Serbs - Croats Hugging that Grudge

The Serbs and Croats Sure Know How to Hug a Grudge
Interview with a Chair Thrower
By Terrance Gavan
This just in on my Twitter from the Guardian of London.
“The Australian Open is fast getting a reputation as the Fight Club of the tennis world after fans from the Serb and Croat communities clashed yesterday, hurling chairs and missiles at each other and injuring an innocent bystander.”
You may have seen it on the news or maybe on TSN, our all-star sports network that kept the Serbo-Croat riot incident on a continuous and riotously funny loop for about 72 hours last weekend.
This year’s hijinks bubbled to frothy fruition as defending Aussie Open Champion (and Serbian) Novak Djokovic hugged Bosnian-born American Amer Delic at the net after the defending champ’s third-round win. This was apparently too much for some ex-pat Serbs and Croats, now living in Australia, who harbor deep and rooted fears that letting bygones be bygones may lead to tolerance, peace and understanding between the two internecine factions.
The London Guardian reported that, “Under the hot Melbourne sun tensions boiled over in the beer garden outside center court. Drinks, tennis balls, punches and dozens of chairs were thrown, the first of which knocked a female Bosnian supporter to the ground. A witness said the woman ‘got the full force of it’ and lay on the ground for some time.”
Both Djokovic and Delic had pleaded with fans before the match to forget the past. Delic wrote on his personal blog: “As we all know, Bosnians and Serbs have had some differences in the past, however, this is not the place nor time to settle those differences,” he wrote.
What’s causing this and why, oh why, can’t the Serbs and Croats just unclench the fists and let it go?
I phoned a guy in Melbourne who should know. Professor Dukit Outic is a Serbian who holds doctorates in Functional Flagrant Anthropology and Abnormal Political Science and he teaches at Melbourne University. He was also one of the chair-wielding idiots holding forth at the Aussie Open beer tent last Friday.
“Are you sorry it happened professor?” I asked.
“Sorry? No, never. We had a few Fosters, I cheered as my countryman Novak ground that piece of crap Croat-born Yank into the ground with the heel of his very stylish Nike Avenger boot,” said professor Outic. “The trouble came when these mealy-mouthed Croats in the beer garden begin to whine like puppies about this and that and how their precious Yankee-defector Delic should have won. Bah! Babies, whiney snobs. One thing leads to another and chairs begin to fly. I take off my left boot, a nice Birkenstock, and begin to pummel a very drunk Croat on his brainless noggin. This is very normal with us; we are passionate people … we live, we love, we fight. Case, as you Canucks say, closed. No big deal.”
I was a little stunned. “But professor, a Croatian woman was taken to hospital after being hit by a flying chair, that just doesn’t seem right to me.”
“Ah, I know for a fact that was a friendly fire incident. The woman was hit by her husband, another drunk Croat. Classic case of collateral damage. And, as you said, she was a Croat. Casualty of war. No biggie. And by the way what don’t you get. You Canadians kill me. No passion, no fire, and all this peace, love and tenderness. You are phonies.”
“Phonies?” I said, a little incredulous. “Explain that professor, because you’ve lost me.”
The good professor just laughed. “You are a simpleton or what? Let me break this down for the feeble-minded Canadian reporter. I am saying that you must harbor some political grudge. Surely you have some issues, some people who have tried to separate you from your country. Usurpers, traitors, people like the Croats. People to hate. You have them. I know it. It is part of being citizen.”
“Well, hmm, let’s see,” I said, wracking my brain. “There were the Fenians.”
“Aha, there,” said Outic. “I knew it! And what did these Fenians do?” asked Dukit warming to his task.
“Well they shot poor old Prime Minister Thomas D’Arcy McGee on the Sparks Street Promenade in 1868,” I said.
“Eureka!” screamed Dukit Outic. “I knew it. There, Terrance, is something to grasp onto. Run with this. Find a mantra; wake up in the morning with the words ‘I hate the Fenians’ burning on your lips. Next time you see one, summon your inner zeal, seize your hate. Yell like a banshee: ‘I hate you Fenian!’ And then grab your Macbook Air with the hard shell aluminum body and hit that bloody Fenian over the head with it till he screams for mercy. If he doesn’t go down, grab a nearby credenza or love seat, and badda-bing, baddam-bam, badda-boom you chuck it at this Fenian with much gusto. And then you must yell at this Fenian miscreant. ‘Hah, Fenian, this is for shooting my friend Thomas D’Arcy McGee in April, 1868. Take that you traitor.’ You will, I guarantee Terrance, feel immediately and fervently, the power and the passion of the hugged grudge.”
I thought and pondered. “Problem, Professor. No Fenians. “
Dukit Outic was outraged. “No Fenians? What happened?”
“Well,” I said. “I’m not sure, but I think we just evolved and grew into country, and the Irish Catholics and the Fenian brotherhood all came to realize that as Canadians we just might have to learn to put all those old feuds with British colonialism and our Irish past behind if we wanted to flourish as a nation.”
“Ah, bull, no nation is that nice,” scoffed the Prof. “There must be something. An obnoxious griping entity that you can come to despise and hate with verve and vigor. We all need a foil, a resentment, a target for spite, even you whiney Canucks.”
And as he spoke it suddenly hit me like an airborne ottoman.
“Leafs fans, professor!” I shouted. “We all hate leafs fans!”
“Good, good! Hah, I knew it. You know what to do Terrance. Follow the worn footpath of we Serbo-Croats, and find that passion. Grasp a resentment, hug that grudge, sally forth, throw a chair, chuck a bar stool, fire a pound of chicken wings at an obnoxious Maple Leaf’s fan.
“And shout at the top of your lungs.
“That is for subjecting all Canadians to your oppressive regime and constant whining. I hate you Leafs’ fans!”
I tried it at home. Feels good.
We’ll see how it flies at Mckecks next Saturday night.

Me and Bama -Twittering Friends

My Letter from Obama
Being Part of the Transition Team is Daunting Work
By Terrance Gavan
I wrote a column recently about me and the President-Elect Barack Obama.
It was about an apocryphal game of one-on-one hoops played out in a gym in South Bend, Indiana.
I sent it over to Barack’s peeps on his website about a month ago.
I didn’t expect a reply.
But I did get one which was in retrospect a little surprising. Relayed by a staffer, the letter, addressed to me personally, said that the President-Elect had read the column, liked it, and wanted to convey that to me.
I have been getting emails ever since.
Emails like the one that follows.
“Dear Terrance,
“Last Thursday, President-elect Barack Obama gave a major speech outlining his plan for getting us out of this economic slump we're in, called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan. It's a far-reaching and aggressive plan, and we think it's what the economy needs to get going again.
“But it's going to take a lot of work to get the plan approved, and your involvement is essential. That's why we asked some of the leading members of the Transition's policy teams to sit down and talk a bit about it -- why it's necessary, how it will work, and how we'll make sure it's as efficient and effective as it is bold.
“We're committed to keeping those promises -- and now, given the challenges we face, they're more important than ever.
“We're counting on your help and your support.
”Thanks, John”
John is John Podesta, Co-Chairman of the Obama-Biden Transition Project.
They want my input.
Heady stuff.
Hard stuff.
But all things considered, nice stuff.
Good to be respected.
Beautiful to be wanted.
I’ve been working nonstop over the past two weeks to put together some seminal thoughts.
I got another cellphone beep recently, urging me to get on it. Pronto.
Well, not so much a letter, but a quivering twitter.
From the President-elect himself.
“Gav … loved the article … man we need that input … I got a speech to write … and some things that need to be fleshed out … we are of course relying on you … to provide that insight … that acumen … that velvety nuance … counting on you man … keeping it real … always …. Bama!”
I do not, dear friends, work well under pressure.
I twittered my new best friend back.
“Hey Bam … it’s cold here in the Highlands … and I have recently been diagnosed with Adult Onset Attention Deficit Disorder (AOADD) … my doctor has prescribed pills … she told me how many to take … but apparently I was so engrossed in a chipmunk dancing down a hydro line outside the clinic that the dosage info that she relayed didn’t quite reach my firing synapse … so I apparently took seven pills when I got home and slept for the next 32 and a half hours … my bad Bama … a waste of quality time that could have been spent pumping out economic reform … but really, hmmm … where was I? it’s like … oh my … a bluejay … in my feeder … look Bam … I am tryin’ … I have all these suggestions for you and the team … but my editor … that scowling son-of-a-bitch Stephen Patrick … has mandated that I get my sports stuff in before I even consider changing the course of the free world as we know it … I apologize Bam my good dear friend … I lie awake at nights pondering the state of the nation … I am taking this very seriously dear Bam … oh look … a raccoon on a surfboard … YouTube … oops sorry … my pills dammit, where are those pills? … this AOADD thing Mr. President is wreaking havoc on my thought process … hah, did you know that a bear can ride a unicycle … arggh! where was I … let me add dear Bam that I am fully entrenched in this quest to get you my input … phone dammit … sorry Bam, phone call … that s.o.b. Patrick is asking for a rewrite on that curling story … let me just say that I have some suggestions that will literally blow your mind … starting with universal healthcare … and now dear Bama … I am feeling strangely tired … hey, did you know that a bulldog can pilot a skateboard? … Bama, I think I took another 7 pills by accident … and your inauguration is in an hour … oh look, a bear just fell out of a tree and onto a trampoline and now, ouch! Off the tramp and onto his noggin … god I love YouTube and bear pranks … oops, getting sleepy … have to set my PVR to the ceremony … talk to you in about 33 hours or so … I’ll have something I’m sure by then … my best to John and Joe and everyone on the Transition Team … for now … my dear Bama … it’s to sleep … perchance to dream … of policy … hah … a Dachshund on water skis, hah, goddam YouTube ... thank you lord for YouTube! … oops! ... pills more pills! dammit… Love Gav”
My cellphone twittered just before I sank to slumber.
“Gav … don’t sweat the small stuff … we love you here at Transition Central … Sleep tight good friend and peace always … your pal … Bama.”
He’s right of course. Hah. A cat has just jumped off my roof. How the hell did he get up there?
ZZZZZ....

