Hunky Z and Kitty

Most of us get a little less crazy with each new Canucks' calendar we hang on the wall. Remember how crazy we all were when Bobby Lalonde or Stan Smyl were on the calendar? Hunky Z and Kitty aren't like the rest of us. They are still crazy. Just look at the motherfucker they asked to be the Master of Ceremonies tonight.

I was just old enough, about five at the time, to be able to remember the first day I saw Kitty. My mom was holding her at the hospital window. Dad and the rest of the Hockey family were standing in four feet of snow and leaning into a forty mile an hour sub-Arctic breeze. They call it hypothermia today. I looked up at my new baby sister and then at my brother and other sister and thought, "My mom and dad are like characters in the dirty book one of my kindergarten mates brought in for show and tell one day. All they seem to ever do is fuck." I imagined that soon there would be over a dozen, maybe even two dozen members of the Hockey family jostling for position around the dinner table and the outhouse door.

Luckily for all of us, Kitty turned out to be the last Hockey child to be born in that backwoods hospital. And just as luckily, the family soon moved out of motherfucking Alberta for good. We moved to Sliverville. I am sure it was just a coincidence but at about the same time we moved to Sliverville, the town began to gain a bad reputation and have jokes told about it all over the world. And what was worse - all the jokes were true!

We all grew up and we did alright in the city mom and dad chose as our home. Which is another way of saying none of us got lengthy jail sentences. Of course, we did have very good lawyers. Eventually Sonja and I got to do something probably none of you have ever done: we got to live next door to my sister Kitty for two years.

I got to see my niece grow up between about the ages of 3 and 5 day by day. She was a wide-eyed kid full of promise and she has done alright growing up in Sliverville just like her mom and aunt and uncles. She has stayed out of jail too, except for that incident at the border she doesn't like anyone to bring up.

I remember the first time I met Hunky for some strange reason. It was a long time ago. I did not know he was going to spend all these years with Kitty. We never know these things, do we?

Many years ago my brother asked me what I thought about this girl he had dated a couple times. I probably had a few beers in me when he asked so I told him what I thought spontaneously - "She's a bit of a moo, isn't she?" How was I supposed to know he was going to be married to her for decades?

At a red light on the way home from Kitty's place, where we first met Hunky, Sonja asked me, "What do you think about Hunky?" I probably had a few beers in me when she asked so I said, "I guess he seems like a pretty nice guy. I mean, he can't be any worse than Dick Face."

Hunky, of course, turned out to be a great guy. The kind of guy anybody would like to have for a friend or a neighbour...especially if you are having trouble with your grow-op.

For most of my life I have been drinking too much beer to pay attention to what is going on any further than what is bubbling at the end of my arm. So I am not really too sure just where it was Hunky and Kitty met but I hear it was in what a poet might call a Romantic Garden and what the RCMP would call a grow-show. They were buds at first sight.

You have all been to weddings in the past so you know I am going to introduce you to a couple people who are going to say a few things about Kitty and Hunky. They have all been drinking even more heavily than me so try and cut them a little slack if they forget what they were talking about or suddenly vomit all over their shoes.