Hockey Night in Canada
A plucky, dry, goofy fourth grader named Nick had developed a guilty pleasure.
One cold January Saturday night, Nick found himself in his basement, watching The Empire Strikes Back on VHS for the 3,000th time. The basement air was bitter and he wore baggy sweatpants and a sweatshirt. When he watched the popular snow planet Hoth battle, he felt like he was really there.
He was bored, and he turned off the VHS. The cable kicked on, and it was a grainy Canadian feed, CBC, the only international station they picked up in Michigan. A man in an absolutely absurd suit was on the screen, alongside his mild co-anchor. He was loud, and bald, with a huge white goatee and he was shouting about a particular call he disagreed with.
Nick was captivated by channel 99.
The Toronto Maple Leafs were playing the Philadelphia Flyers and they were losing by 1 after the first period. Here, for ten glorious minutes during the first intermission, was the Coach’s Corner segment of Hockey Night in Canada.
This flashy character in the suit, Don Cherry, was ranting and raving over a missed call. He demanded slow motion footage and belted his outrage. He rewarded a different play for it’s toughness, and specifically highlighted a player that hustled. Then it was over, and the game resumed.
Nick stayed and soaked in the whole game. He decided to pull for the Leafs, his Dad had a T-shirt with their logo, and he was after all, born in Toronto. He’d never been to Philadelphia.
He turned up the volume and sat on the floor close to the bulky TV. It was impossible to follow the puck from the couch. He turned off the lights but that didn’t help. He watched the whole game, and the Flyers shut out the Leafs 4–0. When it was over, he watched the West coast game, the Vancouver Canucks vs the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim. He had a late bed time on Saturdays.
The next week, he did it again. After dinner he dashed down to the basement, swiped a super cold Coke from the old fridge by the laundry machine, and turned on Channel 99. Just in time for the Leafs vs the New York Rangers. After the first period, he listened to Don Cherry belittle hockey players that wore visors on their helmets.
“Tough guys like Tie Domi can’t wear them, and they’re going to make it mandatory!” Cherry bulldozed Ron MacLean who tried to reel him in.
“Most of the guys that wear them are European or French guys, and you can’t have half the league wearing them and half of them not!” (CBC Digital Archive)
Ron MacLean stifled a gasp, and CBC cut early from Coach’s Corner to a reporter standing next to a sweaty Maple Leaf outside the locker room, defenseman Bryan McCabe. He was tall, he had cool hair, and he had a really mean slap-shot that he already scored with earlier in the game.
“That!” Nick thought. Whatever that was, Nick wanted to be that.
The rest of the following Saturdays went the same way. Nick avidly watched the Leafs and then recreated his own highlights, skating across the basement floor in his socks, while he waited for game number two.
Nick rapidly digested the game. He had nothing to contribute to the conversation with his classmates about football around the water fountain-but he knew everything about hockey. It didn’t matter to him that he enjoyed this obsession alone, almost in secret, because it was that much fun. At a glance, he spent his Saturdays alone in his basement, but really he shared his Saturday nights with Coca Cola, Don Cherry, and the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Saturday was Hockey Night in Canada.
A couple of years rolled by and our protagonist shuffled into sixth grade music class. He had long hair and a gap in his teeth, he wore a Toronto Maple Leafs shirt and had small brown oval glasses. He quietly started assembling his saxophone when a skinny Asian kid sat down next to him.
A Detroit Red Wings T-shirt? Nick noted to himself.
“Hey, do you watch hockey?” Nick asked.
“Yep, I love hockey,” the kid flipped open his case.
A saxophone too? Where have you been my whole life?
“Well, tomorrow is Saturday, do you want to come to my house and watch hockey?”
“Sure I’ll ask my mom!”
“Cool!” They high fived. “Wait, what’s your name?”
A life long friendship was born.
Saturday afternoon Nick was rummaging through the pantry when his mom yelled for him.
“What do you want for dinner tonight?” Nick’s mom asked.
