My Hockey Story & The True Risk of the Lockout

I’m Australian. I grew up in a country where out of 7.6 million square kilometres only 6000 square kilometres receives regular snow in the winter and only a few small alpine lakes freeze over for only days at a time. You can understand why hockey (or, ice hockey as it’s known over here, to avoid confusion with the more popular field hockey) isn’t a mainstream sport.

I always knew of its existence. I grew up through the Gretzky era. He was big enough news in the 80’s and early 90’s that news of his greatness reached us here. I watched highlights from the Winter Olympics every four years. I had an uncle that played roller hockey in the 80’s and he had no teeth left, but that’s about as close as I got to the great game.

That was until I travelled to British Columbia to spend a winter in 2003-2004. I’m a keen skier and back then I was working winters in Australian ski resorts (yes, we have a few ski hills – hills being the operative word) and I saved all my pennies so that I could head to Canada to experience a real winter in real mountains.

I flew in to Vancouver just before Canadian Thanksgiving – a thing that I had no idea existed until I got there. My plan was to spend a few days in Vancouver then travel to the interior to door knock for jobs at the major ski resorts. Whistler was tempting, but I was still young and angsty and I didn’t want to conform to the JAFA (Just Another Fucking Aussie) stereotype.

I checked into a cheap hotel in Beatty St, just across from BC Place. I had a little cash behind me so I wasn’t keen to experience the fun of the backpackers on Granville St. Until I got there I didn’t realise BC Place was a stadium (who calls a stadium a ‘Place’? It’s a fucking stadium) and I certainly didn’t realise that GM Place (as it was still known then) was where the great game of  “Ice Hockey” was played at the highest level.

My first day in Vancouver was bright and sunny and I spent the whole day walking from one end of downtown to the other, right around Stanley Park and back. I was in love with Vancouver. What a city. I took a million photos over the harbour to the mountains, which were already capped with snow. I got harassed by a bum at Canada Place who tried to sell me a Mickey Mouse watch. It was awesome. Little did I realise that days like that are not the norm and my next two days in the city it poured with rain. I spent time in the Central Library and found every single second hand bookshop I could and bought something from every one. I hung out at the hotel and watched baseball (yeah, I got kinda bored). When it was time to jump on the Greyhound to head for Vernon I was ready to move on.

I quickly realised Vernon is a bit of a hole. It reminded me of my home town back in Australia so I got the hell out of there as soon as I could.

Next stop Kamloops. I scored myself a job at Sun Peaks on the first day. Kamloops didn’t impress me much either but Sun Peaks was beautiful and they were keen to hire me so I had found my home. My job didn’t start until mid-November so I settled into the Old Courthouse Backpackers in downtown Kamloops for a few weeks of fun before moving up the mountain for winter. There were a couple of other Aussies and a couple of guys from England waiting for the winter there as well and I quickly had new friends.

A couple of days after I arrived I got myself a new room mate. A crazy looking old guy checked in to the backpackers. He was the kind of guy who talked to himself and would yell a greeting every time he saw you. He had a wild look in his eyes. We all decided it was best to avoid him.

It was about this time that my obsession with hockey began. The staff at the backpackers were uber friendly and they invited me along with them and their friends to a Kamloops Blazers game. We met at the Central Station Pub for pitchers and wings where the guys tried to explain the rules of hockey to me and the girls tried to get me to talk more because they loved my horrid Australian accent.

After maybe one too many pitchers we made our way to the rink (I think it was called Sport Mart Place back then? Once again “PLACE” WTF) and took seats in the lower bowl, around the blue line on the Blazers end in the 1^st. The Blazers were playing the Kelowna Rockets, who had a strong team that season (they went on to win the Memorial Cup with Shea Weber and Josh Gorges on the blue line) and the local rivalry with the Blazers was intense. Within two minutes of the puck dropping I was hooked. I had no fucking idea what was happening apart from the fact that these teams hated each other. It was fast, frantic and violent and I was in love. Looking at the results online now it must have been the October 25^th game that the Rockets won 1-0. These days I’d say it wasn’t the kind of game that would attract new fans to the sport but I hadn’t experienced anything like live hockey.

After that I was intent on seeing every game of hockey I could. I went to the Blazers games a few more times but I always made sure I saw every game on TV. Given that I was in BC it was the Canucks that were always on. I would sit in the TV room at the backpackers, almost always on my own, watching the West Coast Express tear it up for the Canucks. I was slowly learning about the game but it wasn’t until I made friends with the crazy old guy that I really learned.

