I grew up in Burnaby, BC, where there is no natural ice. We played hockey in parking lots and lacrosse boxes wearing running shoes with a tennis ball for a puck. It was fun but the friction with the cement was murder on our sticks.

Lacrosse was much more popular than hockey in my neighbourhood. Lacrosse sticks were beautiful in those days. They were made out of leather and wood. (Nowadays of course they are plastic.)

I wonder in which federal institution Mr. Hatch now resides. If I knew I might send him a postcard.

When I reached high school a few kids were playing hockey on teams down at the arena. Maybe they came from other parts of Canada where they have ice. Anyway I wasn’t into it. We didn’t even watch Hockey Night in Canada at my house. My life went on without hockey.

Later on when I was living in Bancroft, Ontario, I realized that if you weren’t going to go to the Arlington Hotel on a Saturday night, there wasn’t much to do except watch Hockey Night in Canada. I thought my life would be enriched if I could learn to like hockey. So I did. Now I live in Ottawa so I’m a Senators fan.

The Senators

God they are awful this year.

As someone whose hockey credentials are that they have never actually played a game and they have weak ankles, I have a few opinions about this terrible team:

• They never control the puck. They seem to think it will be ok if they allow the other team to control the puck most of the time. Then when they happen to get it, they think they will will launch an explosive attack and score.

  This would be a reasonable plan if only it worked. I think coach Bryan Murray should have taught them puck control.

  The defence is horrible. This team only has one good defenceman, the often-injured Wade Redden. The others (Volchenkov, Meszaros) are works in progress.

  Redden showed up at training camp out of shape and immediately suffered a groin injury. Once he was over that he suffered a chest injury.

  I think Redden let his status as Number 1 defenceman go to his head. He thought he was hot stuff so he didn’t need to work out in the off-season. If I had just been awarded a 6 million dollar contract I probably wouldn’t work out in the off-season either. But I also wouldn’t show up for work. I’d just take the money and run. Maybe I’d go live in Goa.

  This year’s Senators are badly coached and badly managed. They might not even make the playoffs. If I were the owner I’d fire the coach, fire the GM, fire myself, and try and get this thing back on track.

  I might just stop watching. I’m a fair-weather fan anyway. I only like my team if they’re winning.

  The Mayor

  
  Many of the people who voted for Mayor Larry O’Brien did it because he promised a tax freeze. Now the old chromedome says he might not achieve a tax freeze after all. He says that when he promised that, he really just meant he’d try his best to keep the taxes down. He didn’t really mean to ‘promise’ a ‘freeze’. So don’t blame him if taxes go up!

  Mayor Larry should just resign now. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. This is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

  And now for some good news

  
  I like the story about the world’s tallest man saving the dolphins. You can read about it here:
  Man saves dolphins

  At 7’9″, he’s so tall they can hardly even fit him in the picture. I’m so glad he is using his power of tallness for good and not for evil.

  

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