Joe Two Rivers and My Grizzly Encounter

In the Locker Room
Golfing with Bears and Ursus Horribilis
How Joe Two Rivers Saved my Life
By Terrance Gavan
One of the perks wrapping around a job as irrigation manager on a golf course deep in the heart of cottage country in the East Kootenays in BC includes the Fairmont Range. A jackdaw jumble of jagged clefts, which hiccups nimbly from Invermere to Cranbrook. It’s celebrated as one of the five prettiest ranges in the Rocky Mountain Chain.
Another perk includes serene holes played out on the back nine, overlooking the Columbia River, in those hours just between dusk and full moon. No one else on the course. The sprinkler heads already dispersed on the front nine. The John Deere Turf Pro four wheeler acting as ersatz cart. There is jazz playing through the sound system in the John Deere.
Dave Koz, Jacksoul and Steely Dan float mellifluously over the green parapet toward the high arching cliffs on the east and down the steep sides of the wide drooping Columbia Valley on the west.
I play two balls per hole. Never look for a ball. Another perk of working irrigation in the heart of the Rockies on an upscale course. In three days without even breaking stride we can collect 150 balls. Nice balls mind. High-end Titleists, Srixons, Top-Flites.
When it gets too dark to see the pin I plot a course of sprinklers on the back nine, always making sure to head out to 14 and shoo the herd of 37 or so elk from the greens and fairways and back down the steep terminus of the Columbia Valley.
One year, work included another perk. Getting to know a family of Black Bears who had made Mountainside Golf Course their summer home. We worked the same hours, the bears and I. Molly was the mum and Polly and Lolly were her two yearling cubs. They, like me, seldom ventured onto the course in the heat of the day, when the course was busy with shouts of fore, madly swaying carts and the crack and crumble of underbrush ingenuously cleared by mashie-wielding plaid and pastel colored lumberjacks.
Molly, Polly and Lolly preferred the late evening and the pitch of night. When it was quiet, except for the nuance and sway of tenor sax and Bradford Marsalis wafting above the gentle spzzt-spzzt-shzzzz-sprttt of the sprinkler heads. We were never what you might call fast friends, Molly, Lolly, Polly and I, but we did, after a few weeks, come to an understanding of sorts. Molly would “rowfff” deeply when Lolly or Polly ventured too close to my cart, and she would stamp the ground and indulge in some mock charges when I got a little too familiar. But mostly I could go about my business with little fear. Twenty-five feet was the chosen buffer. Any closer and we both got a little nervous. Twice, the cubs attempted to broach the recognized “Maginot Line” and both times I simply turned a sprinkler head on them and they soon learned to keep their distance. Bears hate water, especially when fired from a sprinkler head at 600 psi.
Now bears are not generally regarded as a perk of night work on a golf course, especially in the heart of the Rockies where bear vigilance often goes hand-in-hand with self-preservation. In fact, because we were working alone in open cart at night, night irrigation staff were treated each year to a “Bear Aware” class held by legendary BC Natural Resources Officer Wombat Kerzinski.
I took the course for three seasons and Wombat started each seminar with the same bold spark. He would unbutton his light brown BC Resources khaki shirt, revealing the upper part of his torso, and a nasty alabaster scar stretching from shoulder to belt line. Then he would pull up his trouser leg revealing an equally hideous ankle to thigh ragged and sallow rip.
“And that ladies is how Ursus Horribilis says hello,” chuckled Wombat. “For those of you who never took Latin in high school, ursus means bear and horribilis … well you get the picture. We call them Grizzlies and you don’t ever want to meet one alone on a lonely trail at sunset. And if you do, well, I hope you are right with your god, have your papers in order and are carrying a change of underwear.” And here Wombat would laugh, gently, knowingly. “The clean shorts will come in handy, just in case you’re one of the lucky few that come away from this little tête-à-tête with Ursus Horribilis unscathed.”
And then he would proceed to take us through our paces. The tips came like staccato burps from a popgun.
Wombat’s tip number one: “Never run from a bear, because you will be mistaken for prey. Remember that bears are like people, they just love fast food,” chuckled Wombat, a joke that is met with the usual smack and smatter of nervous giggles, especially from the new staffers who have just arrived for the summer from Great Britain.
Wombat’s tip number two: “Popular misconceptions. Please my ladies, don’t climb a tree. Bears can climb trees and they do it faster than most humans. You are not Tarzan ladies. And also, don’t run downhill … we have heard that bears don’t run downhill very well … news flash here ladies … humans are not particularly good at it either … and you don’t want to be rolling downhill in front a tumbling bear, because when you reach the bottom and you both stand up, that bear is going to be very, very angry, because bears get pissed when you make ‘em look stupid. And when that happens you will want to have your bear spray handy. You will want to point it at the bear and press the button when the bear is within three feet. That way when the wind blows it back in your face and blinds you, you will not be able to see as the bear runs you down and proceeds to swat away at your noggin like Sugar Ray Robinson on a speed bag.” Wombat was not a big fan of the bear spray.
Wombat’s tip number three: “Challenge a Black Bear … yell, shout, whistle, stand on your tiptoes, wave your arms, stomp the ground, make a few fake charges. And now … listen very carefully,” Wombat would say ominously, leaning into the group. “When you meet a Grizzly, avert your eyes, get small, say a prayer, and never assume a challenging posture … oh … and if you have a cell … the number to call is 911. Just so they’ll know where to send the coroner.” This last bon mot, followed by a large guffaw.
Johnny Elton, the summer worker from Liverpool, asks: “How, do we know it’s a Grizzly, Wombat?”
“Well, ladies,” whispers Wombat, “I could give you the textbook flash, but let’s just say … you’ll know … and we’ll leave it at that.”
And of course Wombat was right. A night in August, back in 2001. It was 10 pm. I was just popping out to chase the elks off the back holes. Usually they required some urging. But not this night. The herd was skittish and had already started toward the bank sloping to the valley.
In hindsight this should have presented a warning. Instead I decided to play a ball onto 15 at the very back edge of the course. My ball wandered just off the fringe and I detoured into the brush. My cart was 100 feet away and so was my walkie-talkie. I had a seven iron and two provisional balls in my hand when I heard the noise. I peered through the brush and noticed the dark form. “Molly … what are you doing back here,” I yelled, at the same time looking around for signs of Lolly and Polly. The shape moved again, and so did every hair on my body. Wombat’s words came back like the cold hard crack and slap of a wet towel in a grade-nine gym class.
“You’ll know.” And in that nano-second blink, I knew. This was not Molly. Molly liked to spend her time on the front nine, near the cottages and the time-shares and the berry trees. I was on the back nine, in the gentle folds of a Rockie night, alone, seven feet from Ursus Horribilis. He was on his hind legs and he was sniffing the air. The wind was at his back. He (she?) had been stalking the Elk on the far fringes of the course. The Elk had picked up his scent and that’s why they had moved off. I cursed my stupidity. The hairs on the back of my neck were up and I had a tingling sensation of raised flesh up and down my spine.
The clouds suddenly drew back revealing a full moon and it fell on us like a theatrical spot. We were suddenly etched against the night. I gripped the seven iron. I forgot all I had ever read about Grizzly bears, anything that Wombat had said in three years of bear aware tutelage.
What popped into my head was a long-forgotten call sign. “XNY556 A for Apple calling XNY556 G for George … come in George.” The Forest Rangers, that iconic CBC television staple from my youth. And then a picture of Joe Two Rivers (Mike Zenon), flooded my neuron-knocking noggin. Joe Two Rivers. Of course. He would talk, gently in Ojibwa to the bear; the bear would cock its head; Joe would talk some more; the Grizzly would then return to all fours, nod gently and amble away.
My problem. No Ojibwa. I spoke one sentence of Saulteaux-Cree, and I wasn’t going to tell this 500 pound grizzly to “go to hell.” Instinctually, I knew that English would simply not suffice. Joe Two Rivers spoke excellent English and he never once used it to commune with the bears he met once or twice per Forest Rangers episode. My mind raced.
Icelandic! I spent summers on the farm with Icelanders. My mother had grown up speaking Icelandic. I grew up with it summers near Gimli, that Icelandic enclave in the heart of Manitoba’s Interlake.
And so I turned to the bear and like Joe Two Rivers (denying Wombat’s advice) I looked my grizzly square in the eyes and whispered “Fara heim, kyssa kýra asnit” over an over again.
We stood eye to eye, for what seemed like an eternity. I never stopped talking, never broke eye contact. Hearkening Joe Two Rivers, I maintained that stoic stance. Calmly I chanted “Fara heim, kyssa kýra asnit” like a mantra. I lost all track of time and space. Suddenly, the bear fell to fours, shook his head gently, turned around and sauntered gently away.
I looked at my watch. And it hit me. Fulsome as that locomotive chugging in the distance. For the past three minutes I had been standing under a cloudless moonlit Rockie sky, frozen in some tangled time-space trance, calmly telling a 750 pound Grizzly to “Go home and kiss the cow’s arse.” In Icelandic.
I did two things when I got back to the cart. I phoned the Fairmont Lodge to ask them to report the Grizzly sighting.
And I reached into my knapsack for that extra pair of Calvin Kleins. Yes, folks, Bo knows football.
But Wombat Kerzinski knows all about Grizzlies and the utility of the standby boxers.

Magic Helmet and Hockey Boors

Miller Donnelly’s Magic Helmet – A Few Words to the Wise
Young Sudbury Hockey Player Calls Out Arena Brats
By Terrance Gavan
Miller Donnelly dropped a puck at an Ottawa 67s home game last weekend (Jan 10).
Later that same day he was invited as a special guest to watch the Ottawa Senators versus the Rangers at ScotiaBank Place in Kanata.
Miller Donnelly is only 11, but wise beyond his years.
A few years ago Donnelly wrote a speech. Nothing special. It was a school project.
He was nine.
It was a public speaking gig penned and delivered for an elementary school contest at Larchwood Public in the Sudbury School Division.
Miller won the school contest and went on to deliver the speech at a regional competition at Royal Canadian Legion Branch 503. Miller’s dad, Mike Donnelly, recorded his son's speech and uploaded it on YouTube for family members in Halifax.
Over 30,000 hits and two years later, Miller Donnelly’s Magic Helmet mantra is being adopted as a theme by minor hockey in Ontario. It may go viral and achieve national prominence if more hockey honchos on this lamentably traditional and entrenched minor hockey dais would take the time to ingest the message.
You see, young Miller is convinced that his hockey helmet comes with incredibly potent powers. Powers that might impress a David Blaine or a Copperfield.
“How is this hockey helmet magical?” asks Miller at the start of the video. “Well, it does something simply amazing. It changes me from a 9-year-old boy to a 20-year-old man. The minute I put on my magic helmet and step on the ice, adults treat me much differently. They yell at me, they curse at me, and they call me names. They treat me like I’ve been playing hockey for 15 years and get mad when I make a mistake, and I know it’s the helmet because when I go to a backyard rink and I’m wearing a toque adults treat me much nicer.”
Sound familiar?
When I was living in Ottawa, a long, long time ago, I used to spend time at hockey arenas. Sometimes I would be reffing a basketball tournament at local high school.
Tired of the stuffy gym, I would wander or drive over to a nearby arena. I noticed a disturbing trend. At house league games or tourneys, I was met by a devoted cognoscente of parents who sat in the stands and berated opposing players and literally screamed at their own children.
I was quite frankly shocked. The level of intolerance and the rudeness of the spectators was something that I just never encountered at any level while reffing basketball for 20 years in the Ottawa area.
I found basketball parents to be laid back, affable and for the most part respectful of the game and the players. There was a different atmosphere in the hockey arena. Tense faces, spat epithets and a general level of complete and utter disrespect for the young players who were only there, after all, to please. To appease their coaches, to help their teammates and to earn the respect of their parents. This is what kids want from sports. Fun.
Instead, young players were met with approbation and an alarming level of vitriol. Eight-year-olds enduring the slings and arrows of raised expectations. How many of these kids were destined for the NHL? Exactly none. So what’s the fuss? I have no idea. I know one thing. The players just didn’t seem to be enjoying the game.
Fun simply wasn’t happening in Ottawa in the 70s. It ain’t happening today. I took in a few games at the Silver Stick tournament in Haliburton recently. The same knot in my stomach. The same old wheel. The same level of intolerance bubbling fitfully and in jerks from the stands. Like a locomotive leaving the freight yards, these games accompanied by much din, scraping and the harsh grate of rusty wheels. It all hearkened seedy memories.
I quit going to rinks after an especially disappointing run-in with the surly denizens of a Bells Corner’s Arena on a Saturday afternoon in 1975, while taking a break from a basketball tourney at Bell High School. I heard 10 parents screaming at their children. I saw fear and confusion on the face of two young hockey players. I saw another 8-year-old player retreat to the end of the bench literally drenched in his own tears. I heard his dad yell, “Quit crying … Baby! … be a man!” I swear to god, I wanted to saunter over and hit that dreadful, dreadful man. I felt my face reddening. My stomach rolled to a tight knot. I fled, ran to my car, and then back to the gym.
I never returned to an arena on a Saturday morning.
As an adult I was embarrassed. And confused.
A little like Miller Donnelly.
Miller at least had the guts to confront the problem. At nine years old, he asked some poignant questions. He told a compelling story that is just now getting the recognition that it deserves. It’s making the rounds and it’s being promoted on some Ontario hockey websites. Miller’s measured tones seeking resonance from the hoards. Those parents and coaches who would seek to insert the pressure of their own griping lives onto the children.
Don’t they realize? Do they need a class? Is there psychotherapy available for the broken psyches of those hockey moms and dads who just don’t seem to get it?
Ask Miller. He’s seen it all, and remember he was only nine when he delved into this Canadian psychosis.
“Many young players are scared of the magic helmet, the yelling that it brings makes them frightened and confused while playing the game,” says Miller. “And most of the times the adults that are yelling are the player’s own parents.”
Near the end of the speech Miller hearkened a heavy hitter and former Maple Leafs’ captain.
“George Armstrong said it best when he suggested, ‘Hockey in Canada would be in good shape when parents decide it’s being played for their children’s benefit and not their own.’ ”
Hail to the Chief.
Is there a solution?
From the mouths of babes and from Miller’s lips to god’s good ear.
“You can help destroy the bad magic in the helmet. Be a real fan, have fun at the rink, cheer loudly, and enjoy the real magic of minor hockey,” says Miller.
And while we’re talkin’. A little post-game shout out to Miller Donnelly please.
Hip-hip-hooray!n

