Habcocked – the saddest Montreal Canadiens game I have ever been to

Jaro, for about 99% of the game.

Ken Hitchcock is a very good NHL coach, and Jaroslav Halak is a very good NHL goaltender. But with all due respect to both, the Habs did not get Hitchcocked or Halaked last night. They Hitchcocked and Halaked themselves. Not that these Habs are good enough to beat those Blues but they didn’t even do a single thing right.

Anyway, that was, without a doubt, the saddest Montreal Canadiens game I have ever been to, and it had nothing to do with the score.

In fact, it started before the game even began.

I have never in my life been to a Canadiens game where the entire arena didn’t stand up and blow the roof off the Bell Centre as soon as that stupid Coldplay song started and Michel Lacroix’s incredible voice invited us to welcome the Habs. I was the only one in my section who stood up. I was the only one in any section I could see who stood up.  There was noise, of course, but definitely not much.

I know it doesn’t seem like that big a deal, but it was to me. I have never seen that at the Bell Centre.

It made me really sad.

The happiest St. Louis Blues game I have ever been to

I’ve actually only ever been to one St. Louis Blues game. They beat the Habs 3-0, and Jaroslav Halak was the first star. It was my sister’s first ever NHL game. She’s a Blues fan, and she had a great time.

It made me really happy.

theactivestick Christmas Wishlist 2011 Edition

A short list this year.  All I want for Christmas is:

• A new fanbase

Happy holidays!

 

A few survival tips for Habs fans, from the experts

If you need help coping with the unbearable sadness of cheering for an awful team, who you gonna call? LEAFS BLOGGERS—
Pension Plan Puppets (@mlse) December 09, 2011

Howdy, fellow Canadiens fans. Are the Habs killing your will to live? You’re not alone. The entire fanbase is so depressed we can’t even muster up the energy to flip Jacques Martin’s car or set his notebook on fire. See that? I can’t even come up with an original joke. So how do we cope with what appears to be a hopeless case of mediocrity that doesn’t show any signs of improving in the near future?

As you know, we here at The Active Stick are all about handy guides for hockey fans. Unfortunately, “we here” really just means “me” and since I’m a Canadiens fan, my brain comes with a built-in editor that erases the bad memories from the 90′s and early 2000′s so nothing’s left but the glory years and some smoke and mirrors from the last five years.

Seeing as I’m ill-equipped to provide my fellow Habs fans with guidance on this particular issue, I decided to outsource and ask the experts – also known as fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs. This year, they’re pretty busy watching stuff known as “goals” and “wins” while we’re stuck watching… not that, but a few of them were gracious enough to stop laughing for a couple of seconds and provide me with survival tips they learned from their years of misery. Most advocated heavy drinking. Here’s a selection of some other advice:

• PPP(mlse): Look for the humour, deify the past (you guys have that down pat), and hate your team with a passion.
• So_Truculent: Be wittier, faster than every other hockey fan digging on your team. It’ll be tough to beat Leafs fans. #pros
• 1967ers: At least we’re not Ottawa.
• Down Goes Brown: The first two decades are rough, but by the start of the third you should start to go numb.
• Chris: Guy who blows ends up getting a couple game point streak going? Go crazy, he’s the next Crosby.
• Bitter Leaf Fan:  If you have realistic expectations, it’s hard to be disappointed. It’s also fun rooting for coaches & execs to get canned.
• Chris: Because of the bonus point system, “6 points back” always seems like you’re only a couple of wins out of the playoffs. Pretend that’s true, it helps. In fact, you’ll find that counting is a bad idea in general, because whatever you’re counting, it’s not good.
• 11Leafs: Drink heavily… this was followed with some other tips but I didn’t get past that first part.
• 1967ers: It’s nice not to be conflicted on beautiful Saturday nights in May.
• Bitter Leaf Fan: Thanks to the loser point, it’s unlikely the Habs will go an entire decade under .500 like the Leafs of the 80s.
  PPP (in response): New divisional playoffs make six years out of the playoffs more likely though.
• Chris: You probably already have a whipping boy on the team. Use this opportunity to expand your portfolio on that front.
• doogie2k: As an Oilers fan first and Habs fan second, my advice: Learn the consensus top five draftees by heart.
• 67sound: Is your terrible team also owned by a vicious xenophobic racist? Are they covering up systemic child rape? Has your hated rival won 7 Cups since your last? No? Then count your blessings. #Leafsfanfrom80s
• Bitter Leaf Fan: Loathing JFJ got me me through four of five years of mediocrity.
• Down Goes Brown: Hope your team can win a few playoff rounds against some team dumb enough to hire Jacques Martin wait I’m not helping.

