I wrote over the years a couple times about the Montreal Canadiens. There's such a big fan base for them and in the early days the readership for my essays about humor and other things got avalanched by up-tempo articles about Expos and Canadiens.
Actually the Expos ones were Sports Nostalgia articles more than anything.... but the Canadiens ones were usually written if they made the playoffs and were very up-tempo and up-beat articles.
Example (warning: Younger me in my Twenties swore and used bad boy language much more):
https://www.writingsonsubjects.com/2015/04/let-take-short-breaklet-get-75-pumped_76.html
Seems three of those players are still on the current iteration of this team. Price, Petry, and Gallagher. They've been Canadiens a long time now, those three.
What should this year's Canadiens in the Playoffs article be? Let's think of some topics we can do:
-Carey Price: A Hero's Journey
-Lord Stanley's Cup: A Trophy's Story
-A General Pump Up article for the Team
-A Detailed Hockey Article on how the Skills this Team has can be Maximized for Great Benefit
Okay... so... now let's narrow it down. Let's only write one of these. I am going to remove A General Pump Up because that was done already in like 2015.
"A Detailed..." will be removed as a possible choice now, too. I can't give away my knowledge of tactics in such an open forum. The Winnipeg Jets might read this and use my stratagems and divine tactics to form brilliant counter-divine-strategems against them. So I should definitely not do that one, either.
The Trophy's Story would be lame.... my idea was to write a short play on Lord Stanley giving the Lord Stanley's Cup to Canada and it would have been written with all the hadn'ts and wouldn'ts turned to Shadn'ts to make it feel more Olde Thymey but that gag would get stale after like five or six Shadn'ts and Shalls.
So... we are left with an article about...
...Carey Price.
Hmmm.... where should I go with this topic....
I remember as a kid, we had a computer class in grade four ... so I would have been like ... I don't remember how old people are in grade four but I was a kid.... and we had to type a letter on these old school DOS computers to a known person. Kids were choosing like the Prime Minister, or their moms, or their dads, or their best friend at school ... but I chose to write a letter to Tim Raines.
Your what, I think six in grade one, right? So add three years... I was probably like nine or ten when I wrote that letter to Tim "Rock" Raines in computer class ... that's where I think I want to go with my Carey Price article today. To maintain a sense of humor this blog aims at... I will try and remember how nine or ten year old me composed a letter to Chicago White Sox Left Fielder Tim "Rock" Raines in computer class.
Let me try and go back and remember what the computer class in my elementary school looked like and try and see if I can remember sitting there and writing that letter so I can re-attempt that writing style, the classic "Ten Year Old writing to an Athlete they Think is Cool", writing style.
I think I have it,
The article went something like,
" cd\WordPerfect5.1
wp51.exe
Dear Tim Raines, you are the greatest, you are the best. I have all of your rookie cards. Even the most expensivist ones and even the one where you wear the number 2 instead of the number 30! I have all of these cards because my Dad bought me ALL of them, Tim Raines! You should be on the cover of Sports Illustrated every month!"
(Note: His number is 32 not 2 in that card but it looks like he's wearing number 2)
I think that's actually almost verbatim, if memory serves me right, of how the letter in my grade four computer class was written. I think so because I remember the teacher wondering why a "rookie card" was better if it was more "expensiver" and what a "Beckett Book" was.
Now, I am not going to re-create how a ten year old writes to the point of writing with errors and spelling mistakes. I will write correctly... but... I want to capture the tone of how a kid who wants to write to his sports hero writes... and the main tenet there is "Pure Sports Fanhood".... which is totally real and honest in a kid's view of the World... and as we get older we get jaded to everything and crushed by the weight of the World and we all lose this ... but to a ten year old writing to a Sports Hero... you will see some pure happiness there. Pure positivity! That's what I want to re-create... the honest n' pure positive world view of the ten year old writer.... but not the spelling mistakes a ten year old would make.
Hmmm... I'm gonna find some 1990s clip art of sports to give it more of a "feel" to it.
So, here is an article for everyone today entitled,
"Dear Carey Price, You are The Best!"
-by 10 year old D.
I got a mini Goalie Stick of the Canadiens on my birthday to play tennis ball hockey at school. There's this big drainage sewer in the middle of the school yard so all the snow can drain into it and the the kids try to shoot the tennis ball past other kids to land in the center of the sewer and its fun but the thing is the sewer's bars are pretty wide so the tennis ball won't go through them but the mini sticks kids get for birthdays and Christmases are thin and small not like real hockey sticks... they are just plastic and thin and I dropped my Canadiens mini goalie stick into the sewer at school and if you look down you can still see it down there I think.
I hope that the Canadiens win the Stanley Cup! You are a hero to all the kids at school! I have a Montreal Canadiens hot dog package in our fridge that has the Canadiens logo on it! I want to make these hot dogs like how they make them at the Montreal Forum with both sides toasted and flat! And ketchup! You should probably put butter on the pan to flatten the buns when you toast them so they don't stick to the pan!
