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| Flin Flon, Manitoba, there's not an iota of rightness of hue Your five-buck currency I must say fervently Is the wrong shade of blue (not Pantone 282). |
The winters of my childhood were long seasons, but getting shorter each year. We lived in three places - the school, Panchero's, and the skating-rink - but our real life was on the skating-rink. Tremendous battles were won on the skating-rink. Tremendous strength appeared on the skating-rink. The leaders and best showed themselves on the skating-rink. School was a sort of punishment. Politicians always want to punish children and evaluating teachers based on standardized tests is their most natural way of punishing us. However, school was also a quiet place where we could prepare for the next hockey game, lay out our next strategies. As for Panchero's, we found there the piquancy of Cholula: there we forgot the school tests and dreamed about the next hockey game. Through our daydreams it might happen that we would recite a prayer: we would ask Bo to help us play as well as Carl Hagelin.
We all wore the same uniform as he once had, the maize and blue uniform of the Michigan Wolverines, the best college hockey team in the world; we all combed our hair and grew it long in the same style as Carl Hagelin, and to keep it in place we used Axe - a great deal of Axe. We laced our skates like Carl Hagelin, we taped our sticks like Carl Hagelin. We posted all his highlights on our Facebook timelines. Truly, we knew everything about him, as we all followed his Twitter feed.
On the ice, when the referee blew his whistle the two teams would rush at the puck; we were five Carl Hagelins taking it away from five other Carl Hagelins, with two Shawn Hunwicks guarding the nets; we were twelve players, all of us wearing with the same blazing enthusiasm the uniform of the Michigan Wolverines. On our backs, we all wore the famous number 12, but for the two goalies, who wore the famous number 31.
