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I am terrible with dates but somewhere in the early 90’s Ratte and I scooped up our first pair of rollerblades. Mine had the removable chassis and weighed about 70lbs. The first summer we had them we burnt through a set of wheels cruising the streets and playing 1V1 in the picnic shelter at St.Vital Park. The water fountain was our goal.

We got word that a roller hockey league was starting up at Grant Park arena so we put our names in to see if there was a team looking for players. We ended on a team called “The Leftovers” that was made up of guys like us who wanted to play but didn’t have a team. It was there we met the kid versions of JP and Timmy G.

Back then we played with a ball, and that was just fine for Ratte and me who grew up playing street hockey in old St. Vital. We ended up winning the season that year with a bunch of guys who barely knew each other and were just thrown together by the league. We knew at that time we had to get the guys together a make our own team. What we didn’t know is that most of us would play together for the next 20 years!

We grew up together playing roller hockey (Three Pistols), eating wings at Manhattans, and drinking to the Tragically Hip. When we weren’t playing league we were skating at “Saints” or “Wheelies” after hours. The friendships will last a lifetime.

One of my most memorable games was against the Wildcats. We had a bitter rivalry with this team and I remember it was a big game going in. It was back in the day and JD was our coach. I remember my dad was also at this game with Trish and he didn’t come many so I came to play. I had an end to end goal early that started behind our net but for every goal we scored the Wildcats fired right back. It was a rough game and they had this one guy who was a cheap shot artist that was always taking liberties with our guys. We had a scoring chance in front of their net that turned into a pile of guys and I got cross-checked down from behind. On the ground I saw it was this same guy so I gave him a chop to the skates. I was in a compromising position with this guy about to come down on my when Ratte swoops in with a high cross-check to stand this guy up. It was an awesome moment for me because Ratte liked a clean game and took pride in not getting involved in those kind of shenanigans. To see him step up for me really meant something at that moment.

With about 5 mins left in the game Wildcats are up by a goal and as I am watching my pass I get run by their monster enforcer. This kid was twice my size at the time and he drove me into the floor hard enough that if it weren’t for my helmet I might not be here today. All I heard was the gasp of the crowd and the first thing I thought of was that my dad was in the building so I got up right away. I had the wind knocked out of me as I skated back to the bench where JD gave me a pat on the back. They were sorting out the penalties and I think Ponch went after the guy so we got 2 and I think they got 4 which was more time than was left in the game. We were going on the powerplay down by a goal and JD looks at the bench to see who is ready to get out there. I motion that I am good to go and he gets me out there for one last shift. We win the face-off and move it around a bit in their end. The puck comes back to me at the point and I fire off a high wrist shot into the crowd in front that finds it’s way off of someone or something and into the net and the game ends in a tie. There was no overtime or anything back then so it ended in a tie but it sure felt like a win to me.

I have so many great moments playing the game but that one stands out the most. Maybe because I can still picture JD standing on the bench. Maybe it’s because Trish told me after that my dad had a big smile on his face when I scored that goal at the end of the game.

I think that last season was the final chapter for the Three Pistols as far as roller hockey goes. I was out a couple of years ago but that team, that group of guys, will always feel like mine.

I think this was 2010.

It’s April something 2020. Everyone I know is working from home. School is canceled and all non-essential services have been shut down. Parents are home-schooling and parks that we spent the last 10 years fundraising for are closed to the public. The MLCC doors remain open and busses full of people are still running. Not even white privilege will get you Lysol wipes and Giant assholes are hoarding all toilet paper! Hockey season is cut short and nothing makes sense in the world. We are all told to “stay home” and help flatten the curve as COVID-19 spreads like hives on a ginger.

But don’t worry, one of the cool things about humans is that we are made to adapt. The symbolic line in sand has been drawn except it’s tape on the supermarket floor. We make masks out of our socks so that we can we can go to the store for milk and Doritos (just the essentials). We talk to strangers through plastic windows and encourage our children to connect with their friends on devices with little plastic windows of their own. Forget everything you know about social graces.

Business has adapted as well. Restaurants converting their focus to ordering online and takeout only. Large companies operating from home thanks to VOIP systems, virtual servers, and virtual meetings.

Thank god for the internet.

Thank god for the internet? Think about the irony behind that statement. After 1 week in isolation combined with homeschooling Mother Mary herself would trade in her bible for a tablet of some kind. She’d be texting the Wise Men asking for crafty links on how to make a simple banana bread or how to turn water into wine.

At home we are adapting as well. Amidst all the chaos right now we are trying to stay focused on the positive and adapt. There is a new appreciation for teachers in the world and I hope it stays that way. Shan is still expected to work from home while homeschooling our own super-learners. I may be going mad but it seems to me like our kids are starting to get along better than ever before. They seem to be talking and playing more as they are starting to realize they have each other to depend on through all of this. Don’t get me wrong, they still fight over who gets to sit in the good movie spot but overall it’s been an improvement.