If the Canadiens get to the Stanley Cup, guess what, Carey? I will eat 10 hot dogs and also pizza and BBQ chips because I won't care! It will be a time of revelry and everything and I won't really care if my stomach hurts after!
I have ALL your rookie cards! I have 2007-2008 Rookie Cards of You! I won't sell them. Not even for any money at all! I won't.
Your next opponent is the fearsome Winnipeg Jets named after an Air Plane. Who names their hockey team after an air plane? I don't know. But even if they really could turn into Fighter Jets like the Transformers and can and shoot missiles at you... I bet you could stop a fighter jet missile anyways with your glove or blocker or stick... because.... you are THAT good.
They might release a chaff grenade before launching their missiles at you if they turn into Transformer Jets so be careful. They do that to mess with your radar and timing so you can't see the missiles coming. It's ok though... you're the best Goaltender ever so I doubt they can trick you even if they can turn into Transformers... which by the way... THEY CAN'T!
Who is their main best player on Winnipeg? M. Scheifele? More like M. PeePeeFace! In Europe, Scheifele means poop or caca someone told me... but I don't know if that's true. If someone gave me his rookie cards for free I would probably still say No or Yeah, Right. I want good player's rookie cards! Like yours!
All jokes aside, Winnipeg is good and Scheifele's good... he's a good shooter who knows how to skate and shoot and deek and you need to be on the lookout for this guy. He has five points now in the playoffs and that's not that bad but he's not as talented at Ice Hockey as you.... so don't worry too much. Plus, I was looking at the Beckett Book recently and his rookie cards aren't worth very much.
Everyone asks if the Canadiens win the Cup... what will happen? I don't know but I do know it will be very cool and everyone will be happy. It will be a tremendous moment on planet earth, I think.
P.S.
You're the Best Goalie.
I really did drop a Canadiens mini goalie stick down my school yard's sewer when I was ten years old ... that's true. That happened. Me and my friends tried to make a makeshift fishing apparatus out of this green cord we found to try and hook it and pull it back up but ... in the end, we couldn't. I lost it forever.
Seriously now though, Canada's going through some distressing news items of late and I really think, Carey Price, who is of Ulkatcho Nation of First Nations heritage can be a source of positivity or even Hope through these difficult times.
This first two rounds of playoffs of only Canadian teams in them means the winner of Montreal vs. Winnipeg, even if they lose to the American teams in the Finals will basically be Canada's Champion. I think they should award a trophy for the Canada portion of the playoffs. The winner of the Canadian teams who advance past the Canada portion of the playoffs should get a nice cup of some manner ... but one based on First Nations artistry to honor First Nations. A totem-style Cup of First Nations inspired iconography, art, and history.
Another thing I was thinking of to get First Nations culture into Hockey/Canada/World/Etc. is to improve the NHL video games by adding First Nations style aesthetics to it.
I was playing a video game recently from Bandai based on Captain Tsubasa and the "Super Moves" they do in this game are so cool looking... many of which are based off cool animal animations. There's one player where a Falcon erupts from his body as he shoots and many more. I would like to see, even if its a DLC or something, for NHL video games where the players can have First Nations inspired Super Moves.... especially Carey Price who is of First Nations... he can have a "V-Zone" mode (as they call it in Bandai's Soccer game of Tsubasa) where his stats increase as he summons his First Nation's inspired Super Moves.
The coolest one in Tsubasa is the Neo-Tiger Shot of Hyuga.... which has a tiger appear out of him and a wild roar sound effect. It gives me chills! It looks amazing.
Spiritual Animals in general would work in a Hockey video game aiming at a First Nations homage. Tough defensemen can have a Bear's Roar super move to body check, goal scorers can have Eagles, things like that.... and in the Canada's Cup playoff round in the video game you can play for a Totem of all these Animals who's powers you unlocked as your talents grew throughout the Canada Cup Story Mode and these animals became your own personal strengths... the Totem trophy would be based on them.
I would ask First Nations input though.... If any video game company wants to do something like that I'd ask actual First Nation people what they would think would look cool in a Hockey video game that tried to showcase elements of First Nations culture, history, and art. First Nations art and culture in Canada is very unique and interesting. I would think it can be incorporated into larger forms of media to give it a better access to the world.
Alright, so, I hope the Canadiens win the Cup... and if you are a parent and have a ten year old kid... I'd suggest that exercise I did in grade four to them. Ask them if they'd like to write a letter to their Sports Hero... I think you'd be surprised that they will take to that task more so than other school work or maybe the at-home education that is becoming more common in this era. I remember being excited to write to Tim Raines and it was one of the longest things I ever wrote probably at that point of my life because I was happy to do this school work.
