Hockey Nut in Canada and The Cup That Got Away
Leaf fans, Jets fans - a Canucks fan feels your pain... And Go Oilers Go, eh!
And then there was one…
For a brief moment it was possible to not just imagine the first Canadian Stanley Cup parade since 1993, but an all-Canadian final, right after an all-Canadian semi-final.
And then the best goalie on the planet wasn’t quite good enough to fly the Winnipeg Jets past the Dallas Stars, despite Mark Scheifele playing his heart out, with a broken heart.
And the Leafs were, well, the Leafs… led by Mr. September to April, Austin Matthews. Or should that title go to Mitch Marner? Or maybe it belongs to…
Yeah, the Leafs fab four sure know how to fade in May.
For the 92nd season in a row I scored almost as many playoff goals as Matthews. Or Marner. Combined.
Thing is… I feel your pain… If you remember the first Canucks riot… I wrote a comedy sketch about it that was featured on Dan Russell’s legendary long-running radio show, Sportstalk. I gather he replayed it… a lot…
A few weeks ago, a friend reached out to see if I still had a script for it - said it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen - and I found an old audio tape of us performing it live on Sportstalk. Skaana producer, Bug Lewis tried their best to clean it up and… this is it.
For the last five years of the 1990s, I used to write, produce and co-star in an annual comedy show that took on all things topical - The Year in Revue.
Because I bleed Canucks colours - which is confusing since those colours have changed a dozen times since the team was born (remember Halloween orange?) - we’d usually do a few sketches about hockey.
The first versions of The Year in Revue starred Local Anxiety - aka me and Kevin Crofton (you can find our stuff on Spotify and all over YouTube (where it’s frequently inaccurately credited to our friends, The Arrogant Worms).
The final Revue was the show I always dreamed of… A Year in Revue with a cast of killer comic actors. Kevin and I were joined by Kennedy Goodkey, Tallulah Winkelman and the late and truly great Keith Provost.
I loved that show and, if you remember the Canucks vs. the Rangers series and the horrific aftermath - not so much the riot, but the following season which made the riot look like the good times - I hope you’ll love this skate down memory lane.
And if this is before your time, but you’re a hockey fan who has ever rooted for any team that went down in flames, including The Flames… as one of my fave humans, Spider Robinson wrote: “Shared pain is lessened. Shared joy is increased. Thus we refute entropy.”
If anyone has a catchier title for this… happy to switch it up on YouTube asap. We used to call it “Ping.”
Mountie Keith Provost peppering Canucks fan Kennedy Goodkey (remember “pepper, I put it on my plate?”) Kevin as Uncle Sam fighting for Canada’s salmon with Mark Leiren-Young.
And our hockey anthem…
So one of my life highlights was hearing this song - written by me and Art Norris, then performed by Kevin and me)- played in the Pacific Coliseum during that legendary Cup run. I was told it was also played at Oilers and Flames games and at Maple Leaf Gardens.
Fun memories, Mark!