Monday, October 08, 2007

Hockey from the Couch

“It’s a lot of aggression. It’s a lot of blood. Can you tell who my favorite team is?” Lucifer says this to the young man, whose soul his parents had sold, as the Zamboni maims an indentured soul who failed to fulfill a commitment to the Prince of Darkness.

The Devils’ fan is a smooth-talking, well-dressed, bad boy on the Tuesday night sitcom Reaper. The show, whose set includes a Canadian Tire store in Joe Sakic’s hometown of Burnaby, BC, is not a hockey show per se but is proof that hockey is back, if not with a vengeance.

More substantiation: the commercials touting upcoming episodes of The Office, where the oft-inappropriate Michael is at the rink engaged in what may prove to be yet another hair-brained stunt to motivate his employees.

Thursday night’s programming on the national networks weren’t appealing, and the AMHL Photographer wondered if Center Ice would offer Comcast customers a free preview weekend of NHL action. Maple Leafs vs. Senators, Avalanche vs. Predators, Panthers vs. Rangers. Comcastic!

I watched bits of each game, my left ankle on ice because I had strained the left Achilles tendon in a freak play that same morning. (Skating hard for the boards, an opponent’s stick got tangled in my skates—completely unintentional—and then next thing I knew, I crashed feet-first into the boards. Two shifts into the game, I was done for the day and doubtful for next week’s game.)

Friday night, with my left ankle surrounded by an air splint and propped up on a couch pillow, I suffered no pain as I endured the Bruins’ performance against the Stars.

The good news is that although the ice was off-limits for me this past week weekend, the airwaves were not: The New England Hockey Journal Radio Show returned to ESPN 890 on Saturday afternoon (tune in next week from 11:00–1:00), and the Bruins redeemed themselves on Saturday night (they won’t play Satan’s favorite team until December 13th).

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Jimmy, Kya is a Rhodesian Ridgeback too!!!( at least partly)
You take care of that tendon eh... They can really POP, and roll up like a birthday noisemaker, and then it's rte 1 to bummer city.nerves are shattered!!!

Jacques Strappe.....La pomme de terre

Jim Dwyer said...

Jaques, tout le mond:

The ankle feels good, but good enough for tomorrow's game. I'll be behind the bench doing my best Mike Milbury impression, imploring my guys to skate harder and scuffling with hecklers:

The Shoe Beating

Jim Dwyer said...

Correction: Ankle is NOT good enough for tomorrow. And link that doesn't work above is

http://onthewingsblog.com/2004/11/23/mike-milbury-beats-a-fan-with-a-shoe/