How do you get to here?

In a hockey mad city how do you get anything done?  How many projects have been delayed?  How many sick days taken?  I know I've been having trouble getting anything finished.  How many people are walking around in a daze that includes a mirage with a palm tree, a pond and a Stanley Cup (and maybe Don Cherry)? 

Forty years is a long time.  My brother just had his 40th birthday and it made me realize how long I have been a Canucks fan.  He has never not been one.

You see, when I was young, we lived in a small resource town in British Columbia.  The kind of town where there was little grey and most everything was black or white.  Watching hockey, loving hockey, it was what the men and boys did .  And my dad loved hockey.

I cannot remember a time from my childhood when we didn't watch hockey.  If it was on TV, we watched it.  If it was on the radio, we listened to it.  And if it was on both, my dad did both.  And it was the kind of household where you didn't try and have a conversation during the game.  Nope.  Total concentration was required.  Meals had to be served and eaten during period breaks.  In many ways it was a worshiping of a Canadian ritual.

I remember the Canucks first run at the Cup in 1982.  I lived at home then.  The BIG TV was downstairs in the family room.  My dad always sat near the radio and the rest of us took whatever seating we coveted.  We had a green striped sofa made with that nubbley cloth you find in bedspreads from the 80s.  Square armrests, square cushions.  Kind of like the modern look you get now but more comfortable.  That was my favoured seat.  During the playoffs all of us had caught my dad's obsession so we were all down there.  Do you remember the players from then?  Harold Snepts, Richard Brodeur, Darcy Rota, Tiger Williams, Thomas Gradin and Stan Smyl.  I remember the smell of the wood stove (the playoffs must not have been in June then:) and my mother's cooking.  None of us were helping her but she was happy watching all of us doing something so intently together.  I remember the Canucks scoring a goal that they desperately needed (the do everything the hard way is not a new theme for this beloved team) and we screamed so loudly and jumped so high that I fell off the couch quite unceremoniously.  But I was happy.  I didn't understand the game very well and couldn't have quoted you any stats but I did love watching the game and I especially loved being together and happy.

I've been watching the playoffs and especially this round.  Sometimes with friends and family and sometimes alone.  And the other day I was sitting during a period break or maybe a commercial and I reached for the phone to call my Dad.  I wanted to share with him the excruciating excitement and hype of the game and toss in a few players names for good measure.  I didn't dial, of course but that wanting made me realize how much I still miss him. 

He would have loved this. 

He deserved to see his team in the finals, in game 7.

It is amazing that a teenager could come from a small village in India and help mold his three children into the devout Canucks fans they are today.

Wherever you are Dad, I hope you're watching on a 52" screen. 

Go Canucks Go.