Hockey Night In Steepleton

Last Friday Curly phoned me up.

"I've got hockey tickets for tomorrow night's game. My fucking boss gave them to me. Want to go?" he asked.

"The Flames and the Canucks? I don't fucking think so," I told him. "I have drying paint that needs watching."

"Not those fuckers," Curly assured me. "It will be a cold day in Hell when my boss gives me a pair of Canucks tickets. He only gives those out to people who suck his dick. He gave me Heat tickets. They're playing the Ice Monsters, who ever the fuck that is."

I told Curly I was in. I practically live next door to the rink Steepleton's AHL team plays in. Close enough to cab it there and back to my place where Curly could crash until he was nearly sober the next morning.

After Curly met me at my place we took a cab to the bar that is next door to the arena. We gave ourselves a couple hours to get into a good boozy hockey mood. Curly hit the beer. I hit the scotch.

It was a quiet crowd in the pub. Most of them about our age.

"Fuck," Curly observed. "The people in your town are even more boring than Canuck fans."

It is true. The people of Steepleton are more boring than Canuck fans. We have an excuse though: we are motherfucking dirt farmers - not big city king of the shit pile folk like you find at Canuck games.

At the rink Curly shifted from cheap Canadian pints to overpriced Sleeman. I switched to canned Jack and cokes. Never had one of those before. Bit of a breakfast drink if you ask me.

"Where the fuck is everybody?" Curly asked me once the game started.

There were maybe 1500 people in the stands. You could fart all you wanted. There was nobody close enough to you to offend with your ass smell.

We moved from place to place in the less than a quarter full rink. There is not a bad seat in the house. When we sat above the red line it was the first time I had ever done so in my long life. I felt like I was the fucking Prime Minister or something the view was so good.

There were a few fights and the hockey was pretty good. Half the people there were wearing Heat gear. They are the very same motherfuckers who drink the poison koolade when cult leaders figure it is time for everybody to fucking die.

Eventually the game went to a shoot out. Neither of us had ever seen one of those in person before.

"This should be cool," said Curly before it began.

It was not.

After the game we went back to the nearby pub where a much younger crowd than we were drinking with earlier were successfully getting wasted. We joined in.

The band who was playing was from Vegas. They were probably the best cover band I ever heard. They were playing the '80s shit I could not stand then or now. The young people danced. We drank. We wondered when the fighting would begin but it did not that night. The Canucks had won the game against the Flames. Everybody was too happy to donnybrook.

We were encouraged by several of our fellow pub patrons to go next door to the nightclub next door. They were playing disco really loud through a tremendous sound system. We kept on drinking, getting really loaded now. I recall hearing that "Hello" song I had heard for the first time on New Year's Eve.

You cannot smoke in night clubs now so they manufacture smoke to give the club the same atmosphere we all used to enjoy before the anti-smoking Nazis did what Hitler could not do: win a fucking war.

At 1:00 AM the club closed down. That is as late as my backward city allows legal public drinking. Several of the young folk tried to get us to come to a booze can located in a barn not far away.

We were too pissed for an after party. The kids must have been on e.

We took a cab home. I still do not feel good.

I cannot wait for my next hockey game.