It doesn’t seem like it will ever be warm enough for the tastes of the fans of the big, humid swelter, who make up, at a glance, three-quarters of the population and who apparently infiltrate all the radio broadcasts, where a 20 degrees without a factor Humidex sounds like divine retribution, and these are probably the same people complaining about the power cuts caused by the weather disorders. From the blissful unanimity of this degenerate solar cult, humanity will slowly die, without even realizing it, like the proverbial frog plunged into a pot of water on the stove.
In the meantime, the nights are marvelously cool, in the undergrowth red and versicolor trilliums, starflowers, boreal clintonias and erythrones of America bloom in the undergrowth, and to top it off, it is in June that we have the right to the best hockey of the year.
I waited for the conference finals to start getting excited. I couldn’t drag out my mourning for the Canadiens until Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day. Suddenly awakened from my torpor, I watch the best moments of the previous game on my phone asking: “Hey! How come we don’t subscribe to TVA Sports? »
Until then, I had kept an interested but distant eye on the NHL playoffs, the “real season” as some call it, the “detail” of our ancestors. That time of year when, as my late dad used to say, “we separate the men from the children”. I had even chosen my team: the Colorado Avalanche. Because of its CEO, Joe Sakic. I’ve always had a thing for the guy from Burnaby. It goes back to the time when, when he had just got his hands on his second Stanley Cup, in 2001 against the still soporific Devils, instead of brandishing the trophy at arm’s length like the first of the tatas, he soberly handed over to a Raymond Bourque on the verge of retirement with his white beard to allow him to enjoy his moment of glory. It was the gesture of a true captain.
And the three points, including two goals, scored in the Olympic final the following winter, when we went to plant the Americans on their land in Salt Lake City, did not hurt, nor did the fact that the same Sakic jumped into a plane on a match day, at the beginning of May, to come and pay homage to our National Flower. I knew that the club he had built in Colorado had been a logical contender for the Cup for two or three years, and so I chose the Avalanche to go all the way without even — rather embarrassing admission, but too bad — being able to name a single player from this team! I didn’t even know Nathan MacKinnon, that’s to say.
I’ve made up for it since then. I saw how a boy like Nazem Kadri could literally hurt the opposition (taking out the Blues’ number one goalkeeper with an injury after a charge at the net followed by a seemingly unintentional fall) and figuratively (replying to the racist insults of supporters of these same Blues – Kadri is a practicing Muslim – with a hat trick!).
In short, the kind of plague that general managers love and that the guys opposite dream of decapitating. By throwing him a bottle of water while Kadri was interviewed on TV during the Western semi-final, it was a kind of tribute that the Blues goalkeeper paid him, officially injured “at the bottom of the body” when he had actually lost his mind.
While fluttering from one video cover to another, I also saw and saw LE BUT again, of which there is nothing to say unless you absolutely want to resort to the most hackneyed metaphors of the repertoire, such as, for example: after crossing the entire rink, MacKinnon served the defender a strong espresso. Language has its limits, after all.
Although I hadn’t watched a full game yet, it hadn’t escaped me that both Avalanche goaltender Darcy Kuemper and future West Finals prospect Mike Smith of the Oilers, were those goalkeepers who will drop a puck at some point, be weak on a shot, allow an easy goal, and we would like to see us there, but that is not the question. Still, the offensive outburst last Tuesday night in Colorado, with its two goalkeepers fallen in combat (Kuemper hit in the upper body, Smith reached the pride), is not very reassuring for those who, like me , dream of revenge by proxy against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Because do we really want to see an incoherent Kucherov give a victorious interview in the press gallery, with his can of beer, his lack of class and his brew in the cheek? Not me. And we really have a problem because, as often in this race to obtain the big can of Lord Stanley, it should be played in front of the net, where, on the Florida side, another Russian, Vasilevskiy, imperial in these series. (I had barely written this that the same guy was getting crossed by the Rangers in the East, a 6-2 rout! Alright, another series to follow, more work to do, but it takes what it takes …)
And with us too, it’s played in front of the net. My son found a goalie mitt at a garage sale. Five dollars. From Cerberus he already has the leggings, the mask and the staff. We drag the cage down the street and I start bombarding it. It stops almost everything, it is hot and I am hot, while our pleasure stops the years. We’ll separate the men from the children another time.