I can’t for the life of me remember Crazy Old Guy’s name and that makes me a little sad. He turned out to be one of the best, most interesting people I have ever met. One night I was sitting down watching the Canucks, by myself again, and he came in, shouted a greeting, and sat down next to me. He proceeded to explain how he was a life long Canucks fan and that his favourite player was Todd Bertuzzi (this was before that incident, I’d love to have heard Crazy Old Guy’s opinion on that).

Crazy Old Guy was from Fort St. John, BC. He was part First Nations and earned his living as an animal trapper. Each winter he would head into the wilds of the Northwest Territories and the Yukon with his little Jack Russell dog to setup a vast network of traps that he would maintain for months at at time. He caught the animals whilst their fur was thickest so it could be sold to “rich dumb sluts in New York” (his words, not mine). He confided in me that he was in Kamloops for cancer treatment and he had no family and nowhere else to stay but at the hostel. He hoped to have his cancer cleared up before he headed back out into the wild. I never found out if he succeeded at that – I moved out before he was done. He loved to talk because he spent 6 months of the year alone in the wilderness, not talking to any one but his dog. He had some amazing stories from his time in the north, including some weird sasquatch sitings, UFO experiences and bear attack stories. He claims his Jack Russell had fought of 2 grizzlies in his time (on separate occasions) and he loved the dog because of that.

Apart from all that he was a huge hockey fan. Given that he spent winters in the wild I don’t know how he ever managed to watch it but he still knew a hell of a lot about the game and about the Canucks and their history. He was a total stoner. He would share his joint with me before the game and we’d sit there stoned and watch the Canucks games while he explained every facet of the sport and the Canucks to me. It’s because of Crazy Old Guy that I learned to love the Canucks and it’s why I’m still a Canucks fan and will always be a Canucks fan.

When I moved up to Sun Peaks for the winter I continued to watch Canucks games, most of the time at Bottoms Bar & Grill where I wasn’t stoned but I was full of cheap wings and Kokanee. In Bottoms I made more friends while cheering on the Canucks and I used the knowledge imparted on me by Crazy Old Guy to impress the locals. How could an Australian know so much? Stoned Crazy Old Guy, that’s how.

Thanks to hockey I made a lot of good friends that winter. I had the time of my life and when I flew back to Australia I didn’t feel like I was heading home – I was leaving home.

My isolation from hockey began then. I got back to Australia in time to watch the Stanley Cup Final between Calgary and Tampa Bay. These days hockey folk bemoan that series but I loved it. It was the first Stanley Cup Final I had ever watched and of course I was enthralled. I was eternally grateful it was being shown on TV over here. I had no idea that a lockout was looming. In October I emailed my friends in Canada to talk hockey and they responded with dark news of labour strife and no hockey. I was devastated. I don’t know why, there was no way I could have watched games that winter. To ease my pain that year I bought NHL 2005 for PS2 (the one with Markus Naslund on the cover) and played it constantly.

I didn’t see a game of hockey again until the 2007 Stanley Cup Final between the Senators and Ducks. I supported the Senators, only because I wanted a Canadian team to win the Cup.

After that, I didn’t see another game of hockey until the Canucks home opener in 2008. Thanks to the wonders of the internet I found a way to download games for free and my hockey obsession began all over again. The 2008 Canucks home opener was against Calgary and opened with the Luc Bourdon tribute. I had never seen Bourdon play, I didn’t know anything about him, but I was touched. My Canucks fandom kicked into overdrive.

Since then I’ve only missed 3 or 4 Canucks games in total. I watch every single one online and over the past couple of seasons I’ve started watching Flyers games too. I love the game. Everything about it speaks to me. I grew up playing and watching cricket and rugby and they’ve both fallen by the wayside as hockey has taken over my sport watching.

So this lockout is devastating me. I’ve been watching some AHL and junior games online but it just isn’t the same. The NHL is the best of the best, the pinnacle of the greatest sport on Earth, and it’s being ruined by greed from both sides of the battle lines.

I consider myself a die hard fan. I wake up every morning and check the hockey news in case an agreement has been reached and I will be the first to watch the games when they do eventually drop the puck again. But I know plenty of average fans who don’t care one iota about how much the players are paid or the definition of HRR or what it would mean if the NHLPA was de-certified. They just want to watch sport and be entertained. Guess what NHL? There’s lots of options out there for those average fans to find their entertainment.

Today games through December 14 have been cancelled and the All Star game is gone (take that Columbus – bye bye Blue Jackets). If they continue this bullshit the owners and players won’t be arguing over $3.3 billion in revenue, they’ll be arguing over $2 billion or less.

Greed can kill this game. Not everyone has a hockey story like me. Remember that NHL and NHLPA.