Player Dies in Hockey Fight? Blame the Helmet

The Passing of a Hockey Player should sound the Death Knell for Fighting
Instead? We Devolve to Red Herring Helmet Discussion
By Terrance Gavan
I don’t buy it.
I don’t buy this crap about fighting in hockey as a safety valve. Or a method to ensure the safety of marquee players. Or the fact that no one really gets hurt in a hockey fight.
And I’m also not buying the sturm and drang and tight-fisted embellishments delivered by blathering idiots who support fighting as a valiant and longstanding tradition of the NHL.
You know the idiots I’m talking about. They include a long and hardy laundry list of goon technicians who will stutter and sway and prattle long and windy into their hats about the drop of the gloves and the crunch of the fist. They include the effervescent clown prince Don Cherry, execs like Brian Burke, Bobby Clarke, and the burping hoards of bobbleheaded fans who simply love to watch two guys go at it bare-knuckled, bleeding and broken, because, well that’s the way it is in Hockey Land.
Well, there was a funeral today in Port Perry, Ontario. A young man was placed in the ground, a full six feet underneath the hard frozen tundra. Tears were shed for this young man. A young man with a life full of expectations, hopes and dreams. All of that hope and promise snuffed by a hard scrape of unleathered hand and a subsequent snapping fall to the hard arena ice.
Don Sanderson was 21 when he dropped the gloves in a senior hockey game while playing for the Whitby Dunlops just a month ago.
His helmet came off during the altercation and he was pushed backward, his head hitting the ice with a horrendous thud. This collision with the ice prompted a series of events inside his brain. It provoked coma and last Friday it led inevitably to his death.
Please note an important ingredient in this story. His death and the act of violence that engendered it were separated by a full three weeks.
In the news biz we call this the “diminishing window.” You see, sadly, by the time young Mr. Sanderson succumbed to his injury we, the collective whole, had all but forgotten the circumstances involved. Oh we were told countless times that he had actually died from his altercation with another player and the ice.
But the two events were so far removed. And we are blessed with such short memory when it comes to the news. Sanderson had been on life support since Dec 12, 2008. He died on Jan 2, 2009. Three weeks, and a change in years.
The window of diminished responsibility has worked its magic. The spin doctors in the hockey community have chucked a red herring onto the arena ice.
Lamentably, this discussion has suddenly been detoured and hijacked by the pro-fighting cognoscente. I hear the word accident now. I hear the word unfortunate accident even more. I hear the words, “freak accident,” rising with the tide. And I hear the words “if only his helmet had stayed on.”
Yeah? Bull.
This was no accident. Don Sanderson died as the direct result of a hockey fight and he died for all intents and purposes on that same day. He passed away on Jan 2, 2009, but Don Sanderson’s brain was delivered from this mortal coil on Dec 12, 2008.
Please can we do young Mr. Sanderson a huge favor here. Can we please get tough on those pretenders and frauds who would diminish the argument with heinous and egregious lies. The people who are calling this an accident and those that would like to prompt an inappropriate and insulting diversion to an excursive argument regarding the proper wearing of protective headgear.
Yes, Mr. Sanderson’s death has now engendered an argument about helmets. News reports are suggesting that Sanderson’s helmet came off during the altercation exposing the back of his head to the trauma.
This is the gist of the argument. We are slowly being deflected by this red herring. The harsh reality of a discussion about the legitimacy of fighting in hockey is being clouded by butcher block censors who mandate that no viable discussion about the ethics of bare-knuckled combat should occur in the harsh light of this tragedy.
If the 21-year-old Don Sanderson had been pronounced dead at the arena, and if a coroner’s hearse had pulled up to the back door instead of an ambulance, we may have a different discussion on our hands.
But alas, he was young and strong. He clung to life with the hardwired desperation of the fit gladiator. Make no mistake. Don Sanderson was fit and struggled hard to cheat the reaper. That does not change the outcome.
A young man died on the ice. A young man died as the direct result of a hockey fight. The bump n’ grind Cherry-ists have now taken to calling this an “unfortunate altercation.”
Some of these lovely non-peaceniks and obstructionists have gone so far to say that this could all have been avoided if only Mr. Sanderson had kept the chin strap of his helmet done up tight.
That’s just wrong. Like fighting in hockey. Just wrong.
The NHL has retained its finely honed and detailed every man on deck stance in the wake of this fight-related death.
The NHL has indicated it has no plans to alter its rules in the wake of Sanderson's death.
“Its an issue that from time to time is a point of discussion, so this may prompt further discussion. But I don't sense a strong sentiment to change the rules we currently have relating to fighting.” said NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly in an email on Friday.
Canadian Press reports that OHA president Brent Ladds said the issues arising from the death of Sanderson, who received four fighting majors in the 11 games he played with Whitby this season, will be raised at his organization's next monthly board meeting.
Four fights in 11 games in a league that remains just some passive steps and some grey hairs removed from the beer league should have prompted warning bells. But fighting is part of the game. In his four previous fights Sanderson probably heard the approving shouts of the crowd and the slapping sticks of his teammates as he wandered off the ice. Flaying fists are accepted in no other team sport on the planet.
In hockey, here in Canada we reward our fighters with praise, slaps and post-game beers.
Part of the party, even on the dais of a senior men’s league.
So Don Sanderson continued to fight until that fateful night on Dec 12, 2008.
When the cheering stopped.
Forever.

Yard Darts and Relative Dysfunction

In The Locker Room
Yard Darts and Relative Dysfunction
The Names are Changed to protect the Guilty
By Terrance Gavan
Okay, so some of you may remember yard darts.
It was a lovely little “fun for the whole family sport” which raged round backyards in the late seventies and early eighties. It was a staple at many family parties.
Yard Darts are 12 inches long with a weighted, pointy metal tip on one end, and three plastic fins on a rod at the other end. The darts were tossed underhand toward a horizontal ground target, where the weighted pointy end hits first and sticks into the ground. The target is typically a plastic ring. Less typically, but more or less frequently, dependant upon the level of alcohol consumption, the heavy, piercing, two pound projectile would find other, more entertaining, places to land. The family heirloom crystal punch bowl, Aunt Neddy’s unsuspecting 18-year-old Siamese cat, the windshield of Uncle Tony’s 1965 vintage Porsche or the newly installed $5,000 bay window on cousin Edwina’s solarium.
For those of you too young to remember the fun – since Yard Darts were banned in Canada in 1989 – it goes something like this. Picture a yard filled with a dozen or so semi-toddlers, 26 scrambling teenagers on summer hiatus from strict Ritalin regimen, eight doddering seniors, twenty to thirty middle-aged adults in erratic and various states of inebriation, three dogs, two cats and two teams of three twenty-something cousins, each with beers in hand, at opposite sides of the rambling yard. Now picture a brightly colored fire-engine-red projectile with a heavy metal sharpened tip whistling with whispered finality toward earth, from a 93-foot orbit, and into this cacophony of oblivious humanity.
Hasbro, or Mattel or whoever made the Yard Dart version of the game suggested placing the target hoops about 50 feet apart or “further dependant upon skill level.”
We Gavan’s have always had a very high opinion of our various and sundry skill sets. We preferred setting our targets 40 yards apart. Extra points were awarded for trajectories that mimicked Homer Hickam’s backyard boyhood rocket shots.
The game is played like horseshoes. In horseshoes, however, people are warned away from the playing area by the sharp clang of metal shoe on iron post. The beauty of Yard Darts, I think, rested with the tranquility of the pursuit. Hasbro invented the first truly astral stealth technology. Dependent upon your perspective, this can be a mixed blessing.
In conducting my de rigueur Internet research, cruising You Tube, Google and America’s Funniest Home Videos, I came across a few humorous Yard Dart moments but none to match my real life redux at the expense of an in-law who we’ll call Tom.
Cousin Tom had married into the Gavan clan and like a lot of our tribe didn’t mind the occasional nip now and then, and again, now and then. He had, after several, or seven, or 17 Jameson’s on the rocks, apparently forgotten the unwritten law. Gavan’s First Law of the Summer Reunion goes something like, if you intend to get drunk and wander aimlessly about the yard babbling to all and sundry, make sure, first and foremost, that you remember where the Yard Dart runway begins and ends. This is important, especially if you are new to the family and some people at the party have forgotten your name. For some reason the words, “Hey, you … staggering guy … ummmm… like, heads’ up there buddy,” doesn’t carry quite the same cachet as “Hey Tom! You slobbering drunk! Look out!”
But I’m letting the eighteen-year-old Siamese cat out of the bag here. (Her name was Tabitha, by the way, and she lived another four years. The yard dart barely grazed her luxuriously appointed tail.)
I remember it as if it were yesterday. I was watching with four of my cousins from the safety of the covered porch as the Reverend Donald Francis Gavan toed the dart line and let loose one of his patented Apollo moon shots.
Up the Yard Dart rose. And up. And up. It was, in a word, one of the most prodigious lofted Yard Dart shots I have ever seen, before or since. Up it went like a hawk drifting on seminal zephyr. It seemed to disappear to spec before it reached apex, where it suddenly stopped and shuddered, in the way that yard darts do. And then, it fell, grasping for terminal velocity at 32 feet per second squared, I heard the fateful words from cousin Don who was standing beside me. “Oh, crap,” said cousin Don.
We averted our gaze from descending projectile to the meandering specter of Tom, stumbling inanely toward a date with dart.
The dart seemed suspended in flight and I swear we had time to discuss several probable scenarios in the interval.
“Whattya’ think.” I asked. “That’s not gonna’ hit him, is it?”
“Yep … yep … I’m pretty sure that it is … yep, no doubt about it now,” answered Don. I was, like Don, and my two similarly afflicted cousins (names excluded to protect their sensibilities), suddenly and inexplicably devolving into a paroxysm of laughter.
“Should we yell or something?” I sputtered. “Nope … I think it’s probably too late … yep, geezuz … this won’t be pretty,” stuttered Don, derailing into spasm. My other two cousins were already floor of the porch, chuckling like demons.
“Oh crap ... that’s gonna’ hurt,” I said crumbling to the floor.
We watched with tears in our eyes as the descending dart landed with a solid thunk on poor Tom’s shoulder. I swear to god it hit and sort of stuck and then it stuttered like an arrow on a Roadrunner cartoon … boiinnnggg! … for a split second, before falling to the ground. Tom dropped like he was pole-axed. “Ohhhh … yoooo … owwwwww!” said Tom. Then he suddenly sat up and took a sip from his drink, which by some miracle had made it through the accident unscathed.
The Reverend Donald Francis went from concern, to relief and then suddenly – upon seeing Tom sprawled smack on top of the plastic bulls-eye, and now calmly sipping gin, and realizing that Tom had deflected the de facto the game winning toss – to anger.
“Geezuz, Tom … are you as dumb as a bag of hammers or what? Judges, we need a ruling here … rethrow … dammit … I get a rethrow … Tom for god’s sake, quit moaning, get the hell up and throw me that dart … I’m throwing again. And put some ice on that shoulder … it’s looking a bit swollen.”
Lest one get the wrong idea, Reverend Donald Francis was loved by his parishioners and the students he taught. He was just … hmmm, let’s see … a little edgy when it came to the sports thing. We four cousins quietly retreated to the kitchen, lest our relatives get he wrong idea and book us for an intense regimen of psychotherapy. My sides hurt for two days.
I think it should be noted here that Yard Darts were banned in the US in 1988, Canada in 1989, but are still legal in the United Kingdom.
I have my own theory about that. We know that the Irish have an affinity for the sport. And we also know about the Brits’ ingrained antipathy for the Irish. At the risk of getting all Ollie Stone here, I have put two and two together and have come to the obvious conclusion.
The British Parliament, by their tacit support of this dangerous pastime, is waging a concerted and covert campaign of genocide by Yard Dart. I have sent cease and desist letters to the Prime Minister in London, to the UN, to authorities in Geneva.
If that fails to garner response, I’ll consider a hunger strike. Hell, it worked for Gandhi.

