Hockey Time

You know that summertime is gone when a chill is in the air when snow is in the forecast and hockey sticks appear when kids with toques and earmuffs show up on every street stick-handling wayward tennis balls on tar and on concrete when flags of northern nations unfurl on jacket backs with favored players featured on shirts and on backpacks. In Canada we’re hockey nuts we cannot get enough. The only time it’s out of thought is when the sledding’s tough. It’s hockey, hockey, hockey, for nine months of the year from Long Beach to the Grand Banks, Point Pelee to Ellesmere. In this the blooming of the North, this land that we hold dear, There’s talk of other sports at times but it’s hockey we revere. The stars, the stats, the standings, team trades and injuries consume us all the season and test our expertise. In cubicles and staff rooms at desks and boardrooms too the talk is all of hockey pools and who is picking who – Russian or Canadian American or Czech Swede or Ukrainian Finn, German or Slovack. In Canada we’re hockey nuts we cannot get enough. The only time it’s out of thought is when the sledding’s tough. It’s hockey, hockey, hockey, for nine months of the year from Long Beach to the Grand Banks, Point Pelee to Ellesmere. In this the blooming of the North, this land that we hold dear, There’s talk of other sports at times but it’s hockey we revere. And when we’re old with fires banked and we forget most else we’ll hanker back to storied games and golden stars whose very names excite our feebled pulse: Hull, Lemieux and Richard Beliveau and Fuhr Orr and Howe and Harvey Gretzky and Lafleur We'll hear again the rising roar And then the call He shoots, he scores. In Canada we’re hockey nuts we cannot get enough. The only time it’s out of thought is when the sledding’s tough. It’s hockey, hockey, hockey, for nine months of the year from Long Beach to the Grand Banks, Point Pelee to Ellesmere. In this the blooming of the North, this land that we hold dear, There’s talk of other sports at times but it’s hockey we revere.