Puck that

I've recently become obsessed with NHL hockey. I think it's started when my friend Kirsi, who came to see us for a few days this summer, and I went to see the Hurricanes' last playoff game vs. the Penguins. We went because she is Finnish, she loves hockey, and there are several Finns that play for them. Anyway....

It was a terrible game, a nightmare. A horrible beating that you can't divert your eyes from (my blog, my grammatical rules). But I LOVED it, had a BLAST. The sounds of the stick on the puck, the sound of bodies slamming against the boards, the smell of the ice (yes, ice does have a smell, at least hockey arena ice does!), the fast pace of the game, the grittiness, the feel that it's a working-man's game...I loved it all. Even the fights, pacifist that I am. (Knowing that these guys get paid an insane amount of money helps me not feel too sorry for them.) It is all so intriguing....and I somehow can't get enough of it.

Recently we cancelled several channels from our satellite service, and I didn't realize that among the channels we cancelled were the Fox Sports channels, which is where we get our hockey...check that, where I get MY hockey from. So, that result in a lightning-fast subscription to NHL Gamecenter, which allows me to watch any game I want on my laptop. Any game from this year or from their archive, I can watch multiple games at once, or I do a picture-in-picture dealio. Pretty sweet for $20 a month.

Other than the Canes, I have no particular team that I root for. I just watch 'em all to get a feel for rules (I am still learning) and I like seeing what the Canes have to look forward to, depending on who's playing, of course.

My husband thinks hockey is stupid but I don't care for two reasons: 1) I think he'd like it if I could just get him to see that it's essentially soccer on ice; and 2) he likes and does so much for which he doesn't ask my approval, it just seems fair. So far the Canes are off to a pretty sucky season but I'm used to that. I'm a Cubs fan.

So between the NHL and Heels basketball, this fall/winter oughta be pretty sweet.