…

The only tiny bit of hope came from a Vancouver Canucks fan, of all places. NotAFullColon: Hey, the last time an Original 6 Canadian team gave up a 3 goal lead to Van they won a huge trade the next morning.

Hear that? We’re getting… um… yeah the Leafs took it all.

How to know if you’re cheering for a bubble team

Big thanks to Number31

It’s that time of the year when we forget that less than a quarter of the games in the NHL season have been played and decide to form our opinions on how the season is going to turn out, which means the term “bubble team” is being thrown around a lot. So how do you know if the team you’re cheering for might be a bubble team? Seeing as the blog is back, so are my handy guides. Here’s how you know if you’re a fan of a bubble team:

• Your team’s starting goaltender is the first star in every game he wins, every game he loses, and every game he isn’t even dressed for.
• Your team loses an astounding number of games due to poor officiating. The league should really look into that.
• Every injury that befalls your team happens to a key player, for reals.
• Your team’s top scorers are that one guy who’s really really good and a bunch of third liners.
• You have never been surer of anything than you are that this coach is the wrong coach for your team.
• But you can’t name a single alternative.
• You hate advanced stats geeks.
• But you listen to everything they say and secretly freak out about it.
• Your team loses a game in November and you have to come to terms with the absolute certainty that they aren’t going to make the playoffs,
•  But when they won that game in October they were going to contend for the cup.
• You are comforted by the fact that there are more than sixty games left to play.
•  You are losing sleep over the fact that there are only sixty or so games left to play.
• People have stopped being friends with you because you keep saying things like “in order to make the playoffs, this team needs an arbitrary number of points I chose because Buffalo or somebody got into the playoffs with it last year, so basically this team has to win or get a point in every one of their Saturday games, four of the next six Tuesday games, every game the backup starts, none of the games in which this call-up plays, three games during which a hot blonde is sitting behind the visitors bench, and half the games in which the coach wears a stripey tie.”

Huge huge thanks to Number31 for the photoshop. Follow her, y’all.

The madness that made me this way

If you’ve wondered where I’ve been since the last blog post, the answer is… hopelessly lost inside my own head.

I think they call it ‘writer’s block.’ They should find a better name for it, like ‘slow painful evil agonizing horrible awful death.’

I’ve been working on my novel, you see. Well, I’ve been staring at the blank screen I am attempting to convert into something somewhat resembling a work of fiction of reasonable length for what feels like years, but is really only weeks.

I am stuck.

What usually happens when I get writer’s block is that it starts with one thing, like my novel, and then it kind of oozes onto everything else I write until eventually I am agonizing over a text message to my sister about whether she can borrow my car.

So that’s where this blog has been. Mired in the mess that is all the things I have been unable to write. I’ve attempted and abandoned many a post in the last few weeks, mostly out of the fear that nobody will read them, which will then confirm my deepest fear that I am in fact terrible at the only thing I have ever been good at.

It’s not always like this. I think all writers, musicians, artists, or creative anythings go through this endless cycle of narcissism and self-loathing where something you think is a brilliant idea one day is the worst thing anyone has ever thought of the next.

At the end of the day, I know this is crazy. I know I will never be an accomplished or widely-published writer if I keep letting my asshole of an inner voice keep me from… well… writing.

So here is this post, the only one I’ve been able to finish in the last month and a half, in an attempt to get posting again, so that I can get writing again, so I can get that horrible inner voice that says I am a terrible writer and will always be irrelevant to shut the fuck up.

If you’re still reading, I hope you know I really appreciate it. And that I’ve got plenty of actual hockey talk coming.

I just need to beat that damn inner voice.

Balls…

From my first game at Fenway

Alright, let’s get the confession out of the way: I haven’t watched a single preseason hockey game. I’ve half-heartedly glanced at a few minutes of some. In total, I’ve probably watched about 30 minutes of preseason Canadiens and about 15 minutes of preseason Leafs and/or Sens.