If it Walks Like a Duck ... It Ain't a Plover

Sports Column
From the Locker Room
If it Quacks it’s a Duck
By Terrance Gavan

Here’s what I know about steroids.
If it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, it’s not a platypus.
Here’s what my Pops used to say about athletes.
“If you want to soar with the eagles, don’t waddle with the ducks.”
Here’s what I know about that statement.
Many athletes who want to soar with the eagles are taking certain substances to help get them off the ground.
Here’s what those athletes are telling me about the stuff they are taking.
“My chemist tells me that it’s a derivative of flaxseed oil.”
Here’s what I know about that statement.
Any elite athlete who starts a sentence with “My Chemist tells me” needs to find a new agent… and a lawyer, and a friendly ear on a Senate subcommittee.
Here’s what I know about flaxseed oil.
If it really did the amazing things that Marion Jones and Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire and Victor Conte and Ben Johnson say it does… well there would be a lot of very, very rich farmers in our prairie provinces.
And here’s what I know about the farming economy in the Canadian Prairies. It’s slowly moving from abysmal to moribund.
And here’s what I know about Martina Hingis, who was recently outed in a Wimbledon drug test for traces of cocaine.
She says that she has never used cocaine because she has a family and is a good person.
Here’s what I know about that.
Having a family, being a good person and cocaine use are not mutually exclusive things.
Here’s what we now know about Martina.
She has retired, claiming that she’s tired of the whole business.
Here’s what Shakespeare says about that.
“Methinks the Lady doth protest… too much.”
Martina has volunteered to give a sample of her hair follicle to prove that she has never taken cocaine.
Here’s what I know about that.
If you know enough about drug pathology to know that hair follicles can be used to trace vestigial signs of long term cocaine abuse…. then you know way too much about cocaine to be playing the innocent and getting all Seventh Day Adventist on us.
Here’s what I know about the Mormon’s and Seventh Day Adventists.
Because they will not place anything in their body that is not approved by their Church Elders… no Seventh Day Adventist or Mormon will ever win the Tour de France.
But I digress… here’s what I know about Martina Hingis.
Martina… Martina! Cocaine is NOT a performance enhancer!
If you are still confused Martina… please look up www.crackheadscaughtonfilm.com and take a glance at some of the pictures.
Here’s what I know about cocaine.
It will never be confused with the clear or even flaxseed oil.
Here’s what I know about Marion Jones, who won a lot of gold medals.
Marion Jones will be returning a lot of those gold medals and some of her teammates on the US relay team will also be returning their Gold Medals because they were handing or being handed tainted batons.
Here’s another thing I know about Marion Jones.
Marion Jones spent years saying that the only juice she used was a little of the old flaxseed.
Here’s what I know about that.
The flax farmers are still broke.
Here’s another thing I know about Miss Jones.
For years and years “the Lady didth protesteth way, way too much!”
Here’s what I know about that.
“Liar, liar pants on fire!”
And here’s another thing I know about Marion Jones, who, for years soared like an eagle.
If it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck?
Guilty, guilty, guilty!

Windy Ruminations from Ruminant Portraits

A Windy Day in Cottage Country Watching Canada’s Juniors
Hodgson Leads All Scorers After Two Games … I Think?

By Terrance Gavan
So what prompts Canadians to tune into an absolute blowout on a Sunday – the Canadian Juniors beat Kazakhstan 15-0 in case you missed it - while bits and pieces fall off their roofs, trees litter their driveways and brownouts force endless reboots of their satellite system?
Junior hockey my friends. The World Championships. Well, that’s my excuse. What’s yours?
Yes, I kept watching as a foundation-rattling 130 kilometer-per-hour gust engendered a fingernail on chalkboard creaking crescendo that told me my roof capping was attempting to dislodge from the peak of the humble abode here on Halbiem Crescent.
I did what any normal Canadian hockey fan might. I looked out the front window to gauge wind direction and then sauntered calmly to the appropriate side window to see if any parts of my roof had dislodged to the neighboring yards. I pulled out binoculars, figuring that shingles would be well on their way to Head Lake by now, trailed inevitably and inexorably by the slightly heavier and less aerodynamic capping.
All clear. For now at least. No, I did not go out to the backyard to assess damage. That would have ruined the karma and disrupted the overall chi. My serenity must remain intact. I had a game to watch.
And besides, the cap was still up there. I could hear it flapping, fluttering and floundering with what I can only assume was an insouciant nonchalance in the galloping gale.
Oh whoopee! Lookee’ here! Canada scores again. It is now 7-0 and I am excited, but the classy Canadian players stopped showing any emotion shortly after scoring the fourth goal. It’s borderline embarrassing. This shellacking of Kazakhstan a lamentably undermanned and plodding opponent.
In fact, look closely enough, through the flickering circuitry of the sepia-tinged browned-out picture, and I can almost see cringes on the faces of the young Canadian players. These are kids accustomed to playing close-quartered, competitive hockey, and it’s becoming obvious that they are not fond of this knife’s twist.
The announcers on TSN feel the same. Bob McKenzie, Pierre McGuire and that other talking head from THE network will put the boots to this dead chestnut mare ad nauseum, ad infinitum and ad libbily throughout the course of the telecast.
McKenzie says cut the field from 10 teams to 8. McGuire says the tiebreak mechanism, which dictates that goals for and against decide who stays and who goes in the event of an equal distribution of wins and losses, must be reassessed. The peanut boy in the catbird seat calling the game says, “Wheee, lookee’ here, Canada scored again! Whattaya’ think about that Pierre and Bobby?”
They said this many, many, many, many, many times. Notice how many times I wrote many? Notice how annoying it is? Well that’s how annoying Bob and Pierre were, rumbling on about this and that and the IIHF and how if they were running things it would be so much better.
Go to eight teams. Go to six teams. Go to two teams. Have a fifty-fifty draw. Go the Playstation 3 route. Armwrestle for it. Find a new tiebreak system. Summon a tarot card reader. Call on the ghost of McKenzie King.
They said this many, many, many … well you get the idea. But they didn’t offer a solution.
I have one. Draw to the button. Three shooters, three pucks from each team. Start behind the net. Closest puck to center ice wins. The Canadians could hold a spot on the squad for a junior curling phenom from Porcupine Falls, Manitoba. Lovely, problem solved. Now, can we get back to hockey?
Another huge gust heaves rudely past my window. A Hereford cow with a slightly befuddled look on its already moony face is being pushed across the open field outside my house, at times airborne and sliding on those cloven blades over iced tundra at about 35 clicks. It’s very impressive, because I didn’t know cows could skate, until now. I watch as he disappears over a hillock on his way to Head Lake and beyond. I find myself singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and clicking my heels. Then, I am suddenly aware of another flickering in the room.
Pzzzt! Power out yet again. Just 20 seconds later, the lights are back, and my answering machine is talking to me. “Please reset your phone to the default mode,” it says. I have no idea what the default mode is so I ignore the feminine voice. I look around as clocks start blinking 12:00 … 12:00 … 12:00 … well, you get the idea.
Back to the game. Canada has scored again while my satellite was stuttering to recovery mode. It is now 10-0 and the cackling commentators tell us that we are now in double figures.
I’m not Einstein fellas, but I don’t need you to tell me that 9 is one digit and 10 is two digits. I find myself wishing that Howie Meeker might suddenly appear. Alas, poor Howie, a hockey commentator from the old school, who could always be relied on for a rousing round of “Golly-Gee’s.” I loved that man. Where is he anyway. Can a fella’ get a Howie in the house? Bob and Pierre, they try, but geeez’, they’re no Howie Meeker.
I googled Howie and found that he was a Progressive Conservative MP for three years in Waterloo back in 1951 and he did this while also playing hockey for the Leafs. Here’s an idea. Let’s get Howie back on TSN and while we’re at it why don’t we run him up the flagpole at the next Conservative leadership convention. Howie Meeker for Prime Minister. Golly Gee, that’s a helluva’ good idea.
My musings are interrupted by yet another window rattling gust followed by a horrendous snap, crackle, and pop.
A large tree has been pulled up from its roots and is laying across my driveway. Limbs are scattering in the breeze.
At about the same time the power fizzles again. It comes right back. “Please reset your phone to the default mode,” the lady in the phone says. Clocks are blinking and my satellite is telling me that I have to wait while it searches for the satellite. Could the wind have blown my Bell satellite off course? I hope not. I have a game to watch.
The power back, I am told by the twittering TSN magpie that the score is now 12-0.
A TSN fact checker is perched over a laptop googling “Canada’s biggest point spreads.” There are two categories here. Biggest shutout wins and biggest overall point spreads.
The numbers come and go.
Outside my window I watch as Minden’s Home Hardware sign glides serenely past my front window. It’s moving much faster than the Hereford Cow. It’s cartwheeling at about 46 kilometers per hour. I do the math. I’m exactly 23 clicks from Minden, so it took this sign exactly 30 minutes to get here. Wheeew. That’s some pretty high-speed advertising.
I watch it somersault its way to Head Lake. I pull out a calculator and figure that it should arrive in Bancroft by midnight. I suddenly remember the cow. Should I phone the OPP?
“Hello 911, can I help you?”
“Yes, I’d like to report a flying cow.”
“Sir you know there are rules against making crank calls on 911? The penalty is a $10,000 fine and a year in jail.”
“Well, then, Officer. Just calling to wish you all a happy New Year and to say you’re doing a great job.”
Suddenly I am aware that the hockey game is over. The IIHF mandates that a player of the game award must be handed out to members of both teams.
I have no idea who the Kazakhstan player is, but I can see that he is more than a little sheepish about receiving a trophy shortly after a 15-0 crunch with destiny.
They must also play the Canadian National anthem. It’s tradition. I am hoping that there’s a 10 second version. But no, on and on it drones. The score is left on the ScotiaBank Place clock for the duration of the anthem.
I suddenly remember that I was tuned in with the idea of following the fortunes of Haliburton native son and cottager Cody Hodgson. I listen to the post game patter and realize that while Hodgson scored two goals and 2 assists in the game, I didn’t manage to actually see any of his points.
Between power fizzits, meandering cows, cartwheeling signs, rooftop ratchets and that crazy lady in the phone I have managed to miss all of Cody’s points.
So I twittered the game and finally filled in some holes. Hodgson played superbly, matching John Tavares’s 2 goal and 2 assists. Jamie Benn was the player of the game on the strength of his hat trick and one assist.
Pat Quinn did his best to enunciate, better than Bob or Pierre, why a team must go out and just keep playing.
“We started to do the nice pretty wheels and turns and drop passes and things when you're playing strong opposition, it can kick you and bite you,” Quinn said, in a radio interview. “We all know skill is very important, but when you come up against a team that also has skill, then you'll win the game with what's between your ears and how you discipline yourself.
“When it gets tough, you have to be tough.” Howie Meeker couldn’t have said it better.
Canada's score against Kazakhstan wasn't the most lopsided in the country's history at the world junior tournament, but it was close. Canada beat Germany 18-2 in 1985, Poland 18-3 the following year and France 15-0 in 2001.
And of course, while John Tavares is getting most of the ink and the requisite praise, the guy currently leading the charge for Team Canada remains Hodgson. Hodgson is the leading score in the tournament to date with 2 goals and 6 assists in his two games. Tavares and US player Jordan Schroeder both have seven points in their two games.
I will be back watching tonight as Canada plays Germany.
For now, I am heading out to my driveway with a chain saw and a pail of grain. That tree isn’t going to move itself and I see that the dear old Hereford has made her way back to my yard, where she is grazing on some recently rescued patch of grass near the foundation and looking sheepishly (cowishly?) roofward lest a piece of plastic capping fall and bonk her on the noggin.
I couldn’t find the instruction booklet for my phone. If anyone knows how to reset a Panasonic 1680 series digital phone please get in touch with me pronto at sports@countyvoice.ca.
The lady in the phone is driving me bonkers. And I need to call Howie Meeker.n

