Cartoons + Hockey + Civic Pride = Looting

I grew up on television. The tube was an ever present entity in our household and without it I firmly believe that I would not have the ease with the English language that I now possess. I guess I have Big Bird, Count Duckula and Mr. Dress-Up to thank for my bilinguilism. What a strange thing.

I recall loving morning cartoons. I'd get up as bright and early as I could, which usually meant a short while before 6 am, and I'd watch my favorite shows all the way til noon hour if I could. Would it stop there? Of course not! I'd record that colossal 6 hours of goodness to VHS tape and give it another watch come evening, skipping over the not so good parts. Those were the days.

Since moving out of my parents' house, television has been filtered out of my daily routine. On the one hand, my interest in the thing had waned over the years as nothing managed to capture my attention like the cartoons of old, and on the other, a modest studetn's salary makes it rather difficult to afford cable. Lack of cable makes for lack of quality programming, but that goes without saying. As of now, I can tune into Radio Canada with a minmal amount of static, and the CBC with a considerably large amout of weird shadows, fuzz and wobbly lines. Nothing more.

So this brings us to this evening. I imagine you're all wondering what purpose this abnormally long diatribe about television has. It's Saturday night in Montreal and I find myself considerably bored, the result of being a jerk who alienates any new friends I make all too easily. I recalled that it was NHL playoff time, so I decided I'd try to see if I could tune in to the game on one of my two channels. Luckily, the CBC provided and I now find myself strangely enthralled.

Along with my interest in television, I somehow lost my interest in hockey over as I grew up. As any good Quebec boy, I played hockey for a brief while as a kid. My dad really wanted it, he even went as far as being assistant coach for a while. Unfortuntaely, my laziness (remember my obsession with cartoons?), my flat feet and my fate as a chubby kid all contributed to make me a pretty shoddy hockey player. I eventually quit the whole thing, telling myself that if I couldn't be the best at something, I might as well not do it at all (a way of thinking that still sticks with me to this day.)

My current interest in the hockey game has nothing to do with faded childhood dreams however. No, you see, it has everything to do with latent civic pride. I can't explain it. I haven't felt a thing such as attachment to a city in the longest of times, yet there's something strangely comforting about the sense of complicity with a large group that something like a home team participating in the Stanley Cup Finals can illicit. As the fuzzy, shadowy players glide across the glitchy, speckled ice, dodging oscillating lines and shifting between monochrome and colorful, I'm filled with a weird sense of excitement. Every goal offers edge of your seat excitement. The Ottawa Senators are leading 5 to 3 as I type this and I couldn't be happier about it.

Of course this is all ephemeral. Hollow, fleeting and base excitement in my otherwise tepid life. Though I can't help but think on a larger scale. What if the Ottawa Senators win the Cup? Will the result be similar to what happened in 1993 in Montreal? Will a large number of angry mobs take to the streets? Will there be rioting, looting, pillaging, plundering, senseless violence, piracy of all kinds, etc... ? If so I'd like to take this moment and volounteer as angry mob leader. I believe that my superior intellect and lukewarm charisma would allow me to rule over groups of senseless yet vindictive fools with an iron fist. No? I've always wanted to lead an angry mob. It's been a dream of mine for almost as long as I've loved cartoons, and that's saying a lot. This story isn't going anywhere. Cartoons suck now. Good night.