Thankfully With regrets I am still going into the office daily. It’s just Gary and I there on any given day and we are very separated so the risk is very minimal. Very thankful to still be employed as I know many people have been hit by the closures.

I am connecting with friends a couple times a week through poker online. Toph invited me to his game and I loved it so much I started a weekly one of my own. You can read about that on SpiteClub.org

More positives…

• 7-11 is essential
• Gas is cheap
• We have cable for the first time in 10 years
• Movies going right to streaming
• Our favourite artists putting on live performances
• We have dogs, get a dog
• It’s getting nice outside

I have also been enjoying “Some Good News” with John Krasinski. If these don’t give you the feels I don’t know what can.

People are doing some good in the world right now thanks to “The Pause”. The world will never be the same but we will be OK…I think.

Oh thank God, and Patron Saint Blythe Hunter, for confirming for us once and for all that we are now seeing a steady decline of sexual allegations against our male role models in Hollywood. So much in fact that Ms. Hunter is inclined to attack Bill Murray for assumptions he confessed toward Selena Gomez before meeting her in person. Pardon me but is it OK to assume the title of Ms. and not Mrs., or Miss, as I would hate to offend and be deemed a part of the problem. I have the privilege of only one title (Mr.) so I need to try harder to be sensitive to these things.

It’s been months since I have heard anything about a high profile man pleasuring himself at a dinner party or making suggestive comments to a female coworker in the workplace. Mind you, I don’t look very hard for this kind of thing but when I do come across an article like “Bill Murray’s Comments About Selena Gomez Are All Kinds of Bad”, I feel sad for rational women all over the world. It’s this kind of recreational outrage that gives women a bad name. That’s just my opinion, but that is what this article is…just an opinion piece.

You can have Bill Cosby, and maybe Louis C.K. but I still think his standup is the best. I am not sure about Franco and Anasari but you can’t have Piven, that lady just wanted money. What I can’t figure out is why Bill Murray?

Ms. Hunter quotes an interview where Murray answers a question about working with costar Selena Gomez who is most known for her work as a singer.

In an interview at the movie’s NYC premiere on June 10, Murray said that he had wrongfully judged Selena before working with her. “I learned that whatever preconception I had about someone that had 55 million, billion followers [or] something… I probably thought she was different than she turned out to be.” Then he said that, “if my mother were alive, I’d bring [Selena] home to her—‘Mother. I want you to meet Selena.’” Excuse me while I gag.

“Excuse me while I gag…” seems a bit harsh. Perhaps if that was Bill Murray’s response to what he thinks about working with Gomez he would take less fire from Ms. Hunter. Murray also made jokes that he would be Selena’s boyfriend if she wanted which Hunter deemed “Cringe Worthy” and assumed a “semi-sexual tone”. But what bothered her the most was how “totally condescending” Murray was being. Hunter wrote…

Okay, but *why* is Bill Murray shocked that Selena Gomez is talented and professional?

Hunter perpetuates the belief that as a Male Bill Murray automatically assumes his dominance over Gomez and assumes she is “vapid and untalented”. Moreso that she pines for his approval. She tries to further her case by reporting that Murray made similar comments towards Miley Cyrus when he worked with her on A Very Murray Christmas.

“…Miley Cyrus is really fu**ing good. She can sing. I thought she was a knucklehead crazy girl that you’d want to go on a road trip with, but she can sing.” – Bill Murray

Wonder what would make him think that after Hannah Montana took off all of her clothes, stuck out her tongue and started humping stuffed animals on stage. Not like she invented twerking or anything. I love Miley too but I arrived there through her music…just like Bill did.

In the end, the message that gets pumped out over and over again in the industry seems to be pretty clear: an older, more established man is pleasantly surprised when he meets a young woman who he judges capable of doing her job well! What a nice guy.

Well Ms. Hunter that is both presumptuous and condescending. Of course Bill Murray was surprised that Gomez could act because he knows her as a pop singer. My wife and I went to see A Star Is Born and both of us were shocked to learn that Bradley Cooper could sing like an angel. We were also pleasantly surprised that Gaga could act! Not because as a man I assumed she was a one trick pony, but I have always related to her as a premier singer. It’s not that I figured she couldn’t act but it still strange to see her on the big screen as someone other than Gaga, sorry. I think that would be the same for anyone, male or female. Sorry not sorry.

There was a time when a man could hold a door open for a woman and not worry about unintentionally insulting her. A time when you could refer to a girl as “the type you could take home to your mother” and it came with an essence of purity and well regarded as a compliment. Today Men are under the magnifying glass and women like Ms. Hunter will do their part to tilt their hand to the sun and burn everything in their path. Even Bill Fucking Murray.

Here is another writers take on Murray and Gomez that seems a little more rational.