Mats Sundin - All Airport

Matts Sundin and Cody Hodgson Together on Canada’s Blustery Coast?
Matt’s Poker Face and Cody’s Fluid Grace – Who Will Out and Make the Case?
By Terrance Gavan
Look, I have nothing against the manic poker playing diva from Sweden.
For all I know Mats Sundin is a very charming guy with a flair for the debonair.
Do I think he manufactured a contract from the persnickety and cap-challenged suitors who knocked on his door lo’ these past 6 months?
Probably.
Is he worth the green from the Vancouver machine?
Don’t bet on it. It’s not even close.
Ask Leaf Nation, a savvy, mildly rabid group of puck cognoscente, who will get their chance for commentary, consolidated, cranky, and castigating on February 21st of 2009 when the Swaggering Staggering Swede will make his way back to the Hot Stove seat of Roger’s great sanctuary of mild sanguinity.
If I had to pin my Stanley Cupped aspirations to a star, I would look further down the food chain dear Canuckadoodle-do’s. Hearken Trevor Linden, a solid commodity with less flair and more stare. The type of hombre that needs no introduction. Trevor was solid, self-effacing, evocative and imbued of that much coveted blue collar work ethic.
You don’t need a Swedish massage on your injured pride. You need someone of substance. Someone like Linden. Someone who isn’t a stranger to hard work.
Take a good look at what you just landed. And tell me. Did you get another Linden? Or did you just pop a cool six million with a signing entreaty of two million for half a year’s flirt with a player who looks for all the world like a Nordic bit piece straight outta’ central casting.
No my Canuckadoodle-do’s Sweet Sundin is not the answer. Not even if you phrase that delicately in the form of a jeopardized question to a Trebekian query: “No Salvation Soon Vancouver!”
“What is a Mats Sundin Alex?”
“Absolutely correct for a thousand my good Canuckadoodle-do’s. No Salvation, and no reprieve from the good-lookin’ hipster Swede.”
Yes my dear Canuckadoodle-do’s, you may canoodle with Mats Sundin for the nonce and you may even bang your chortled car horns all the way down Burrard Street to the Inlet and beyond to storied Gastown. You may even start saving for Stanley Cup tickets.
The glass is either half-full or half-empty. I’m leaning latterly.
Quoted in a Toronto Star piece by Rosie Dimanno, Sunny Sundin is less push and more shove in assessing his soon to be new career start in Vancouver.
“Time was running out,” said Mats. “I realized if I was going to play again, I had to start now or I'd lose the whole season. And I did want to play. For a long time, I just wasn't sure of that. But I finally realized how much I missed the game, missed being on the ice, in the dressing room.”
And then he let rubber hit road.
“When the opportunity is over, it could be over for good.”
Aw shucks my dear Canuckadoodle-do’s. You’ve got a feel good story here. It’s Christmas, Canadians are in the deep frozen depths of a full-blown recession. There’s talk about hiring work gangs for good old-fashioned 1930’s-era infrastructure building. Highways, subways, bridges, sewers. Wheeee! Let that Ceement fly!
“People, can a body getta’ a shovel and some fresh asphalt here? There’s roads to patch, bridges to prop. Up and down that Sea to Sky highway, we gotta’ move some mud, pop some rock! Whattaya’ mean nine bills an hour?”
Meanwhile, the homeless are being wheedled out of accustomed tent space in Stanley Park to make room for the expected influx of haute couture turistas on their way to Van City for a little fiesta we like to call the 2010 Winter Olympics.
And Mats? Between rounds of poker in Vegas, Monte Carlo and the Mirage, Mats has agreed to a one year contract and a mere $6,000,000 for a wonky work ethic that lamentably could use some fine tuning.
“It's not a perfect situation, coming in this late,” says Sundin. Really? Ya’ think?
“All the other players in the league are in mid-season form. It's going to be a while before I can compete at that level. But I just felt that Vancouver seemed like a good fit for me.”
It’s $6,000,000. For tops, six months of work. Sounds like a good fit to me
“Hey wait just a cotton pickin’ minute here. Did I hear right? $6,000,000 for a half a season? Hey! Yo! Can a fella’ get another shovel here? I am being buried under the toppling weight of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed bushel of crap down here. That’s what it feels like anyway. I could be wrong.”
Well, like I said. I got nothing at all against Mats Sundin. I just don’t think it’s going to pay dividends. Right here, right now, Mats Sundin is a waste of space.
The better fit?
No brainer my Canuckadoodle-do’s. Your real salvation was on display last Friday night on TSN. Remember the T stands for “The”.
Cody Hodgson, your first round and 10th overall pick in the 2008 spring draft, is the guy you should be looking at long run and for the huge cross country big rig haul that comprises the NHL season. Hodgson, cerebral, savvy, Lindenesque. With a work ethic right outta’ some Puritan workbook.
Forget Sundin and hearken all that bonhomie that you reserved for native son Trevor Linden not too long ago. The guy you really need is already there. Or was for the bulk of training camp and a number of exhibition contests earlier this fall in Whistler and beyond.
On Friday night, Cody Hodgson scored a goal and added two assists in a 4-2 win over Sweden in a warm-up game for the 2009 International Junior Hockey Championships which gets underway in Ottawa on Boxing Day.
Pierre McGuire TSN’s ever obliging and swanky analyst reserved a holler to all the fans in Van City when he stopped to single out Hodgson’s huge potential midway through the third frame of that exhibition tilt. He stopped mid-sentence and mid-thought and christened Hodgson as the next leader of the Canucks.
Yes Canuckadoodle-do’s McGuire was talking effervescently and eye-poppingly at you.
And I think he’s right.
Wait a year or two.
By then, Sundin may well be pushing his walker creakily out the GM Place Arena Door, heading for Vegas, with a deck of cards and a Maverick’s blank stare.
I’ve got nothing against the Swedish bombshell.
But at 37 he’s reminding me more and more of Leo Rautins.
Rautins is coach of Canada’s national basketball team and a color analyst for the THE network.
Back when he was drafted by the Philadelphia Seventy Sixers out of Syracuse, he was selected to the NBAs All Airport Team.
All Airport?
Never saw the floor but looked great while boarding the team’s chartered plane. Tall, tanned good looking. Couldn’t play a lick but man he looked sweet in a suit with that beautiful Gucci luggage.
Mats Sundin at 37 and dipping divinely to Diva is ranking one or two on my 2008 NHL All Airport Squad.
Looks great in a suit. Signs a mean autograph.
Hey, I like the guy.
But I’m just sayin’.
Reserve the welcome wagon for the dude that can carry the freight.
You know the guy.
Strong worker. Savvy puck handler. Two-way demon. Sure hands. Smart as a whip.
Oh, and I almost forgot.
Got his start right here in Haliburton.
Cody Hodgson.
Hates Nevada, Texas Hold Em and Black Jack.n