“Uh, I don’t care, Jacob is coming over.” Nick hollered back.
“Who’s Jacob?”
“This kid I met in band class. He plays the saxophone too!” Nick yelled still with his head in the pantry.
“Well he’s not bringing his saxophone too is he?” Nick’s mom replied and walked into the kitchen.
“Oh no, but that’s a really good idea I wish we thought of that!”
Nick’s mom rolled her eyes.
“Well, what are you gonna do then?”
“I don’t know,” Nick replied with a mouth full of the granola bar he settled for. “Probably just hang out in the basement.”
“The basement?” Nick’s mom leaned up against the kitchen counter. “What’s in the basement?”
“We’re gonna watch hockey!”
“What channel do you watch hockey on?” she asked, almost concerned.
“Uh, channel 99, mom, duh. The Canadian one.”
“Oh! CBC! Wait- you’re not watching that horrible Don Cherry are you?”
“Mom, he’s the star! It’s Hockey Night in Canada!”
“You know your father and I only wanted to get that channel because we tape one of the British soap operas they play.”
“Uh, alright, well, thanks?” Nick said with his hands at his shoulders. The doorbell rang.
“I guess we’ll get pizza then!” Nick’s mom yelled as Nick ran to the front door, and strolled back in with Jacob.
“Hi Nick’s mom!”
“Uh, hi, you can just call me-”
“Mom, this is Jacob. We’re gonna go play street hockey!”
The boys rushed out the door.
“Jesus Christ that kid,” Nick’s mom whispered to herself.
Nick and Jacob played street hockey in Nick’s mom’s driveway, only interrupted when the pizza guy arrived. She barely had the pizza box on the counter before the boys grabbed slices and ran downstairs.
BUM BA BUM BA BUM!
Channel 99 roared to life to the Hockey Night in Canada theme.
“What the hell is this?” Jacob asked.
“Shhh…it’s channel 99…” Nick replied in a trance.
“So, it’s like, the Canadian channel?”
“Yes, shh, they’re interviewing Mats Sundin!”
“Do you watch all your hockey in silence?”
“Yes, and usually alone!”
Jacob rolled his eyes and retrieved a bean bag from the corner of the room. The game started, and they excitedly cheered together. Then, the first period was over, and Jacob stood up to go to the bathroom.
“Hey wait where are you going?” Nick asked distressed.
“Uh, I’m going to go to the bathroom…is it upstairs?”
“Yeah and to the left but hurry or else you’ll miss Don Cherry!”
“Is he a Canadian sports commentator that you irrationally idolize? Chill out, I’ll be right back.”
Just wait and see for yourself shit head, Nick thought to himself.
“Oh alright this guy is nuts,” Jacob surrendered, popping Cheetos into his mouth. “Who makes suits this bad?” he wondered aloud while he wiped his orange fingers on Nick’s mom’s couch.
“He’s a legend,” Nick emphasized. Cherry once again, idolized a tough player, complained about a bad call, and showed clips from his favorite fights over the week. Coach’s Corner ended, the game resumed, and the boys stayed.
Week after week, Jacob and Nick watched Cherry every Saturday night, then played hockey under the street lights between the early and the late games. Saturday was Hockey Night in Canada, but to the newly best friends Saturday became Hockey Night on Packard Street.
Many years fly by and Saturday’s are still Hockey Night for Jacob and Nick. Their Saturday night routine is different, and they don’t get to see Don Cherry explode every night. Instead, they play hockey video games, basement floor hockey with mini sticks, but most importantly, a lot of ice and street hockey.
Soon, they were in great sync and often plugged in their own iPod shuffles when they played. They deftly passed the puck to each other in the street or in the hockey rink they’d built in Nick’s mom’s backyard.
Jacob and Nick were so used to playing together, when they played with friends in the neighborhood school’s parking lot, they had to be on different teams out of fairness.
Next, Nick and Jacob were playing high school hockey together on Saturdays.
