrote here nine years ago about one of the greatest nights of my childhood.

Me, my dad, my cousin and Gordie Howe.

Howe died last night. We are not likely to see anything like him again and I wish my boys could have seen the way he played the game. The word “great” is used too easily these days. Howe really was great.

I remember . . .

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Andy Bathgate

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andy bathgate, family, hockey

I’ve been missing in action from here for so long I’m not sure it’s worth my while to even try, but I’m going to tell a story I’ve told before.

Andy Bathgate died a couple of days ago. He was a gentleman. A former captain of the New York Rangers, a Hart Trophy winner, a Leaf, a Penguin, and a Red Wing. And I’ll never forget the day he won me over.

In winter 2000, Toronto hosted the NHL all-star game and I took Patrick out of school for the afternoon to attend the fan festival. He was only seven and we had a ball. He got to play roller hockey, have his shot clocked, and lots of other cool stuff. And we lined up in a snaking, slow-moving queue to meet two hall of fame members.

We didn’t know who would be at the table when we got there because they were replacing them every 20 minutes or so. But when our turn came, it was Steve Shutt (certified dick) and Andy Bathgate.

Super Bowl stuff, other stuff

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AUS Hockey, budweiser, cycling, dalhousie tigers, diet, exercise, family, fitness, hockey, super bowl, training, working out

There wasn’t a whole lot “super” about Sunday’s Super Bowl, at least not from my perspective. The game was not exciting. It bordered on boring.

I’m not a hardcore NFL fan. I’m just a guy who likes watching elite athletes do their thing on a big stage. I’m also a journalist so I enjoy the stories within the stories as much as I enjoy the game line. I like the buzz, even if the Super Bowl has more manufactured buzz than any event outside of a manned Mars landing deserves.

It will not surprise you that I was hoping Denver would win. The aging quarterback going for something big perhaps for the final time, versus the brash up-and-comer. I will always tilt way more toward the Peyton Mannings of the world over the Cam Newtons. And lately, more towards the aging guy . . .

But off the field Sunday, both of their performances were not something I would commend my sons to emulate.

Five for Friday, Vol VIII

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diet, exercise, family, fitness, hockey, training, working out

The first five for Friday of 2016. Save your noise makers for something more worthy.

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We have started the post-holiday period by getting back to eating better at home. By better, I mean healthier. And normally I add that by “we” I mean “me.” But in this case, it’s “us, mostly me.”

Laura is being patient with me while I move to more plants and less meat, which she is all for — it’s all a challenge for me, really.

You can’t just eat a lot of fruit – too much sugar if you overdo it. And prepping healthy stuff to keep handy at work may only seem like a little bit of work but it’s the organizational effort that grinds me down. Typically I’m not home from work until close to 7p – after leaving the house for the gym at 530a to start my day.

That’s a long day. When I get home I have to do my laundry from the gym, organize my clothes for the next day (trust me, this is not a task to be done on the fly at 515a unless you’re indifferent about having underwear, socks or a shirt or belt), make sure my water bottle is filled and my pre-workout snack is ready to eat in the car.

Leaving any of these things to be done in the morning risks it not being done at all. Actually, what it does is ensure disaster. So, adding snack prep to that list … I’m not there yet.

Sonny’s Dream

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AUS Hockey, canadian politics, competing, diet, exercise, family, fitness, general, hockey, music, ron hynes, sonny's dream, training, working out

Sonny don’t go away, I am here all alone
And your daddy’s a sailor, and he never comes home
And the nights get so long, and the silence goes on
And I’m feeling so tired, I’m not all that strong

— Sonny’s Dream, by Ron Hynes

 I’m foregoing the usual Five-for-Friday with a musical interlude.

A guy you’ve never heard of from a place you’ve probably never been who is famous for a song I’m guessing you don’t know the words to died yesterday. I owe him much.

I never met Ron Hynes, the Newfoundland folk singer who among hundreds and hundreds of songs wrote a barroom howler called Sonny’s Dream.

If you read the lyrics sober, it is a profoundly sad and moving song about a young man trapped in the service of his mother, long abandoned by his father for life on the seas. She implores him to never leave; he stares down the road to the cities he’s never seen and dreams of something better.

If you sing the song in a pub in a less-than-sober state, you will make friends, have a grand time, completely miss the sadness of the song, and possibly marry someone you sang with.

Remembering with gratitude

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canada, Halifax, Remembrance Day, War

Last week while visiting Nova Scotia, we were often in the company of Pad’s girlfriend who was visiting at the same time. That was more happy coincidence than good planning but it worked out well because when he travelled by bus with the team she was able to tag along with us.

Never one to miss a chance to extoll the virtues of Nova Scotia, between Laura and I we pointed out the sights and history and lore from Citadel Hill to Peggy’s Cove to Grand Pre, reciting from memory those facts we knew and filling in other pieces with reasonable guesswork that made us sound informed.

Miss J. is a lovely, smart, outgoing young woman and product of Ontario’s education system, which means there are large gaps in her Canadian history database. No worries, ma’am. I’m here to bore you.

One afternoon we took her across one of the harbour bridges to allow her a more expansive look at Halifax and as Laura rightly described it, “a true working harbour.” Cargo ships, commuter ferries and Navy frigates mix with late-season pleasure craft on these waters. The business of shipping and receiving is a big one here; the sense of a call to defend a nation is pervasive.