Dogpound Karma Bits and Bites

Hot Times in Halcyon
Animal Control in Halcyon Township
Cats and Dogs, Descending Fogs, and How Karma Caught Up With the Dogcatcher
By Terrance Gavan
We are teetering on the fulcrum of a full-blown feral cat controversy here in cottage country.
Animal control is a perennial and ongoing synapse-basting and soul-searing barbershop topic in any small town or rural enclave.
This latest set piece of alley cat sturm and drang reminds me of a time back in Halcyon, Manitoba when the animal control officer for the Rural Municipality (RM) of Reykjavik Adolph Dummkopher took a holiday. He decided to go to Kenya on Safari. I was the reporter of record for the Halcyon Packet and Times. I was in attendance at the RM council meeting one Monday afternoon when Dummkopher reported to council that he would taking a three month leave of absence to go on safari in the hope of killing a big cat. He explained that Reykjavik Council might want to consider hiring a replacement animal control officer to fill in during his absence.
I never liked Adolph. No one in my expansive circle of friends much cared for him either. And not just because he was the local dogcatcher. There was something about him, a swarthiness, a rough edge and a general demeanor that oozed sinister intent. My dog Spunky loved everyone in Halcyon. But he genuinely despised Dummkopher. In fact most dogs and cats around town shied away from Adolph. It was a local joke. Everyone simply surmised that the indigenous pet population knew what he did for a living and had united in solidarity against him. I always thought it went deeper than that. Animals are blessed with a marvelous and incongruous sixth sense and I was convinced that Adolph Dummkopher possessed a dark side. There were the other things too. Like the fact that his wife Mary Dummkopher was often seen sporting large dark glasses on cloudy days or at the Bingo Hall on Thursday nights.
In his one-and-a-half years as animal control officer for the RM of Reykjavik, the local dog and cat shelter had seen very little in the way of trade from the new animal control officer. Every once in a while a stray dog or cat would be found by a resident and taken to the shelter, run by a benign soul named Maggie Thorsson. Maggie was in her 70s and her husband Thorgundur was a retired local vet. In 23 years of running the local shelter the couple had never put a healthy animal down. Maggie was a persuasive and gentle old soul who was as adept as “Fiddler’s” Yente when it came to matchmaking strays with prospective owners. Many isolated widows and umpteen Reykjavik area youngsters had benefited from Maggie’s uncanny knack for matching lonely soul with abandoned pet. I had done several stories on the couple since arriving in Halcyon and Spunky always enjoyed heading out to their rambling old farmhouse and kennels for a Saturday afternoon romp with their 7 dogs and five cats. Maggie once confided to me that Dummkopher had never brought a stray dog or cat to their shelter. “I don’t like that man,” said Maggie, in a quiet moment. Thorgundur, an unusually silent man of Viking descent, with a very dry sense of humor overheard. And he said something that, in hindsight, still sends a chill up my spine today. “Oh, Maggie dear, not to worry, you’ll find that the gods find a way, when it comes to dealing with nasty spirited wee men like our friend Dummkopher.”
Fact remains that there was a perceptible drop in the stray dog and cat population since Dummkopher had assumed his role as animal control and bylaw officer for the RM of Reykjavik and since a lot of small councils dwell on the hard knife’s edge of the bottom line, any monies saved and redirected from the care and adoption of stray pets was seen as a boon. I had heard some rumors about Adolph, but nothing that could be corroborated.
But I was very interested, as a reporter, to see what would shake out in the animal control office after Adolph Dummkopher went to Kenya in search of the King of Beasts. I was naturally pleased when council named affable 30-year-old Gunnar Ericson as the interim by-law and animal control officer. Gunnar was a local sports hero. He lettered in 6 sports at Halcyon Collegiate Institute and pitched for the Reykjavik Wranglers, perennial finalists in the Manitoba Baseball League. He had two beautiful kids and a wife who just happened to be our local town doctor. They met at the University of Manitoba when he was playing for the U of M Bisons hockey team. He was an All Canadian with the Bisons and still spent his winters playing hockey for the Halcyon Cyclones in the Manitoba Senior Men’s Hockey League. His family ran the biggest Elk Farm in Canada. He was in charge of web sales of elk products to China, something he did from his computer at home. He was jovial, bright and well-liked. Best of all, he loved animals.
Asked why he volunteered for the job, Gunnar just winked, smiled and said, “Well, Terry, I just thought I might be able to make a difference … and it gets boring in front of that computer screen.”
Within three weeks of Dummkopher’s departure for Kenya things began to percolate on the stray pet front. All of a sudden, the Thorsson’s animal shelter began to receive an assortment of dogs and cats courtesy of the RM’s interim animal control officer. Maggie was utterly thrilled to be back in the matchmaking business. Thorgundur was donating his spay and neuter services for the new adoptive pets.
Mary Dummkopher filed for divorce, citing three episodes of spousal abuse, and she took the three kids with her to her brother’s home on Saltspring Island.
Gunnar said he had an opportunity to unearth some very unpleasant emails from the hard drive of Adolph Dummkopher’s workplace computer. He handed it over to the RCMP’s special investigations unit. Gunnar let me in on most of the unsavory details.
Turns out that for the better part of a year, Dummkopher had been selling Reykjavik’s stray dogs and cats to an organized dogfighting ring based in Thunder Bay. Dog trainers historically use stray dogs and cats for pre-fight practice, to keep the Pit Bulls “savage.”
I broke the story on the front page of the Packet and Times. At editor Lorne Bjornsson’s request we left out the gorier details. I remember that as soon as I finished writing the piece I felt an overpowering urge to head out to Maggie’s with Spunky.
I drove into the yard. I spotted Gunnar’s Ford pickup. A couple were in the driveway with their two young boys. I watched as Maggie handed a leash attached to the collar of a beautiful golden lab puppy to one of the boys. She handed the other young boy a book on the care and training of puppies, a book especially written for and geared to kids. Thorgundur rushed up with a blanket and a brand new tennis ball.
Maggie whispered conspiratorially to the smiling, wide-eyed boys. “You see Gunnar Ericsson over there? Well, when he found your puppy on the side of the road, he was only a month old, shivering, cold and he was very sick. We took him in and gave him a new start and now it’s up to you two. Make sure he’s loved and he’ll never let you down … promise.”
The family left and then Gunnar called us over.
“Thought you might be interested in this piece of news from the on-line version of the Times in London,” said Ericsson. He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. On it was a news story. The headline fairly jumped from the page. “Canadian Big Game Hunter Mauled By Lions”
It went on to say that a “Canadian dogcatcher, 42-year-old Adolph Dummkopher was killed by two lions, while on safari.” It went on to say that a tracker sent in to reconstruct the scene said that the Dummkopher had apparently been followed by the rogue lions for the better part of two days.
I remembered the chat with Thorgundur and immediately looked over. He smiled, gave a low whistle and then excused himself. “Well, that’s too bad, but not entirely unexpected,” said Thorgundur. “Excuse me, I have some work to do on one of the new kennels before this storm breaks.”
The skies were looming black, the precursor to that beautiful freak of nature, the prairie thunderstorm. I said my goodbyes to Gunnar and Maggie and called Spunky to the truck.
Just before leaving I looked over at old Thorgundur who was preparing to drive a nail into a two-by-four. Over his shoulder a bolt of lightening cackled, snapped and cracked into the ebon prairie sky. The Stanley hammer of Thorgundur came down just as a peel of thunder shook the surrounding fields of alfalfa.
And the Faroe Islander in me felt the shrill thrill of the words spoken just three weeks ago by my friend Thorgundur.
“Oh, Maggie dear, not to worry, you’ll find that the gods find a way, when it comes to dealing with nasty spirited wee men like our friend Dummkopher.”
And I saw at that moment, beautiful Karma, delivered with jarring effect, courtesy of Thor’s large, 28 ounce, steely Stanley hammer.

Basketball with Obama

Basketball this time round
My playground skip with Barack
By Terrance Gavan
My very early years I spent playing hoops on the hardscrabble cement courts in Ottawa’s Sandy Hill, a hoops paradise surrounded by a phalanx of four-storey, red brick walk-ups. Living on Goulbourn Crescent, that’s what you did all summer. Watch the older ‘legends’ hearken Oscar Robertson, Jerry West and Bill Russell, whiling away the springs and summers, spinning, juking and jiving on the haggard courts. And when they left, the young kids, young starry-eyed plunkers like me, got to play, shoot around and otherwise drill tirelessly on 15-foot hanging jumper till dusk drooped drearily into another July day.
On those Sandy Hill courts in the Goulbourn Project, I learned to dribble, to hawk, and I learned the only three plays in basketball. Oh, you will look to those NBA playbooks and call me stupid. You will allude to those well-stretched Xs and insipid Os drawn so lovingly on those newfangled dry erase court replicas and you will tell me there are 10,000 plays in the naked hardwood city.
You would be wrong. There are two commandments, not ten, and there are three plays in Dr. Naismith’s beautifully constructed game. From two absolutes dribble the rest of those 10 amendments to the Golden Rules: Love thy neighbor as thyself; and do unto others as you would have them. And in basketball, the pretty picket fence, Mississippi Quicksand trap, The Kansas Shuffle, the rolling triangle, the 3-2, the 2-3, the 1-3-1 and the transcendentally and multi-layered philosophies pattered in Pat Riley or Phil Jackson playbooks, with the squiggles, droops and gee-gaws, all flow flawlessly, flimsily from the triune Holy Grail of Hoops Law. Three plays. Only three.
Give and go, pick and roll, back door. That’s it folks. Basketball redux. Three and only three. From these three the house of cards is built.
I learned that in Sandy Hill. When I first picked up a ball. When I played my first playground game of three on three. Three on three is the game. I learned that when I was six.
On the Goulbourn Project courts. The macadam was cracked and worn and the lines were wobbled and bleached by a decade of summer sun, burnished to a beige from intended white.
I learned to play there with some guys who later went on to play at Lisgar Collegiate, Ottawa’s perennial basketball power way back in the 60s and 70s. I learned from Paul Armstrong, the Stoqua brothers and from the Love brothers that there are but those three plays, and the rest trickles from there.
I moved away from Sandy Hill in the mid-sixties I moved to Nepean, just a few blocks down from the high school I would attend. St Pius X Preparatory Seminary was its mildly intimidating moniker back when I first attended in 1968. We were an all-boys school back then and in my first year in grade nine I think we had 422 students. A lot of priests lived at the school. We also had boarders, students who lived there five or seven days a week.
My uncle Joe Gavan was the treasurer of the school and another uncle, the irrepressible Rev Donald Francis Gavan was the principal. (I won’t even get into my aunts’ contribution to the mix. Suffice to say that the Gavan family imprimatur on Pius X was indelible and lasting.) I spent most of my waking hours in the old gym. Uncle Joe had a white house on the edge of campus, and halfway through my freshman year, the old gym became my second home. Uncle Joe would come roaring in, seeing the lights on at 10:30 pm, and he had one of those unpredictable Irish tempers. He would peruse the gym and if he saw me, he would frown and then smile. “Make sure you turn the lights out when you leave … before midnight.” Uncle Joe was unpredictable, but I was a favorite. If I didn’t happen to be there, the game would be shut down and uncle Joe would oversee the closure. We played basketball every night from 7 to 10 pm and there were some nights I remember going to midnight. It’s why Pius remained a basketball power back in the 60s and 70s. Unfettered access to the Grail. Two cross-court games going all night long. Pick and roll, back door, give and go. And the credo … no blood no foul.
On the dais of the pickup game, I learned early, that the measure of a man – or a boy – could be ascertained by how he handles the pressure of the game. The knocks, the jarring pick, the knee, the elbow and the quick slap on dribble drive. I learned to mediate mettle on the floor, to get a sense of the measure of a man, in the way he would handle the tempo of the game.
Last summer, I discovered a news piece written by Jodi Kantor of the New York Times. “Sports has been used, correctly or incorrectly, as a personality decoder for presidents and presidential aspirants. So, armchair psychologists and fans of athletic metaphors, take note: Barack Obama is a wily player of pickup basketball, the version of the game with unspoken rules, no referee and lots of elbows. He has been playing since adolescence, on cracked-asphalt playgrounds and at exclusive health clubs, developing a quick offensive style, a left-handed jump shot and relationships that have extended into the political arena.”
That churned some wheels. I wanted to do a piece on Barack, but I knew the interview would be a tough nut to crack.
So instead of the interview request I went with the gyp and flip, dipsy doodle dive.
I wrote an email to the candidate last May and asked him for a game. I told the good Senator that I grew up playing mostly pickup ball, and I challenged him to some one-on-one. I told him I was a sportswriter and I said that if I won, he would promise me an interview in January of 2009, just after the inauguration. (I’m an optimist, what can I say – and I also saw the tide risin’) And, I added, that if I came up on the plus side, I would also get to participate in the first full-fledged game of three-on-three at the newly installed White House basketball court. I told him in the email that building the courts in the White House should be his first redecorating move.
I sent the email under the sportswriter’s motto of last resort. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”
I got a phone call the next day. “Hold for Senator Obama,” said the young male voice on the other end.
“Sure,” I said. I hadn’t told anyone of my hasty decision to write an ill-advised email to Obama, so I figured it was legit.
“Okay, Gav, can I call you Gav,” said the unmistakable voice of the Illinois Senator.
“Of course Senator, if I can call you O?” I replied. I remembered that I had signed the email with my simple “cheers, gav” endline.
We set up a game of one-on-one for the following week, at a high school gym in South Bend, Indiana.
He had a busy day planned. We decided on a quick game to five. Two rather large men in suits hovered close by. We played playground. He gave me first ball. He’s a lefty and I hate playin’ southpaws. My first move was a juke left, roll right, hammer through to the basket, quick flip and reverse finger roll and I’m up.
Scorer keeps ball and I looked in his eyes as he checked ball and fired it back to me. And I saw all I needed to see in those eyes. “Game on, gav … game on.”
On my next drive the good Senator popped a shoulder, placed me on my butt and picked me up. “My bad … your ball.”
I shook my head and flipped him the ball. “Playground rules Senator, no blood no foul.”
He scored the next five. I never saw the ball again. He trash-talked me at 4-1 and then went left to the twine with a short pull-up.
We shook hands. The eyes were smiling once again, the steel was gone.
“You really think I should build a court in the White House?”
“Senator, we’ve had eight years of that baseball bumpkin’s administration, I really think the nation could use a change,” I laughed.
I got a call yesterday.
“Gav?” said the voice on the other end.
“Yes Senator?” I replied.
“The White House court’s on the way, we’ll see you for that game of three-on-three sometime early February.”
“But I lost,” I said. “The deal hinged on me winning.”
“Call it a compromise,” laughed the President elect.
“Okay,” I said. “But, I get Larry Bird and Magic Johnson … think you can pull those strings Mr. President?”
“Look Gav, we just popped Hillary as Secretary of State … after that … Bird and Magic? Piece of cake.”
And for anyone who’s worried about the state of the nation. Or the fact that he may be tested. This good young man. Tested by those forces who may question his resolve.
Rest assured. This man comes from compassion, nurture and compromise, but he’s imbued with that inherent steely reserve. Stuff we saw in Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
How do I know? I saw it in the eyes … on the hardwood.
Intrinsic goodness backed by hard edge. Three plays. Basketball redux. And the measure of the man