I haven’t stopped loving hockey all of a sudden.

But baseball’s been on. And I needed to watch my Red Sox complete their historic collapse.

The first time I cheered for the Boston Red Sox was in 2004. Call me a pink hat. I mean, I was. I watched Boston that year because the Expos had just left, there was no hockey on, and the guy that I had a crush on was into the Red Sox so I wanted to know who these people he kept talking about were. I didn’t cheer for them because of him, though. I cheered for them because of them.

So did a lot of you.

I fought it, though. I fought it hard. I had decided that if I was ever going to be a baseball fan, I was going to cheer for anybody BUT the Yankees or the Red Sox. For the next couple of years, I tried so hard to convince myself that I was just cheering for history and that I could be a fan of any other team. I dabbled in some Blue Jayism, I peeked over at the Mets, I thought about being a Grady’s Lady, for some reason I experimented with the Colorado Rockies, and, even more bizarrely, I test-drove the LA Dodgers. Anybody but the two Most Obnoxious Teams. Eventually I went back to mostly ignoring baseball, but every once in a while a game would be on and I’d have nothing to do (unless you count being productive) so I’d watch. I’ll pretty much watch any sport if you put it right in front of me.

I remember watching a lot of the 2007 postseason on the phone with my friend Adam. I remember telling him I didn’t expect Anaheim to beat Boston anyway, but Cleveland would do it. I remember telling him multiple times that I did not want the Red Sox to win. I remember trying to be pissed every time the Red Sox beat Cleveland, and trying damn hard, too.

I remember making fun of all the Red Sox.

I also remember the World Series. After every Red Sox win, I was forced to admit to myself that I was happy about it. Overjoyed even. I hate that. It’s like admitting to yourself you like that annoying dude. You know. The weird one that’s been getting on your nerves for a year but now you’re doodling his name in your notebooks?

The other thing about the Red Sox is that they’re pretty much what I have in common with my godfather. We are two very different people otherwise, but the Red Sox are something we can talk about. He took me to Fenway and bought me my very first Red Sox shirt a couple of years ago.

I didn’t get to my first game at Fenway until this year, though, and I still have very, very much to learn about baseball. I can’t pronounce all the players’ names, I can’t figure out some of the more complicated stats, and I pretty much exclusively watch the Red Sox except for the playoffs. I guess I still have a ways to go.

But here I am, crying like I do when the Habs break my heart. I didn’t know it would suck this much. And I didn’t know how great that would feel.

I’m in love.

Balls.

Reacting…

When shocking news like this breaks, our first instinct is to… well I don’t know what our first instinct is.

It’s different for all of us. Some of us cry. Some of us get angry. Some of us become obsessed with the morbid details of what happened. Some of us speculate on the causes.

Often, we argue. We argue about the cause. About whether speculating on the cause is appropriate. About whether reporting the cause is necessary.

All of a sudden we all become experts. Experts on fighting. On prescription medication. On media ethics. On mental health.

So much yelling.

It’s getting really loud in here, in this offseason.

I don’t know why we’re yelling. Maybe we’re yelling because we’re finding it impossible to wrap our heads around the recent deaths we’ve been seeing in the hockey community. If we yell the loudest about fighting, we won’t have to face the fact that we just don’t understand how or why these players keep dying so young. If we’re the angriest about how the NHL/NHLPA don’t do enough for players with mental health issues, then we don’t have to face the fact that we just don’t understand enough about mental health issues in the first place. If we’re loud, we don’t have to listen to the silence telling us how ignorant we really are.

We have very so very many questions, and so very few answers. Not having the answers is scary. And so we yell.

Maybe we need to be quiet for a bit. Not having the answers is an uncomfortable place to be. But the only way we’ll ever have the answers is by shutting up and listening.

Mental illnesses frighten us, in large part because we don’t know much about them, if at all. They won’t stop being frightening unless we admit our ignorance and open our minds up to learning about them.

Your guide to dating a hockey fan

So, you’ve met and begun crushing on a hockey fan. You’re in for an exciting world of nonstop hockey talk, broken TV remotes, and a new Twitter meme for every day. Congratulations!

