(Road) Hockey Night in Canada

Hello Canada and Hockey Fans from United States and Newfoundland, it's Hockey Night in Canada...

Okay, actually it's road hockey afternoon in Toronto with the Go Girls. But I trust you will still be interested. After all, what could be more fun than chicks with sticks in the 'hood?

A bit of background to RHAT (Road Hockey Afternoon in Toronto...RHAT, pronounced like 'rat'): the Go Girls is a wonderfully eclectic and diverse group of individuals. Our club includes not just Canadians, but Brazilians and Americans, as well. As good citizens, we Canadians in the Go Girls felt that it was incumbent upon us to share with the foreigners an important part of Canadian culture: hockey. But since most of the Go Girls cannot skate, we determined that we would share the very next best thing to hockey: road hockey.

As it turns out, most of the Go Girls had never actually played road hockey, even the Canadians!! I (Theresa) was utterly shocked that my fellow Canadian Go Girls had been deprived of the experience of playing the good ol' road hockey game. I have played a lot of road hockey in my young(ish) life, including a four year stint playing in the St. Hilda's Road Hockey League at U. of T., where I played for 9T6's Alfresco with an Attitude. I must add that Alfresco was the reigning champion in the League. 9T6!!! But I digress. Back to RHAT...

We assembled on a Sunday afternoon on a vacant parking lot near Nana "the token Yank" Brown's house. After we (a) kicked around a soccer ball for a while (where there are Brazilians, there are soccer balls); (b) cut down and taped up sticks; and (c) carefully measured out goal posts, we assembled in the centre of the lot to make teams. At this point, I explained how road hockey teams are made:

Step one: everyone throw your sticks in the middle. Seriously, it's okay. Just put down your sticks. C'mon...throw 'em in the pile! (It took a bit of convincing to get some of the Go Girls to put down their new hockey sticks.)

Step Two: Someone (Joanna) has to close her eyes and mix up the sticks. Don't worry, we won't tickle you. Seriously. Hey! Stop tickling her! She has an important job to do!

Step Three: Keep your eyes closed and separate the sticks into two separate piles...

Step Four: Two piles of sticks = two teams. Go find your stick and your team. And so our teams were made.

Team WICK: Mariana, T (me) & Joanna:

FYI, "Wick" refers to Wickenheiser. What? What's a Wickenheiser? Oh, dear...we have so much work to do with you...

Team EXPERIENCE: Nana (in yellow jacket), Jacquie (in red), and Olga (in grey, to the right of Jacquie):

Why Team "Experience"? Uh, well...some of us (you) have had ample life experience and, uh, well, hey, isn't that Hayley Wickenheiser over there?! Let's play ball!

Once our teams were made, I proceeded to explain the traditional way of starting shiney and road hockey games: the "three stick crosses face-off". You start like this, in a traditional face-off position, with the ball between the players from each team:

See that orange thing between the stick blades? Yes, that's the ball.

Next, the players cross their sticks and then touch the sticks back to the ground again, like this:

Cross those sticks!

And back to the ground again. Hey! No laughing!

We do the "stick cross" three times and then it's GAME ON!

Alternatively, it's stand around and look cool time...

...or it's "turtle T time"...

Explanatory note: "turtling" another player means pulling her jersey over her head so she cannot see in order to enhance the ability to pound the turtled player in the tummy (but mercifully, Jacquie did not beat me up).

...or, for something entirely different, it's Rock Band Time:

After a rousing rock 'n' roll introduction, the Band moved to a wonderful rendition of Stompin' Tom Connor's classic, "The Good Ol' Hockey Game".

The band closed with an operatic flourish, singing O Fortuna from Carmen. They said that the song reflected the gravity of RHAT that fateful afternoon...

Of course, we also did play some road hockey. There was much laughter, screaming, body checking, and goal scoring. Well, I should qualify the comment about goal scoring: Team Wick did quite a bit of goal scoring (13 goals, not that we were counting), while Team Experience mostly got in the way. Team Experience scored 3 goals, not that anyone was counting. The final score was 13-3 for Team Wick. But we weren't really counting goals. Naturally, we also played the "Next Goal Wins" rule. And which team scored next? That's right...Team Wick. As it turns out, the Brazilians are not only natural soccer players, but also natural road hockey players, as well.

After the game, we celebrated with a lovely potluck dinner. All animosity from RHAT was left behind. More or less.

We also celebrated the "Canadian-ization" of our two favourite Brazilians, Joanna and Mariana.

Mariana was outfitted in a Toronto Maple Leafs T-shirt and she looks like a real Torontonian when she wears it.

Note: T would very much like Mariana to wear a Calgary Flames shirt, but you can't win them all.

Joanna was presented with an authentic hockey puck. We're not sure whether she will use it as a puck, a paper weight, or a weapon.

As you can probably tell, the Go Girls' first RHAT event was a tremendous success. We had a lot of fun. We probably got just as good a work out from laughing so hard as we did from running around playing hockey. The only thing that remains to be said is...

"Stand back! I don't know how big this thing gets!"