Crop Circles In Halcyon

Crop Circles and Close Encounters
Life at the Halcyon Packet and Times
By Terrance Gavan
Halcyon is a village in rural Manitoba.
Nothing much happens in small town Manitoba, unless of course you happen to be working the editorial desk of the Halcyon Packet and Times, known locally as the “P and T”.
I landed on the doorstep of the P and T on a hot July day in 1987 and spent 5 years toiling under the avuncular tutelage of Managing Editor Lorne Bjornson, a “gruff and ready” Icelander who grew up farming and ice fishing just outside of Gimli on Lake Winnipeg.
Lorne left Gimli at 17 back in the 60’s and earned his stripes as a hard-hitting court reporter for the old Winnipeg Tribune before deciding to forego to the bright lights of Winnipeg for the more neutral pace of Manitoba’s Interlake.
He taught me that “fact” in the newspaper business stood for “Fast, Accurate, Concise and True.”
He hated bullshit, but he put up with a lot of mine.
And he used me like a lapdog, calling me on hot story lines at all hours of the day and night. Lorne was a night owl and assumed that all of his reporters were on the same dodgy schedule.
So I wasn’t surprised when the phone jangled me from semi-coma at 5 a.m. on a Saturday morning in August, back in 1987.
“Listen, get out to Thor Peturson’s place, right now… there’s something goin’ on,” said Lorne. The deep rumble and Icelandic angst literally jumped from the receiver as my feet hit the floor.
“What is it Lorne… fire?” I asked, reaching for my camera bag.
“Nope,” said Lorne perfunctorily. “Aliens.”
Lorne was not an aficionado of the practical joke, so I knew that there was a back-story here somewhere.
“Lorne… aliens?” I queried.
“Crop circles… get out to his place pronto, because I want pictures before the Free Press and the Sun get wind of this,” said Lorne. “And give me a call when you get ‘em.”
And then he hung up.
I had time to ruminate while driving out to Thor’s place, about 5 miles out of town.
Thor was a levelheaded, no-nonsense seed farmer who was very involved in local politics and had just retired from a 10-year stint as Reeve of the Municipality of Reykjavik.
I arrived at his place with my dog Spunky trailing behind me. Spunky loved trips out to Thor’s because his dog Maggie was a bright-eyed Golden lab who possessed a Zen mindset that seemed to mesh vividly with Spunky’s precocious take on life.
Thor ushered me quickly to the barn and we hurried up the stairs to the loft. As we moved to the large loft doors I saw it.
Three huge circles in the ripening wheat, joined by three distinct lines. They were, in a word, perfect. Round and straight, like they were cut from a master’s lathe.
Thor was chewing on a twig of straw. “So what do you make of that young feller?”
“Well Thor,” I said, mustering a grin. “I’d say the Sigurdson boys might be capable of this, but I know for a fact that they were still partying at Teddy Sigmundson’s place till 2 this morning. And they were too drunk to make anything this good.”
“It wasn’t a prank, I saw the lights and I heard a whirr… and Maggie has been strange since it happened.”
Maggie was not her regular self. Her ears were on full alert and she was staring intently at the vista laid out on Thor’s home quarter.
Thor and I stood there in the loft for what seemed like 15 minutes, not talking, just taking it all in.
Icelanders are taciturn by nature, but I had never seen Thor this quiet.
I opened the camera bag just as the sun was making its full turn over Gustavson’s silver granaries.
I started snapping shots and didn’t stop until I had shot 3 rolls of black and white and another 24 color shots.
I retired my camera and then pulled out my spiral notebook.
Thor still hadn’t said a word. Maggie was lying down at Thor’s feet, ears still fully alert. Spunky sat beside Maggie and shared what I thought was a peculiar knowing glance. We were all, men and dogs, glued to the wheated canvas before us.
“Look, Terry, I know you need something from me… but I’m not goin’ on record.”
He nodded perfunctorily and I knew, from my years of covering Reykajvik council that I wasn’t going to get anything about the “lights or the whirr” from Thor Peturson on this day. Thor stood 6’4 and weighed about 250 and he carried the edgy persona of displaced Viking on that massive frame. I knew Thor to be gentle, kind and compassionate. But I also knew that he couldn’t be budged on principle.
“I’ll tell you what young Mr. Gavan, let’s just say the lights might have been a pickup and the whirr could have been a large weedeater and we’ll call it done.”
We retired to his kitchen, had some coffee and I phoned Lorne.
We ended up running a huge color photo front page in the next Packet and Times.
The story ran on page two under the headline: Crop Circles – Prank or Close Encounter? There was a minor stir when Ufologist Stanton Friedman paid a visit and there was some talk of some Men in Black from the US snooping around, but that fell to the raw edges of hearsay and small-town paranoia.
Two days later, Thor and Maggie showed up on my doorstep.
I had phoned Thor the night before, because Spunky had been acting a little strange.
He said we’d talk a bit, but not on the phone.
And here he was, with Maggie in tow.
“Now, what do you mean, by strange young Terrance? How has Spunky been acting strange?” whispered Thor, as he followed me to the kitchen.
“Well,” I said, “like he’s been watching television… a lot… and not just when animals are on. He’s particularly fond of the late news on CBC. He’s never sat in front of the TV and just watched before.”
“Hmmm,” said Thor, “and what does he say?”
“Umm.. excuse me Thor… but what does my dog say?” I asked, seeking clarification.
“Yes,” said Thor. “What does he say?”
“Well Thor, let me see… does Maggie talk to you?”
“She does indeed,” said Thor. “Usually she’ll watch the news just like Spunky, then she’ll make a comment… about politics or economics… and no I’m not crazy. She started talking just after the circles appeared.”
And right then I heard it: A deep-throated guffaw, emanating from Spunky who was sitting with a bemused look on his face. And I swear both Spunky and Maggie were laughing.
“Well, we have to be getting back, so we’ll leave you with your delightful pets. Please remember they are without a doubt the best friends both of you will ever share,” said Spunky. The voice was melodic, pleasant and soothing.
“Oh and Thor, remember what I told you,” said Maggie.
And then we heard a huge whirring and a grand light enveloped my backyard.
And then the lights and the whirr were gone.
The dogs went to the window and stared until the strange lights disappeared high in the ether.
And then, Spunky found his old blanket and soon enough they were both playing tug and running roughshod over the furniture as if nothing had happened.
Thor looked at me and said: “I guess I don’t have to tell you that this one… we keep to ourselves.”
Neither Spunky nor Maggie ever again expressed an interest in the nightly news and neither ever uttered another word.
“So what did Maggie want you to remember Thor,” I ventured.
“She told me to… buy Google… whatever the hell that means,” said Thor, chuckling a bit.
About five years ago I managed to track down my old friend Thor… I googled him.
He spends most of his time now on his 500-acre estate in Hawaii.
He runs a rescue mission for pets without homes and harbors injured animals until they can find a safe haven or home.
He has liquid assets of 500 million dollars and spends a lot of his time walking on the beach with a selection of Maggie’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Oh, and he keeps 25 acres of wheat on a patch of land right next to the house.
Just in case.

Tis a week left to Christmas There's a louse in our House

Tis A Week Left to Christmas – And a Blight on our House
Partisan Voices, Much Spittle, Much Grouse
By Terrance Gavan

Tis the week before Christmas, and down at the House,
In the Commons no stirring, a prologue to Faust
The members snuck silent, sickly smiles, laissez faire,
The PM Sussexed snugly, alone with that hair.

The workers are waiting, no jobs and no bread,
And facing this Christmas, less hopeful, with dread.
They’ve been dumped, duped and drained with boat loads of crap,
From a goldbrick’s regime, much trap and much clap.

No rhyme and no reason to Fridge Hair’s black patter
It’s evident now, he’s just mad as a hatter.
And nowhere is found redress from this hash
Most hoping the Tories just thud, boom and crash.

When faced with a verdict, our Harper said no!
The Commons be damned it’s my ball let’s go!
And off to the GG, the Crown’s rightful peer
Harpie ran from the people, that smile hiding sneer.

His obsequious toadies, picayune hicks
Worked bunkered magic from odd satchels of tricks.
And as Sweater emerged to their lickspit refrains
They all fled fairly quick from that Great Hall of Shame.

On Limo, on Bootlick, on Jackal you vixens!
On Cringer, on Mealy, on Minion and Lickens.
Back to the Bunker, and backs to the wall
He showed us how backsliders weather a squall.

