I still think hockey is one of the world’s best games, when played properly. It can be so exciting. To my friends and family, my thoughts about “Canada’s game” are well known, against the norm, and can apparently get quite tiresome. That’s what they tell me whenever I suggest a rule change or verbalize anything but agreement with the NHL status quo.
As I ramble this week, I will remember it is not fair to kick a man while he is down. To pile on, as it were. So I promise not to pontificate or sound like a know-it-all after the second round mystery that was the Toronto Maple Leafs versus Florida series.
A good many NOTLers had strong opinions and high hopes for the Leafs after a strong regular season provided them with home ice advantage for the playoffs. Playing the seventh game at home against the Ottawa Senators in round one had been a good thing, and worked to Toronto’s advantage.
Please understand that I am admittedly one of the world’s worst spectators. Always have been. Even as a kid at the River Heights Community Centre in Winnipeg in the 1950s, my mother would get exasperated when I just couldn’t seem to be interested in watching my pals play their house league games on the frozen rinks. Freezing cold weather, natural ice, and somehow our toes and ears were warm enough. If my team wasn’t playing, I just couldn’t watch the game.
A good woollen Canadian toque, probably hand-knit, and hopefully in the red, white and blue colours of the Montreal Canadiens, my favourite team. With Maurice the Rocket Richard and his younger brother the Pocket Rocket, Boom Boom Geoffrion and the team’s eccentric goalie Jacques Plante. What the heck, he was the first NHL goalie to wear a mask. Well, sort of a mask.
An ice-cold Prairie Saturday at the three rinks, then home for dinner, hot chocolate, Gregory Clarke’s folksy column in the Saturday paper, and Hockey Night in Canada on the one available television channel.
Who said life was so much simpler back then? If we had to be punished for some real or perceived transgression, we might have to stay in the house for an hour or two or three. Nowadays, sometimes the punishment is staying outside, away from computers and other screens.
My, aren’t I rambling this week? Where is this all going?
I am being mindful — it would serve no purpose to call the Leafs a “group” of underachieving, overpaid, overhyped professional hockey players. A half dozen or so of them are supremely talented NHLers who just can’t seem to get it together in the playoffs. My memory tells me it has been 58 years since their last Stanley Cup Parade in 1967.
Apparently, that’s the longest winless streak going. But, it would serve no purpose to bring this up again, so I won’t write anything more about it.
What really bothered me during the latest game seven happened just 13 seconds into the second period. Veteran referee Chris Rooney was inadvertently clipped by the high stick of Florida defenceman Niko Mikkola. The stick went up under Rooney’s half visor, and suddenly, silence. A man down, and blood all over the ice by the boards.
The game was delayed while standby official, Garrett Rank, got ready to fill in. Rooney was badly cut, ending up with a brutal black eye, but thankfully, there was no permanent damage to his eye.
In the past, there have been incidents where on-ice officials have been seriously injured. One even had his career ended when hit in the temple by a deflected slapshot from the point.
Still, not one of the between-period talking heads, and not one of the print journalists following the game, mentioned that perhaps the NHL should make it mandatory for officials to wear full masks or full cages.
I will wrap up this Rambling by asking, “What am I missing?” Wouldn’t that make sense?
