Apparently, there's some hockey-crazy fans up here in Canada. This has been really cool, being in a place where a sport other than American football is being followed with more zeal than I've ever seen, even American football. Calgary isn't a huge town, but 1 in 4 (my best guess) has a Calgary Flames flag fluttering from a car window. I began counting how many I could see, and quit at 343 because I realized that I was compromising my own and others' safety by my little OCD exercise. And since I'm not educated toward the quality of life afforded to US citizens in the Canadian Penal System, I thought it best to return to the driver's top priority, that being staying on the road.
I intended to go catch Troy, but the Cochrane movie theater showing this film had modified its daily agenda to instead give a free screening of the Flames/Tampa Bay Lightning NHL Stanley Cup Finals game 2.
So I drove to Calgary and had dinner. This was the rowdiest Red Lobster to which I had ever given patronage. Wait staff covered in red shirts with silk-screened Cs all afire. Everyone wanted a bar seat. I was actually seated next to the bar, with a clear line of sight to one of the many televisions tuned in to CBC, the Canadian channel airing the game. The fellow across from me didn't seem to want to discuss with me whether or Fantasia or Diana had won American Idol. I thought surely that would have been the talk of the day.
I was wrong.
I was trying to eavesdrop on the wait staff congregated beneath and in front of the televisions, but there was too much background noise. I needed my bride's super-powered sensitive "overhearing" hearing. Just remember that the next time you want to gossip around us. She's got hearing that Lassie would be jealous of, and a low tolerance for gossip. If she hears it, she'll nail you! Or else she'll tell me and I'll nail you!
But I digress.
There was a sniggering going on during the anthems, something about the gal singing both of them. I had somewhat expected the crowd to stand up and put their hand on their hearts, or whatever is the Canadian equivalent is to the American salute, given the international flavor of the battle. But no one did. I momentarily considered demonstrating my patriotism, but decided the Calgary Red Lobster would not be my Little Big Horn.
Tampa Bay scored the first goal and the crowd erupted into a grumpy roar. Not just a little cussing filled the air. Behind me, I heard a senior man say to his agitated blue-haired spouse, "Now, Mother, if you can't be nice, I'm going to make you wait out in the car."
I'm serious.
I decided this would be a good time to slip out of the potentially hostile seafood dinery. I asked for directions to a nearby movie theater. The waitress looked at me oddly (the way a dog cocks its head in confusion when you ask it if its ready to go be neutered) and in an epiphany, said, "Oh, you mean a cinema! You must be an American!"
I panicked. I envisioned a scene where I would be hung in effigy from the giant claw of the Red Lobster wearing a hand-drawn Tampa Bay sweater, free for the potshots of the angry Canadian mob. I considered faking a cardiac episode to confuse the crowd with sympathy that might allow me to escape. Instead, I just in a very overtly demonstrative manner, tipped her a very generous gratuity.
"God save the Queen!"
And before I knew it, I was secreted out the front door to safety.
I found the cinema, which was across from Chapters, the Canuck equivalent to Barnes and Nobles, adjacent to the Canadian twin to Home Depot, which was called Ronya or Rovan or something like that. I'll never understand the metric system.
I opted to watch Van Helsing. I stood behind two Canadian lasses, either of which could undoubtedly take me out if we had ever come to fisticuffs. My Canadian trip was made complete when I heard the one on the left actually say to the one on the right:
Yes! I hadn't heard of the conversational "eh?" since Bob & Doug McKenzie in Strange Brew back in my teenage years. The only way it could have been better was if one of them was holding an Elsinore and the other replied with "shut up, hoser."
The attendance was pretty sparse given the attention to the hockey match. I would give the movie a C+, but that's using the Canadian rating systme. Please don't ask me the exchange rate for this rating for all of you reading this in America because I'm not sure if I just rated it as the best or worst movie of all time. I will however give a 5 star rating (3.5 US stars) to the guy in front of me on the way out of the movie, explaining to his date, a gal wearing a Triple XL Flames sweater (she wore it snugly, fyi), how Van Helsing was representative of his Calgary hockey squad and how the monsters were allegorical to the fight ahead of them against the Bolts.
On the way back to Cochrane, I heard the final.
Bolts 4, Flames 1.
Just because I immediately practiced saying, "bummer of a loss, eh?" over and over doesn't make me a coward.
But I am glad I'm heading south before Game 3 commences in Calgary on Saturday.
This place will be knock-out crazy...no matter how you translate it.
May 28, 2004 8:12 AM