The morning after Game 1 Stanley Cup Finals 2008, Santa Monica, California:
Sunday, 10 am. It’s partly sunny and super chilly (64°-I know! I’m a wuss, its why I am here). Sidewalk cafes slowly filling up as sunglassed shaggy headed, hoodie wearing Californians lazily rolled out of bed, crawling slowly down the streets in their flip flops and shorts. Grandma slowly returning from the farmers market with armfuls of gladiolas. Tourists starting to emerge, camera and map laden, from the beach front hotels. The air is a bit salty and the marine layer disguises Malibu from view.
We, my sister and I, threw on the requisite local uniform: Hoodies, sundresses, flip flops and shades, headed to the Promenade for crepes.
Yes crepes- fru fru French pancakes. Yum.
As we sat at a tiny 2 top, sandwiched between 2 other two tops, I heard the scruffy young surfer boy at the next table say to his buddy “Did you watch the playoffs?”
And my ears perked up, because I immediately assumed they were talking about hockey.
Then as quickly as I lit up, I snapped back to reality, remembering where I was and adjusting my assumption. Of course he was referring to the NBA. And the Lakers. Ugh. Then he said something wonderful:
“Man I’m telling you, Wings can’t be beat.”
I dropped whip cream on the front of my dress (which didn’t deter me) and said:
“Baby doll, what did you just say?” He looked up as if his mom had just caught him ripping someone’s stick.
“Um.” He glanced nervously at his buddy, who was trying hard to disappear into the enormous apple cinnamon crepe on his plate.
“Uh, Wings can’t be beat.” He repeated without making eye contact. My sister and I reacted. Perhaps a bit too enthusiastically:
“YEAAAA” we chimed in stereo. “Are you a Wings fan?” We asked incredulously.
He looked sheepish and sick.
“Um.” Long pause. “I’m a Sharks fan.” In his slow SoCal surfer drawl.
“Yea Sharks!” that from me- again way too enthusiastically for this time of day. (Admittedly its easy to be kind to a Sharks fan now, but truly, they would be my adopted secondary NHL team, if I weren’t so fiercely loyal to the Wings and I didn’t feel so bad for the Kings.)
“So, you’re still watching the Playoffs?” I nodded and smiled.
“yea?”, he still looked scared. I can understand.
And then my sister and I launched into a super rapid fire play by play commentary of Saturday’s game, and bless this kid, he barely knew our team members by name, but he nodded quite a lot.
Then an even cooler thing happened. When I came up from taking a breath, after my gushing about Draper’s speed, the woman and her husband at the table next to us said:
“Draper is from Toronto, you know.” In an accent I rarely hear anymore. I was in heaven.
How can it be that I pick one of the girliest, most fru-fru Sunday brunch spots in all of SoCal, were I am wearing super-sized sunglasses, pigtails AND a pink and red strapless dress just to eat strawberry crepes and drink mimosa;
And I end up sandwiched between Canadian and California Hockey fans.
Srsly. Go ahead and keep those simple sad little hockey = feminine/sexual preference analogies to yourself, because EVERYONE knows, the least likely place IN THE WORLD to find a gathering of hockey fans is in a gourmet crepe shoppe in SoCal.
It almost seems sacrilege, in a most wonderful Alice in Wonderland falling down the rabbit hole way. Clearly, the Hockey Gods had something to do with it, since we all were so very happy to have found each other.
My Canadian friends were from Ottawa and they love their team as much as I love my Wings and the Missus she knew everything about anything- She talked at length about Yserman, the Russian 5 and the respect Canadians have for the Wings and Mr. Ilitch. How she wished a Canadian owner would follow his blueprint.
And even I could not hang when she started talking about Guy Carbonneau. She looked so nostalgic when she mentioned that as a child her favorite team had been Montreal.
My Shark fan friends had started following the game in 2002- when they started college (how cute). They were really impressed with the Wings, even if a bit downtrodden about their team’s early exit.
I told them to hang in there, it takes years to get to the cup and as a fan, a dose of yearly disappointment is good training.
But you know, if someone had said that to me in 1995 or 1996, I’d probably have kicked them.
Nevertheless, it was a crepe eattin’, sunday brunch, mimosa sipping Hockey love fest.
And you just don’t hear about such things very often …
The cutest moment of all? The young towheaded daughter of my new Ottawa friends piped up wile I was talking about how Dats and Zetts are so great and in her Cindy Lou Who voice she said “I know why you are a Wings fan.”
And when I asked why, she giggled and said:
“Even your food is Red and White, just like the Wings.”
How adorable is that kid?
When the last whip cream covered strawberry had been eaten, my sister and I got up to leave and about half the restaurant said:
“Good Luck Ladies, “Go Wings”.
How fun is that????
Originally posted Monday May 26, 2008 @ 12:47 PM EDT at http://fans.nhl.com/members/JuiceinLA/blogs/15295
Copyrighted 2008, all rights reserved by Behrgreer Ltd. and the author. No reproduction or use without the express written permission of the author.
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