New Hockey Night in Canada Theme!

It’s Thanksgiving in Canada and Columbus Day in the States and it’s fitting that North American markets are closed today, as due to the financial meltdown there’s been increasingly less to be thankful for anyway, unless you count your health.

Thanksgiving stateside is a big thank you to major networks for airing continuous football coverage to ease the tensions of family get togethers (Canadians enjoy the south of the border holiday in their own way by delaying their return to the office from the pub by an extra hour to make sure their team covered the spread) while Turkey Day up here isn’t nearly that big a deal but roughly coincides with the start of hockey season.

Growing up, hockey competed with WWF wrestling, sharks and dinosaurs for our attention and one of us was taught how to skate by a dad who’d grown up in Southern Italy and had never seen snow [Editor's note: to this day skating backwards remains elusive, however for a large number of skaters, it is as well and doesn't detract from one's ability to enjoy the game, just one's ability to properly play it. Editor's note, II: For those interested in dinosaurs, check out Sarah Palin's Yabba Dabba Science here]

During those formative years, a favorite of ours was Dale Hunter, who made up for various deficits in skill by being one of the dirtiest, filthiest players ever to have laced up the blades in the NHL and who delivered one of the cheapest shots the game has ever seen when he blasted a player face-first into the boards after the guy had scored a goal [To give you an idea of how dirty he was, when the Washington Capitals retired his number, Hunter was actually presented with a commemorative penalty box]. He gave hope to all of us who were untalented, under 5′10, who used their stick like a samurai sword and who took inspiration from the movie Slap Shot (R.I.P. Mr Paul Newman)

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