The 2030 NHL Expansion

Sean (and many others) were quite happy about the latest Edmonton Oilers win in the current NHL Stanley Cup playoffs. During a text discussion, the Florida Panthers were misnamed the Florida Planters. I jumped on the typo, saying that Atlanta should have a team called the Georgia Planters. Sean responded with some AI-generated art, including an adorable mascot (above) and a couple of jersey designs: 

Inspired, I turned to Bing Image Generator and asked it to create some jerseys for hypothetical future teams. Sports fans, please welcome

The Saskatchewan Saskatoons! 

The Halifax Schooners!

The Tijuana Fiesta! 

And the Reykjavík Vikings! 

Lego Advent Calendar Haiku 2021 Day 5

Old Harry Potter
A solitary birthday 
Lunch and cake for one
 

Slow Death Overtime

Sean and I had a brief text conversation today about, of all things, hockey, or more specifically, the amount of points needed for a team to make the playoffs. I wondered, idly, the minimum possible number of points a team would need to get into the playoffs, assuming that many many teams had a terrible year so the threshold would be lower. I had thought that a lot of tie games might help lower the point threshold, but Sean informed me that there are never ties in NHL games now, no matter how long they have to play.

That put an exciting notion in my head: theoretically, assuming that the goalies play exceptionally well or the...puck-shooters play exceptionally poorly, a game could go on forever. You could end up with a situations where the players, after, say, two or three days of constant playing, drop from exhaustion, one by one. Ideally, the two goalies would be the last to drop, preferably at the same time, so that no victor could be counted. Would the NHL declare a tie in that case? Would they change the rules mid-play out of mercy for the players?

According to Sean, the longest game recorded went six extra periods, back in 1933. "People likely barfed," he remarks. 

My First NHL Game

Thanks to the generosity of my employer, I was able to enjoy (in my own particular manner) my first ever NHL hockey game. I'm not a sports fan, but I was certainly impressed by the spectacle of (taxpayer-subsidized) Rogers Place and all the high-tech tomfoolery that surrounds the hockey game itself. The scoreboard hanging over the ice is massive, with utterly spectacular resolution; I marvelled at it the whole game. Technicians can project whatever they want onto the ice, such as the team logos seen in this image. During the game I suggested to Sean that a clever coach would project additional hockey pucks onto the ice to confuse enemy players. I'd laugh and laugh!

Seeing a game live has not transformed me into a hockey fan, and as ever I feel sad that I can't share the heightened emotions of the real fans as they watch. As with my apathy toward children and pets, I seem to be lacking certain common human instincts. Instead, I find myself analyzing the non-stop assault on the senses that occurs during the game; except when the players are actually playing, music blares from all sides, animation lights up the rink and the electronic billboards circling the stands, and propaganda films play on the scoreboard. Indeed, the hidden ringmaster exhorts the crowd to "GET LOUD" at various points during the game, and the crowds dutifully agree. I was reminded yet again how easy it is to manipulate crowds with words, images and sounds. We are so easily programmed, and I'm certainly not excepting myself; I just respond to different programming languages.

Part of me realizes this is all (relatively) harmless fun, but another part of me sees in this kind of event a more refined version of the old gladiatorial arena. I guess you can call this progress, though, as no one dies and the violence is punished rather than rewarded (textually; the subtext is something else again).

I'd never willingly pay to see a hockey game, but I'm glad I had the opportunity to see one simply so that I can better understand what moves other people.

Lego Advent Calendar Haiku 2016 Day 8

His skates carving ice
Rebel forward on target
First shot is away

My Plan to Win the Stanley Cup

While I'm barely conscious of hockey, my brother and many of my friends are fans so I can't help but absorb some hockey knowledge through cultural osmosis. According to my brother, Edmonton has had a terrible hockey team for years. So a few weeks back I asked him if I would make a better general manager than the person doing the job now.

Sean eventually said no, but he had to take a long pause to consider it.

Were I to become the Oilers' leader, I would enact my simple plan to win all games: I would hire the hugest, fattest goalie ever, a person so gigantic that their entire body would cover the whole net. This way opposing teams could never score.

I have no idea why this idea hasn't been tried by some team in the past, but I'm certain if the Oilers hired me and allowed me free reign I could bring home the championship. 

A Rink of Our Own

Today I dressed for work, entered the garage and hit the button to open the door. The door didn't move. I went outside to discover that our driveway pad is a three-inch-thick sheet of glassy ice, suitable for Olympic hockey.

Not only can I not get the car out of the garage, our fridge has broken down, meaning our food supply is rapidly spoiling. Someone please call International Rescue. 

My Meeting with Wayne

During the summer of 1988, I worked as a waiter at Mr. John's, a no-longer-extant truck stop on Ellerslie Road. The restaurant was connected to a convenience store/gas bar, and I would occasionally work shifts at the counter rather than serve tables in the restaurant.

During one such shift, a lanky, scruffy-looking guy a little older than me approached the counter with a few bags of Old Dutch chips and asked me if we had any dip. For some reason my mind drew a blank and I pointed out the nacho dips, which aren't exactly well-suited for plain chips. The man looked a little annoyed, but shrugged and said "That's okay." He paid cash. I don't think we stocked conventional chip dip anyway, so I shrugged and stuffed the bills into the till, handed the man his change, and watched him walk out the door.

When I returned my gaze to the store, I saw to my surprise that the place was suddenly crammed full of people, customers and staff alike, appearing like wraiths from behind the shelves to goggle at me. Apparently they'd been watching this common exchange as if it were some kind of special event.

"Do you know who that was?" one of my coworkers asked, his voice pitched about three octaves higher than normal. "That was Wayne Gretzky!"

"Wayne Gretzky eats potato chips? With dip?" It seemed counterintuitive, but I quickly reasoned that playing hockey must burn a ton of calories. In any event, I hadn't recognized the Oilers hockey star, then at the height of his powers.

Nonetheless, I was the toast of the staff for the whole shift. I only regret that my apathy about sports prevented me from participating in the excitement with more sincerity. I felt bad, and still do, that something that meant so much to everyone else meant nothing to me. If you're not a sports fan, you sit pretty far away from mainstream society. Usually I'm fine with that, but on that day I felt like I was letting my team down...sports metaphor intended.