H - E - Double-Hockey-Stick (and a Handbasket)

Hockey, much like MxPx, is slowly going the way of the buffalo. I for one don't weep. As a portly young lad, I learned quickly that ice is a fickle mistress and something to be avoided at all costs. Though I did, for a time, feel a certain affinity toward Zambonis, as I thought they were a kind of Italian pastry.

But that, I suppose, is besides the point.

For those of you who worry about this kind of thing, and I have serious doubts that our readership includes many of you, I'll offer a suggestion or two about the prospects for filling those modestly-sized skates.

If our aim is to stick as closely to the spirit of hockey as possible, then it seems to me we ought to replace it with a sport I've tentatively called "kicking-the-shit-out-of-mulleted-Canadians". Its rules, I take it, are self-explanatory. Its potential, enormous. It'd no doubt be the biggest thing in Yank-on-Canuck action since the Aroostock War.

Alas, our legal department tells us that's not the way to go. So what else? Well, I care a great deal for backgammon. Unfortunately the WBA would murder us on the television-rights. But speaking of games which don't require a speck of athletic ability, what about poker? Seems nowadays every teenaged prick with a piggy bank and the rough capacity for abstract thought fancies himself a cardshark (here's where I tell you I was so ahead of the curve on this whole poker thing: I was so ahead of the curve on this whole poker thing).

Now, I happen to get a kick out of watching the ESPN coverage of the World Series, and apparently, so does every asshole with a remote control and optical nerves. The good news is these same kids pay me off when I'm at the casino, cuz they get it into their heads that they ought to try everything they see on TV (these are the same fuck-o's who shave each others asses and skateboard of their roofs; think "Jackass" without the production values). Now I'm not saying I'm a great player, but I respect the game enough to know my role, unlike every assclown with a dollar and a modicum of hand-eye coordination. I was at a low-limit hold-em table the other day and I'll be a tipsy-showgirl if there wasn't some little shit with a "NO LIMIT TEXAS HOLD-EM" t-shirt on. Now, I've seen a lot of great ball players at Yankee Stadium, and wouldn't you know it that not a ONE of them wore a shirt that said "PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL" on it. Anyway, bottom line is that the bubble has got to burst on the poker fad. Its only a matter of time before every fuckface with a pair of 3s and an opposable thumb gets tired of subsidizing the careers of middle-of-the-road players like myself. And once they realize they can't DO it, I'm thinking their interest in WATCHING it will wane.

Here in the Her Majesty's United Kingdom, they've got cricket. But let's get back to our discussion of sports. We've got to keep our audience in mind: what would satiate the hockey fan's puck-cravings in the absence of his fix? What's essential to hockey's hockeyness? Is it the rule structure? Dubious. Nary a Bruins fan will make the trek to his local middle school field hockey match to watch the girls duke it out in plaid, and any one who DOES is probably required by state law to inform you of certain things. Is it the ice, then? Unlikely. Few Philiadelphia Flyers fanatics shed a tear when Michelle Kwan took her last figure eight around the rink. But, come to think of it, they all probably got their rocks off watching the Tanya Harding take a lead pipe to the Kerigan's kneecap. Which brings me back to my original point: Hockey is about hurting people, preferably uneducated foreigners.

And thanks to Adam Smith and the Amazing Technicolor (R) Free Market, we've already got a substitute good which offers just as much xenophobic sadism, one that's waiting to sweep in and pick up the hockey fans once the NHL finally folds:

War.

That's right, I'm talking America's passtime. No, no. Not the Bud Selig one, the Donny Rumsfeld one. Hell, as far as I'm concerned, peace is what made sport necessary. Don't try to deny it--you know the pessimistic anthropologist in you agrees with me. But there's certainly no shortage of the stuff these days, so who needs hockey? I challenge the NHL to produce something as awe-inspiring and entertaining as the M1A2 Abrams tank, with its smoothbore kinetic shitstorm of a main gun. Step right up and get your tickets, war's got everything you could possibly ask for in a sport: high stakes, favorites and underdogs, zealous fans, controversey, live broadcasts, no slaughter rule.

Pfft. And you voted for Kerry?