Nick and Jacob found themselves sore and bruised from an early Saturday afternoon game, watching Hockey Night in Canada on good old channel 99.
For this segment, Cherry focused solely on a dirty hit from a different game. The victim was skating towards the corner, and was defenselessly hit from behind, going neck and head first into the boards. The victim’s teammate didn’t hesitate to start throwing hay makers. In fact, in the fight the guys ended up stepping on the guy that got hurt in the first place. Cherry declared that type of a teammate, so quick to avenge, that was something beyond hockey, that was love.
“Yo so Don Cherry has really uh-?” Jacob asked Nick.
“Yeah he wasn’t always this…”
“He did say that one racist thing-”
“What’d he say?”
“You know, the, you know…”
“Oh yeah, that’s right, yeah that was bad.”
“GEEZ!” Nick’s mom shouted from the basement stairway. “You guys don’t even say full sentences did you hit your heads?”
“Mom- was Don Cherry always this crazy?”
“Good lord yes I already told you that. I’m going to bed, there’s leftover pizza in the fridge!”
“Thanks mom!”
“Thanks Nick’s mom!”
Nick’s mom muttered to herself and continued up the stairs. “If that kid doesn’t start using my real name I’m gonna flip out.”
The next Saturday the boys didn’t play hockey, because it was the night of the winter dance. Nick and Jacob went to the dance with twin girls. One wore a black dress, the other wore white, and Nick and Jacob had matching black suits and white ties. It was too much.
Jacob was old enough to drive and somehow got his hands on an old Mercedes. It was all black and looked like a Mercedes spin on the Batmobile. It was too much.
The boys had driven to the girl’s mother’s house to pick them up for the dance. They were dragged inside to meet the girls’ mother.
“Guys, this is our mom, and this is our step-mom,” the girls introduced them.
“Hi, nice to meet you,” the boys said in sync. The girls and their mom and step-mom started talking among themselves.
“Did you know? I didn’t know!” Jacob whispered to Nick.
“Did I know their mother re-married to a woman, no, I didn’t but just, be cool.” Nick replied.
“Okay, okay, I’m cool. But dude, we met their Dad and their other step-mom that’s like three moms!”
“What is your deal with moms dude just chill out. I really need you to be cool here, because you say some stupid shit when you’re not cool.”
“I’m cool just drop it.” Jacob made a move towards the door. “Alright well, we better get going if we want to make dinner on time!”
“Bye! Nice to meet you!” The loving parents cheered after them. They all piled into Jacob’s car, and there was a brief moment of pure, adolescent, awkward as hell silence.
“So, uh, Mother’s Day must be a bitch huh?” Jacob said, trying his hardest to break the ice. Nick put his face in his hands. It was too much.
“He’s definitely not cool,” Nick thought to himself.
They recovered, and had a pretty good night together, the four of them in their ridiculously coordinated clothes. Right up until when the girls swapped dresses midway through the dance and became vocally upset the boys didn’t notice they were courting a different person.
“It’s like they don’t understand how IDENTICAL THEY ARE!” Jacob ranted to Nick on their lonely ride home.
“Maybe we can still catch the late game on CBC,” Nick replied.
A couple of weeks later the boys were playing their rivals. Nick went into the corner after the puck, and he knew Jacob would be waiting for it in front of the net. But before he could get to the puck he was cross-checked from behind and crashed headfirst into the boards.
In that moment, Jacob saw Don Cherry. He knew what had to be done. Nick rolled over in time to see Jacob bushwhack the guy that hit him. They traded glove-to-facemask punches while Nick crawled to his feet.
Jacob pushed away from the fight and skated over to Nick.
“Hey man are you okay?” Jacob asked Nick.
“I think you love me dude,” Nick replied with a smile.
“What? Oh man, did you hit your head?” Jacob asked.
“Well I love you too buddy,” Nick slurred.
“Hey coach! He definitely hit his head!”
Works Cited:
Don Cherry’s Visor Comment Sparks Uproar. CBC Digital Archive. Video. https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1578140528
