In a mere 6 hours M and I will make our way east. Our first stop will be near Oshawa, where we will exchange the beloved Acura for a Big Stack o’ Money(TM). I’m a rather sentimental person so as I was driving the car to work for the first and last time today I reflected on all the places I’d gone in the green-machine. I’ve only come to know it’s passenger seat (and not as often the driver’s seat) for 5 of it’s 12 good years. In that time it as comfortably taken me from Kingston to Toronto, from Prague to Munich (on the Autobahn no less!) and from our old apartment in Prague 1 to the softball fields at Krc time and time again, sometimes at a speed much faster than allowed by the law. Yes we are getting a shiny black car next Wednesday, and it was the right decision, but it’s still a little hard to say good-bye. Yes, this is the reason why I have box after box of stuffed animals in my house. I can’t talk about that much more or I’ll be compelled to take them all our of their respective boxes or off their respective shelves and put them on or beside my bed. Oh the crippling guilt.
After making the exchange, we will continue east in a borrowed car to Kingston, where we will spend a little bit of time with my dear Parents, I will pick up my new swimming goggles and cap and M and I will be fitted for our brand-new-hopefully-theft-resistant bicycles. Super-keen.
Saturday mid-day we will go North-East to meet up with a gaggle of friends and take in my first NHL hockey game. True, the Leafs aren’t playing in this game, but the Ottawa Senators are still an Ontario team (so yay!), and watching hockey is fun, period. It should be an interesting dynamic as some of our group are tried and true Toronto fans and others are pretty passionate Sens fans. It would be worse if it were a Sens/Leafs game, but since Saturday’s opponent will be Carolina we can unite against them. I hope at some point in the night to be able to use the slur “Tobacco lovin’ Hillbilly.” One thing I’m actually quite excited about, aside from sitting so close I can hear the foul-mouthed cussing and having people bring arena food to me at my seat, is the fact that M won’t be able to change the channel during the National Anthem. I quite like the Canadian National Anthem and this is live hockey, with no remote control, so I should be able to enjoy it at last.
With the playoffs pending there’s been some silliness going on between Ottawa and Toronto, namely the banning of Leafs Jersey’s in the Corel centre.
Ottawa Bans Toronto Maple Leaf Jerseys From Game
Thursday, March 18, 2004 9:13:48 AM EST
OTTAWA (Reuters) – Sorry, the blue-and-white Toronto Maple Leafs jerseys are not welcome in Ottawa.
Reflecting one of the greatest sporting rivalries anywhere, the Ottawa City Council passed a resolution on Wednesday banning the jerseys from the Ottawa Senators’ final ice hockey game of the season, against the Leafs, on April 3.
Mayor Bob Chiarelli explains that it is intimidating to Ottawa players and fans to see 7,000 to 9,000 Toronto jerseys in the stands at an Ottawa home game.
“We’re going to intimidate them back,” Chiarelli told CBC radio.
He recognizes that the tongue-in-cheek resolution has no teeth — offending Toronto fans will only be “requested” to make a donation to the Ottawa Food Bank on leaving the Corel Centre — but council wanted to make a point.
Leafs fans come up by the busload from Toronto, some 250 miles (400 kms) away, and others are Ottawa area residents who were fans of Toronto long before the Senators were resurrected early in the 1990s.
Chiarelli and the council may also have been trying to deflect attention from the city’s most bitter local political row in years, over hiking property taxes.
I’ve opted to forgo all this rivalry stuff and wear a very cute shirt I purchased just yesterday. It’s a pink and white “Hello Kitty” shirt that simply states “Your Team Sucks.”
Today’s sing-a-long song: “The Hockey Song” by Stompin’ Tom Connors
HRH
