Toronto: “Hello Jason. Good to see you, now let’s forget this ever happened.”

 

You know, I just don’t want to talk about Thursday night.  I was so looking forward to watching it in my living room with a glass of wine and my Blake jersey on.  Don’t worry; I wasn’t rooting for the Leafs. Within a half hour I was disgusted.  So… let’s not go there.  Let’s just forget that ever happened.

 

How about we talk about something else?  As a very talented writer once gave me the best back-handed compliment I’ve ever heard when he told me my entries were like ‘watching an Ingmar Bergman movie,’ let’s visit what’s on the cutting room floor from Wednesday’s win, shall we?

 

1)      The obnoxious Ranger fan that was seated directly above the Blog Box who seemed to want to jump over the rail with his frustration at his team.  I thought for sure I would be his lower level target.

2)      Corey Witt very gingerly asking me “Do you always wear blue and orange?” during Ted’s press conference.  No offence was taken, of course, as the question was asked with the sweetest, sincere smile.  “Only on game days, Corey.  Only on game days.”  He countered that he had tired to do the same but “how many orange ties can you have?”  Well, being a woman, my wardrobe choices are vast.  I can get away with 82 versions of game clothes.

3)      So, chivalry is NOT dead, and I’m sure that Mike Carey from Islanders 360 was thinking of his own wife as he escorted me to my car in the relatively deserted parking lot.  He graciously lied that his own car was not two cars away from mine.  I graciously believed him. (BTW…these really are great guys on this team of bloggers the Islanders have thrown together.)

4)      A very happy Islander fan pulled up next to my car and honks his horn at me on Hempstead Turnpike.  Being a typical New Yorker, I jump, and am ready for an altercation of some sort.  But he was just a happy man, who recognized my license plate and asked me about my website.  I nonchalantly put the mace back in my glove box.

5)      The blue & white plane is fueled up and waiting on the tarmac for the team as I pass.  The smell of jet fuel lingers. Stopped at the light I look at the cars already parked along the fence.  The champagne colored Chevy SUV with the Minnesota plates is no longer in the fourth spot.  I shook off the memory of how angry that Minnesota boy was at me when I parked in that spot so many Octobers ago.  How could I have known?  The cars are mostly black now, undistinguishable from each other.  I say a prayer for their safe journey and drive on.

6)      Once home, I pour myself a glass of wine and sit on the couch with the Big Angry Man, who isn’t angry at all tonight.  We both recant our stories of the evening till well after midnight knowing the work day is just a few hours away.

 

Another great night.  This is so much better to think of than Thursday.  Hopefully Saturday’s game will give us just as many good memories as Wednesday’s, and not be a repeat of the horror movie that was Toronto.  I hate horror movies.  They give me nightmares.  And Bergman never made a horror movie…. Did he?