Hockey

Recently my in laws had their annual family holiday party. It was a good time as usual. Lots of good food, that's for sure.

There were a lot of hockey fans among the men. Hockey is their game. They like hockey the way I like football. I like hockey myself. They like to talk about hockey. It was a pretty even split between Montreal Canadiens fans and Toronto Maple Leafs fans.

Welcome back NHL. It's great to see the players back. The new rules have hopefully ended the tedious soccer on ice era and put the emphasis back on skill where it should be. Also it looks like the Canada teams will be able to be more competitive again and bring in quality players.

I realized I don't have a favorite team. Historically I've liked the Maple Leafs going back to when I was young in the 70s. They had some good teams then with Darryl Sittler, Lanny McDonald, and Borje Salming. They had a good run in the early 90s too with Doug Gilmour and Wendel Clark.

In recent years the Leafs just turned me off with dirty play. There's just too much of opponents getting submarined for knee injury, or elbowed in the head for a concussion. I can't stand that type of play or players who play like that. Toronto has kept too many guys like that around for too long.

Although they've had success on the ice, the recent Leafs seem to be kind of bland and dull. They lack the real character players like the guys mentioned above who made it really entertaining.

So I'm not sure. I probably don't follow it closely enough to pick up a new favorite team. I guess I'll just do what many Canadians do which is to wait for the Spring and get behind the Canada team that goes the furthest in the playoffs.