So, how do you go about dating your new crush? First, you find out what team they cheer for. Then you use this handy guide I’ve put together for dating fans of certain teams (not to be confused with this sorta-guide to dating the teams themselves), and then you invite me to your wedding.

Easy.

Interested in a Montreal Canadiens fan?

• I hope you like: Certifiable insanity.
• How to attract one: Shower them with flattery.
• The scoop: For some reason, I have that Katy Perry Hot N’ Cold song stuck in my head all of a sudden.
• Will it last? It depends on your ability to handle multiple personalities.
• How to keep one happy: Don’t be intimidated by initially lofty expectations. Your Habs fan will be happy to make excuses for each one of your shortcomings.

Interested in a Boston Bruins fan?

• I hope you like: Don’t.
• How to attract one: Don’t.
• The scoop: Don’t.
• Will it last? Don’t.
• How to keep one happy: Damn it, what did I just say?

Interested in a Toronto Maple Leafs fan?

• I hope you like: Rescuing pets.
• How to attract one: Be good at math.
• The scoop: Leafs fans are keepers. Nobody else will continue to love you and stick by you if you let yourself go and treat them like crap. They’re like the holy grail of dating hockey fans, but if you have a conscience, steer clear.
• Will it last? They’ll put up with anything.
• How to keep one happy: Allow them to spend obscene amounts of money on you.

Interested in a Detroit Red Wings fan?

• I hope you like: High standards.
• How to attract one: You need to be self-assured and confident.
• The scoop: Dating a Red Wings fan is overall a satisfying experience. However, be prepared for your Wings fan to be highly suspiscious of everything and occasionally make three mountains out of half a molehill.
• Will it last: Yes.
• How to keep one happy: No slacking.

Interested in a Vancouver Canucks fan?

• I hope you like: Inferiority complexes.
• How to attract one: [insert cheap shots here] [no really, they like it]
• The scoop: Once they fall in love with you, they will manage to convince themselves nobody is better than you despite mountains of evidence to the contrary. Lucky you.
• Will it last? Even if you disappoint them. Again, lucky you.
• How to keep one happy: Nod and change the subject. Trust me, it’s not worth attempting a debate.

Interested in a Washington Capitals fan?

• I hope you like: Mike Green.
• How to attract one: Be interesting and fun.
• The scoop: Dating a Capitals fan promises to be a lot of fun, although it might require a lot of patience as you wait for them to grow up.
• Will it last? You might experience some problems when it comes down to major relationship decisions.
• How to keep one happy: At some point, deliver on your promises, like, any day now, maybe, could you?

Notes from a year in the Merde

I turned 28 on Monday. It was a good day. Then it was the day after my birthday. It was not a good day. At the obscenely grown-up age of 28, I ended my evening by crying my eyes out to my mommy. I cried for all the things I thought I would have accomplished by now, none of which I have managed to do. I cried for the novel I haven’t finished, the screenplay I haven’t started, the tax bracket I have no hope of reaching, my current financial situation, my failed relationships, my failed friendships, and the fact that I have yet to save the whales.

It wasn’t feeling-sorry-for-yourself crying. It was anger-at-yourself crying. I was raging at myself because all of the unaccomplishments I listed were my responsibility. There were circumstances I could not control, of course, and anything that involves another person is exactly half your responsibility, but at the end of the day, my life was still up to me and I felt like I had failed myself. I think I scared my poor mother.

I woke up this morning with a puffy face, red eyes, and a headache. Not hot. But as I showered and got dressed, I thought about the past year or so, and decided that I had, in fact, accomplished a lot. The one thing I did this year was learn. A lot of things, about people, life, and myself. Since it’s the off-season, and this is my soap box, I’d like to share a couple of those lessons with you, my five readers.

