TEN THINGS THAT HAPPENED ON THE CANADIAN ROAD TRIP BUT WERE TOO HOT FOR BROADCAST

1.) In the middle of Oiler head coach Tom Renney’s morning presser my cell phone went off. Embarrassing? To the contrary. My ring tone is the theme to The Good The Bad and the Ugly. Ya, awesome, I know, and so friggin’ appropriate for the situation at hand for the reeling Oil. So I let it go for a while before stepping out of the room, and upon return stated, “There’s your soundtrack. You’re welcome”

2.) The coldest beer consumed was post game in Edmonton where it has become ritual for Dallas Stars Emmy winning production team to purchase an appropriate amount of Kokanee then stick in the snow outside the TV truck for the duration of the game. Usually a celebratory wobbly pop, this time we merely drown some sorrow.

3.) We play “Spot the Streetwalker” on our way to the hotel in Calgary. Usually its around 1-1:30 am and we have yet to be shutout. I wonder what temperature sends those hardy Canadian ladies indoors?

4.) The Totalitarian of the Tape Room, John Sponsler had a truly amusing observation regarding the “Saddledome” in Cowtown. He sees it more as a stack of Pringles than a saddle and I concur. No horn, no western saddle. Razor don’t play no English riding saddle. So, “Welcome to the Pengrowth Pringledome.”?

5.) There is something very discomforting about getting into a cab on a cold snowy day in Alberta with a guy from the Sudan at the wheel.

6.) A lot of Brad Richards inquiries. Is he meeting the team in Vancouver? Is he concust? Is he going to be traded? No. Probably. Maybe.

7.) We got a solid reminder of just how much hockey rules the landscape in Canada. On the big TV over the bar at Razor-endorsed Rodney’s Oyster Bar in Yaletown (Vancouver) we watched the 3rd period of the Canuck game, then they switched over to the remainder of the Oiler-Canadiens game, and then when that game concluded they shut the television off. No more hockey to watch, no more reason for tely. Now that’s Canadian!

8.) Dr. Art Hister, a regular on a local Vancouver stations morning news, relayed a study that showed how the human mind does in fact control what we believe to be true. In the study a group of 40 humans who were in some form of pain were given pain-relieving medicine thru an IV. Part way through the experiment all involved said that the pain they were experiencing had subsided somewhat. Then they were told that the pain medicine had been stopped and soon after all of them said they felt the pain return. The problem? Doctors hadn’t actually stopped the medication. They were still getting the same dosage. The pain returning was purely a brain-generated belief. Moral of the study: Whatever you set your mind to becomes your reality.

9.) During the broadcast of the Stars-Canucks game the production truck we were using almost caught fire when a transformer overheated. It was hot enough to fuse cable to the wall and was starting to smoke. This is why we had to shut down the truck mid-game and lose the feed from Rogers Arena for about 5 minutes. (yes, some of our finest work on the trip) During the time we were black the Stars killed off a Canuck powerplay, something they had been all but unable to do in the season series until then. Am I the only one who saw the cosmic connection between our power failure and a Canucks powerplay outage?

10.) Thought that came to me during the midnight to 5 am flight home from Vancouver: To me the Stars are like a lovely sandcastle. They were painstakingly constructed, had taken this striking and stable form, but alas, through the pull and randomness of nature, the castle has been washed away by the incoming tide. What’s done is done. No use crying about it. Time to grab a bucket and some shovels and build the damn thing up again cause the Sandcastle Competition is a month and a half away.