*waves hello*

I'm so grateful that Erin's agreed to share her blog space with me, as I realized about the time that training camps got started that I would desperately miss having a writing home this season. Erin says all sorts of nice things in her introductory post below, but I won't guarantee that all of them are true; you can decide for yourself whether she was lying about my being awesome, knowing a lot about hockey, or being a fantastic writer. She is telling the truth about my home — I am Canadian and I do live in Vancouver, but don't ever mistake me for a Canucks fan. Ever ever. Ever. In fact, I'm currently scheming on a colour change for the blog; red, I think, would be better than blue... ;)

You can probably expect a bit of everything from me this season. I have a tendency to wax poetic about the game in a sort of ridiculous, patriotic way. And I swear sometimes — and this season, I suspect, especially — that I hate hockey as much as I love it, so I'll probably rant. My family figures prominently into my hockey fandom, as do the nasty Canucks fans by which I am constantly surrounded. Also, this year, I vow to be sillier, because being a serious Flames fan this season might just send me into a depression.

Which brings me to the actual point of this post. As Erin mentioned, I was off celebrating Thanksgiving last weekend, which in my family means closing up the summer cabin for the year. And while we are totally off-the-grid, and thus deprived of watching the NHL's opening weekend, we still talked hockey. My brothers and I were in the middle of a spirited discussion about Luongo when my four-year old niece tapped me on the arm. "Excuse me, Auntie Sarah. Why are you talking about Rapunzel?" It took a minute for all of us to catch up, and then we exploded into laughter (thus embarrassing and upsetting her, and resulting in me apologizing for saying Rapunzel when that's not what I really meant).

A little easier on the
grease, maybe?

But I think Hailey's got a point. Rapunzel and Luongo both have long hair that, frankly, could use a good stylist. They are both maligned and manipulated — Rapunzel by her enchantress/step-mother and Luongo by the media and fans here in Vancity. Both are burdened "unfairly,"  Lu by his ridiculous contract and Rapunzel by her magic hair. And, perhaps most importantly, neither seem to be particularly likeable as people (not that I know either of them, and don't tell Hailey that; she loves Rapunzel). That's enough evidence for me. 

(Erin, bet you want to take back that stuff about fun(ny) and educational about now, eh? ;D)

Flames at the Leafs on HNIC tonight. My Brother the Leafs Fan (known henceforth at MBtLF) texted me this morning predicting 4-3 Leafs in a shootout. And while I do think the Flames can win, it's a sign that your team has gotten really bad when a game against the Leafs could easily go either way *sigh*