LAST NIGHT I WAS ELEVEN AGAIN or, "Go Habs Go!!!"
I've spent 35 years in Hockey Denial.
As soon as I was old enough to tell my parents what I was and wasn't gonna do on Saturday nights, Hockey Night in Canada was over for me. No more father/son bonding in front of the ol' black & white, me with my quarter-pound of Spanish peanuts and Dr Pepper, he and his rum & coke. Watching games on the box with my dad was a weekly ritual of WASPy suburbia I was anxious to abandon.
One of the perks of my being a very young gay man, many moons ago, was believing my sexuality allowed me to disassociate from whatever made me uncomfortable simply on the presumed basis it wasn't compatible with having sex with men. I'd joined a secret underground society that gathered in public toilets, back stairwells, dark parks and shadowy bars. Who needed sports?
The rah-rah-rah of the crowd at a brightly-lit sporting event was poisonous to me. Besides, I figured I could find more interesting sticks to play with in other arenas.
Yesterday evening I StairMastered at the gym as one of the overhead televisions broadcast what turned out to be the last in a best-of-seven series between the Canadiens and the Philadelphia Flyers. And lo and behold, I was positively glued to it as if it were an episode of Sex and the City or The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Mesmerized. Who was this cocksucking pseudo-alpha male, wincing when the puck narrowly missed the Canadien's net, roaring (albeit internally) when we scored? I know not.
But why does anyone enjoy hockey? It's the speed, it's the stick-handling, it's the tension of a scramble in the crease, of course. Hockey fever. I can't explain it, but I got it back last night. Alluva sudden, the game mattered. I can hardly wait to tell Dad.
10 comments:
Aw that was cute. I got sucked in for a little while too, but then I couldn't keep my eye on the puck : (
My Dad was in investor in a minor league (IHL) team back in the 70's.
I wasn't all that into it at first, then I discovered something that held my interest- the locker room.
hockey isn't very big here but I think I may like to watch all that high speed scrapping and chunky chap action!
I got tired of being told what I could and couldn't be into because I was gay a long time ago. Since then I've taken to watching the occasional game on TV - or listening to country music - without feeling like a traitor to my people.
I think a lot of gay men like you felt they needed to disassociate with traditional straight-male things and embrace the Judy/Liza/Barbra/Cher/Bette of life. Now, many of us are realizing life doesn't have to be so black and white. We can squeal with the girls at a Cher concert AND roar with the boys at a hockey game. Life is what we make it.
Mark :-)
I'm not gay, but sometimes it would have been nice to have that to blame my total lack of interest in sports on. I like playing some sports, but I have no interest in watching other people play anything. Well, maybe jell-o wrestling.
I can't for the life of me remember what the word "Habs" means or why the team is called that.
When I traveled with my governor, every time the Whalers played them, i had to get tickets for us. All through the game, I'd be sitting next to him waiting for it to get over so I could get him back to the hotel and then sneak out to the 456.
Go Bruins! (Stanley Cup-deficient since 1972.) I miss watching hockey. Bruins/Canadiens games always were the best!
I would like you and i to inhabit each others habitat.
father t:
1) Habs is short for habitants, which is a French term for 'people living on a farm'.
Back in the day, the Canadiens were recognized as the French team of Montreal and the Montreal Maroons (now long defunct), the English team. Referring to the French players as "habitants", or farmers, was meant as an insult. Somehow the name stuck and lost its derogatory connotation.
2) At least the games were over by 10:30 and you'd ample time to settle in on La Gauchetière before the post-K.O.X. crowd got there, right?
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