• There is nothing less attractive than entitlement.
• Go running. Or dancing, or boxing, or hiking, or… you know… ing. The best cure for hating your body is finding a way to be thankful you have it at all.
• It doesn’t matter if that chick is wearing leggings as pants. Are you happy with yourself?
• Constant outrage is exhausting. Avoid it, and everybody who engages in it.
• Buy my novel, when I finish it and if it gets published.
• Don’t spend money you don’t have unless it’s on your education or a house. Debt SUCKS.
• If you want someone to go away, you have to be honest and not try to spare their feelings. Disclaimer: I failed at this, and will likely fail if the situation ever comes up again.
• If someone wants you to go away, you are better off without them and it’s their loss.
• Seriously, debt really, really sucks, and credit cards are the devil. Very few people can control their spending and their credit card balance. Learn to become one of those people.
• If a human is using advanced stats in a hockey argument, there is a 99% chance that they are using them incorrectly.
• Don’t ever let anybody ever, ever, ever make you feel like you have to change things about yourself in order to be acceptable to them. People who love you will ask you to compromise, not change.
• There are exactly zero people in the world who are completely mentally healthy. People who understand and accept that are the people worth keeping around.
• Also don’t be ashamed that you’re not mentally perfect. We’re all screwed up, I promise.
• Is everything conspiring against you? Are you the victim in all your interpersonal relationships? Yeah, grow the fuck up and do something about your life.
• There is a fine line between being smug and being smugnoxious. Don’t cross it.
• If someone seems too good to be true, then they are.
• You can complain about the fact that your plane was late and your luggage stayed behind, or you can revel in the fact that you’re in Paris. You choose what vantage point you experience your life from.

That last one is hard to keep in mind sometimes. I’m obviously still working on it, as evidenced by my childlike tantrum from last night. I’m hopeful that one day I will have no more weak moments like that, and ignore the bad and see only the good.

I’ve decided to tackle the issue of accomplishments by listening to the advice of a crazy ginger dude named Conan: I will work hard, I will be kind, and [I will have faith that] amazing things will happen.

Is It October Yet Chapter 43: Search terms

This picture is creepy.

In an effort to come up with something to write about other than how bitter I am about the Boston Bruins (seriously, when will it stop hurting in my heart?) I decided to look back on some of my old posts last night and see if there were any tired hockey jokes I hadn’t recycled yet. I also went through some of my stats and found some interesting search terms that have led people to my site.

Most of the search terms are pretty generic – theactivestick, the active stick blog, etc. Quite a few are titles of blog posts, which makes me happy because it means somebody wanted to come back to something they’d read here, and a huge chunk are “Zdeno Chara hit on Max Pacioretty” or some variation of that. Tons of people want to know what stick James Wisniewski uses and for some reason the word ‘skydiving’ has led to hundreds of hits (no, not diving, skydiving, jerkface Bruins fans). Jaroslav Halak’s girlfriend comes up a lot, as do Mike Fisher’s chin and Carey Price’s wink. Enough people stumble onto my site wondering how to chirp or otherwise make fun of Canadiens fans, so thank you to the cities of Toronto and Boston for the traffic. I’ve also discovered (without naming names) some of y’all google yourselves a lot. That or you have stalkers, so be careful.

My favourite ones are those weird ones that are responsible for only one or two hits. Here are some.

• picture of zdeno chara
• “Montreal Canadiens” naked pic
• pic of drunk habs fans
• zdeno charas hit on max pacherati (my money’s on a Bruins fan)
• pk subban and carey price hamburger
• bob the builder you’re f**ked
• waffle news
• bob the builder has let himself go (yeah, middle age caught up with him I guess)
• mike cammalleri mom (I don’t want to know)
• why do people think they have to post pictures of themselves half naked
• i hate the phrase active stick
• kyle wellwood is fat
• pink girly drinks
• why not call folks on twiter twits
• what kind of chest does marc andre fleury wear (I don’t know, a human chest?)
• in and out burger kyle wellwood
• jaroslav halak boyfriend
• slaves in love her true story
• nasty remarks made to attractive women
• fatso games
• revealing women pics
• how to pronounce hjalmarsson
• where does zdeno chara live
• mike green douchebag
• sexy photos “me in a bikini”
• girls f**king each other

The all-time MVP of my Little Blog That Used To Be Able To But No Longer Can is… Zdeno Chara’s junk. Remember when ESPN, The Magazine had a bunch of athletes pose nude in their “Bodies” issue and Chara was one of the athletes? I titled one of my blog posts “Naked Pictures of Zdeno Chara” even though I didn’t actually post the picture. Since then, people everywhere have been finding my blog by searching for things like “Zdeno Chara nude,” ”Naked Zdeno Chara,” “Chara penis” and my ultimate favourite: “How big is Zdeno Chara’s penis?”