Admit it, if you were playing a team
That had Burrows, Torres, Lapierre, Bieksa, Rome,
You’d hate them, too.
The defense are pricks
And all the Swedes are soft.
The goalie is a headcase
Swinging from shutout to shellshocked
Like a grease monkey during 80s night.
Their best player is an American
Who said, “I hate Canadians”
In the Canucks’ home rink
Before the gold medal game
Of the 2010 Olympics.
What’s not to like?
Their swarmy French-Canadian coach?
Their player agent cum GM?
Their refusal to play Cody Hodgson?
When I was six years old
I got a Bruins jersey and black hockey gloves
For Christmas and wore them all day
At my grandparent’s house singing,
“Janey Bainy was born in California…”
I don’t know why,
But with Orr in the house
It would have taken a miracle
For the Cup to be won in Beantown.
Oh wise and benevolent Hockey Gods,
I was a Canucks fan from the very first game
Forty years ago. I stayed up way past bedtime
Listening to so many losses
On a little red transistor radio
Hidden under my pillow in the farmhouse
Robson calling all the games
On the Hockey Nut Station.
I remember Don Lever
Hitting the post on Dryden with two minutes left,
And then again in overtime,
Before the Habs finally buried us.
When Smyl hit the post
In game one against the Islanders
I thought immediately
That our best hope to win
The game, the series,
Had just vanished.
Without fail, the wheels came off
The West Coast Express
Every springtime,
Or some stupid Euro scored
On his own goalie,
Or the New York Oilers
Stacked the odds against us
To break a slump longer than our own.
Oh Hockey Gods,
Have we, the faithful,
Not endured enough?
Is another game seven
Just one more torture
To test our worthiness,
The intensity of our desire
To see the city’s name etched
On an old silver mug?
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