And now as we wait, our new Captain Bligh
Sits solid at Sussex, awaiting ally.
Enter Red Michael, that bold ingénue
The Hair dances lithely, a quaint pas de deux.

“Come hither young Mike,” said la Bleu’s feckless Goof
“Don’t waggle that finger,” said Iggy, aloof.
“I’m not the same patsy … I’m not the same clown,
I’m here to say, there’s a new sheriff in town.”

And staring at Sweater, Iggy said, “You’re a schnook,
And from all I can garner, maybe even a crook.”
He laughed and he turned, and then retraced his tracks
“I’d advise you dear sir … to take on a new tack.”

And his eyes, oh they flashed, his visage quite scary
That look caused ol’ Hard Hair to beseech a Hail Mary
Iggy’s stare was alarming, cold as ice floe,
It turned Sweater’s pallor as white as new snow.

The Harvard professor then gritted those teeth,
And with steely stare, drew prose from its sheath
“You sir are nothing but a quaint Machiavelli
But bullies like you often fold like grape jelly.”

“For two year’s you’ve picked on a nice Liberal elf,
I’m warning you now … place those tactics on shelf”
Iggy then winked an eye and it served to embed
Herald Hair with gut feeling of imminent dread.

Iggy spoke not a word but turned with a jerk
Leaving Sweater alone with his feckless young turks
“On Fawner, On Flunky on Sop, and on Brown-nose
Now off to the Bunker, we’ve new dirt to expose.”

And sprang to the limo, Pavlov’s dogs to shrill whistle,
And away they all flew, like muck-seeking missiles.
And I heard jackal refrains as they sped off to incite,
“Bah humbug dear voters, oh … and have a nice night.”

Author’s note: Any aspersions cast in the above were completely intentional. And remember what the Blight Honorable Mr. Harper said following the bleak economic forecast from the World Banks. Implying that there are a lot of deals out there during recessions, Icy Hair reminded all Canadians that: “It’s a good time to buy.”
It may be incumbent upon us all to reassess this squalid, seedy and sordid incumbency.
Oh… and Merry Christmas.

Sump Pump For Christmas

JC Penney is currently running a five minute spot called “Beware of the Doghouse” on You Tube and it’s gone viral.
With close to 2 million hits, the pandemic anti-ad from the fertile, flogging and flagging noggins of Penney’s ad driven scribbling anti-christs reminds men that there are boundaries of taste extant on a wife’s wish, dish and go fish Christmas list.
The ad begins with a man being led to a large doghouse after his spouse opens - to much fanfare, shudder, shock and awe – a gaily-wrapped vacuum cleaner as an anniversary gift. He is led to a paint-peeled and forlorn doghouse in the middle of a barren field.
Here we find that the spooky canine abode, like Dr Who’s multi-dimensioned call box, is actually a portal to parallel planet. Wifey pushes hubby inside. He drops blithe and blank from doghouse door into tunnel and lands unceremoniously on a large bundle of laundry. The baying of hounds is heard rebounding off cement-bunkered walls. He falls from grimy grace into an Abu Graib-like dungeon where other men of mute-gender are fluffing, folding and filing a seeming endless array of clothes.
We are then treated to a corresponding – and ironically redundant - laundry list of flashbacks from his similarly banished junkyard mates. Men of poor taste and presumably low morals. Men guilty of major crimes and misdemeanors. In one poignant flashback, a man reminisces about his crank with doghouse destiny. In the video reenactment he is depicted pulling a cookie from his wife’s mouth and with a jaunty Merry Christmas hands her “The Gift.” She opens the jauntily wrapped package only to discover – shriek, shudder and shiver - a thigh master. Another man admits to giving his wife 100 gigs of Ram for her laptop, attached to a card that said simply “Happy Birthday. Thanks for the memory.”
There’s more, but you get the idea. JC Penney is really flogging a “diamonds as a girl’s best friend” thematic guide to gifting. There is a premise here that these men are caricatures. Surely men, galvanized by years of Gloria Steinham and Germaine Greer know better. As with all satire, the JC Penney ad is funny because it harbors, close to the rocky reef of its textured nuance that spark of truth, that soupcon of reality.
It brought me back to my days at the Halcyon Packet and Times and a colleague and news reporter Shallay Murphy-Ericsson, who was married to a local seed farmer Sondur Ericsson. Shallay and Sondur had two kids, and I always thought the two were pretty happy.
Shallay had come late to writing. She approached our editor Lorne Bjornson two years into my tenure as sports editor and feature writer for the Manitoba publication and applied for a vacant reporters position. She was 36, had a background in agriculture, a BA in fine arts, was well-read and – added bonus for Lorne who was always looking for an edge on local council affairs – her father-in-law Bergthor Ericsson was a 20-year veteran councilor for the Rural Municipality of Reykjavik. Bergthor and Sondur were staunch pragmatists with a Puritan work ethic.
Shallay was brought up Irish Catholic and she danced through life with a gypsy’s soul.
It was three weeks before Christmas back in 1991.
Shallay sashayed into the Packet and Times.
“It’s arrived,” she said, matter of factly.
“What’s arrived?” I asked.
“My Christmas gift, wrapped and under the tree, and it’s huge,” said Shallay, the hint of a sardonic smile slowly shading that lively and pixied visage.
“Wow, it’s early,” I said. “Is Sondur always this efficient?”
“Efficient, hmmm that’s a good word … and yes, it will probably, considering historical data, and my seven year legacy of thoughtful and well-planned gift-getting, be quite efficient,” said Shallay, eyes suddenly lit by what I can only assume was a quick synaptic burst of reticent recollections.
“What do you think it is?” I asked, intrigued by that little twinkle in her always bright eyes.
“Well, I picked it up and it weighs about 50 pounds and when you shake it, it rattles,” laughed Shallay. “And to answer your question, I have no idea what it is. I know it’s not a bracelet, or a watch, or a comforter. Efficient! Hah, Terrance, good word, you should be a writer.”
And then she danced away. “I’ve got School Board meeting to cover.”
I thought no more about it until she popped into my house with her two kids, Paddy and Seamus on Christmas Day. She brought some Christmas Pudding and I gave the boys their gifts, matching hockey helmets, CSA approved.
I remembered the meeting three weeks hence. “So what was it?” I asked excitedly.
“What was what?” asked Shallay, who seemed just a little disconnected.
“The fifty pound package that rattled,” I said.
“Oh that, yes I almost forgot that I told you,” said Shallay suddenly enveloped by laughter.
“I got a sump pump, a Wellpoint 8.5 horsepower model with a 5 year parts and labor warranty,” she said, the eyes darting suddenly heavenward.
“No really, what did you get? Really,” I asked.
“Really. A sump pump,” said Shallay, and the eyes were now somehow not so bright. “It’s blue, my favorite color, and it is, hmm, quite efficient.”
I’ve never been tagged as an overly sensitive guy and I have been known to leave gift-hunting to the final 83 minute Christmas Eve dash, dive, and dodgy dukes’ up dangle, but I was pretty mortified. Geezuz, a sump pump. I almost blurted “I’m so sorry” but thought better of it. I just smiled wanly.
And then she laughed. “Look what are you doing on January 15th? Because, Paddy Seamus and I are moving into a little farmhouse on the Sunderson Line just outside of town and we’re going to need some help moving.”
I nodded, color draining from my face. “Hey Mr Efficient, don’t look so crestfallen, have you checked the Canadian marriage survival stats lately? It’ll be fun … Lorne is going to be there and he’s promised to bring the Pizza.”
The 15th was a Saturday and we had 5 staff from the paper and I had recruited my cousin’s three ton truck.
It had snowed a prairie pile the night before and there was a huge drift blocking the entrance to the 35 yard driveway to the small bungalow. “We’d better call Leif Redson and tell him to get his plow out here.”
Shallay was on it. “Nope, no problem,” she said, pointing to her pickup truck.
“Lorne, under the tarp, my Second Anniversary present from Sondur, a 15 horsepower, 18-inch sweep John Deere snowblower … Terrance you do the honors, I think you’ find it ‘quite efficient,’ ” laughed Shallay, blue eyes sparking.
The drift cleared in record time, we made it halfway up the wooded drive only to find our path blocked by a wind-toppled oak.
“Aha,” laughed Shallay. She hopped into the back of the three-ton and came out brandishing a shiny 1.9 horse, 16 inch bar Stihl chainsaw. “Christmas 1989, but it didn’t come in blue,” laughed Shallay, warming to the accumulating tasks. “Terrance, will you do the honors?”
Inside Shallay moved with precision. “We’ll need to hang these pictures and assemble these shelves,” said Shallay. And from out of a box appeared as if by magic a brand new 18-Volt, dual battery Makita drill and reciprocating saw set.
“Luckily, Makita already comes in blue” chuckled Shallay. “Oh yeah … birthday gift, 1990,” chuckled Shallay.
“Wait, before you hang that shelf, use this stud-finder … stocking stuffer Christmas 1988,” said Shallay, flipping the gizmo to Lorne who was wielding a huge 18 ounce Stanley hammer. “Love this hammer Shallay,” said Lorne.
“Fifth anniversary gift, it’s a beaut’ ain’t it?” shouted Shallay.
“One last thing guys, anyone know anything about plumbing?” asked Shalay and all eyes swivelled to my cousin Thor Gudmundson, who ran “Gudmundson’s Sink or Swim Plumbing” in Halcyon.
“It’s just that the sump pump is on its last legs and I figured what the hell,” said Shallay.
Thor had “Christmas 1991” a bright blue Wellpoint 8.5 horsepower model sump pump - with the 5 year parts and labor warranty – installed and running in 45 minutes flat.
We sat down before a roaring fire, logs split courtesy of a beautiful Woodsmen Model 911 limbing axe. “Ah, that axe?” said Shallay. “Hmmm, oh yes, 4th Anniversary, came with a blue leather cover.”
The boys were playing ball hockey in the driveway. Lorne and I had just finished installing the Sears 2.1 horsepower garage door opener and it worked like a charm. “Christmas 1987,” said Shallay.
As things were winding down and people were getting ready to leave Shallay turned to my cousin.
“Oh Thor, you might want to stop by Sondur’s on the way home,” she said, smiling slightly.
“Only, just before we left with the final load, I noticed about 3 inches of water on the basement floor and I think that maybe that old sump pump has finally given up the ghost.”
The room suddenly erupted.
Lorne Bjornson couldn’t contain himself.
“You might consider stopping at the shop and picking up a pump … might I suggest a Wellpoint 8.5 horsepower, with the 5 year parts and labor.”
The room was suddenly filled with gales of laughter. I knew then that Shallay and the boys would be just fine.
I got a Christmas card from Shallay about 5 years ago. She remarried and is writing for a small paper just outside of Victoria BC.
In the card was a picture of a beautiful gold locket that opened to a picture of her two boys Paddy and Seamus.
The card said only. “Merry Christmas Terrance. By the way … like the locket? A gift for my first anniversary. Not very efficient, but it’ll do.”
And as I hung the card on my mantle I remembered the smile.
Oh, and I looked under tree and made a mental note to return the five Handy Happy Handless Ergonomic Snow Shovels with wheels that I had recently and efficiently purchased for various members of my family.
My bad. And thank you JC Penney for that gentle noggin nudge and burp back to bumpy earth.