Snowman On Fire

The more I blog and mention “the book,” the more questions I get about it. So here’s a summary of the book, in outline form, based on current course and speed. This is completely serious, including my sidebar comments about content and tone. Your mileage may vary, the actual contents may appear smaller than described, no bailment is created.

Chapter 1: The Jeff Halpern Story. In short, why I started keeping a journal and thinking about a book, based on the true-life story of Jeff Halpern, Jewish NHL player who also attended Princeton. I hit 4 pages and stopped. But some of that content is in here. [done, but weak]

Chapter 2: Number 8. The real story of the whole snowman riff, my fascination with the number 8, Willie Stargell, and youth sports. [done]

Chapter 3: A Great Miracle Happened There. The 1980 Lake Placid Olympics “Miracle on Ice” story, as told by a high school senior who was forced to spell “Czechoslovakia” once a week and cheered when the Czechs got pounded by the Americans. Numerous Hanukah references included. [done]

Chapter 4: Hobey’s Rink. Playing hockey in the shadow of Hobey Baker, Patty Kazmaier, Laura Halldorson, and Coach Bruce whose last name I now forget. How ignorance of tradition isn’t fatal, especially if it forms a story of its own.

Chapter 5: An Expensive Afternoon. What happens when your wife tells you to entertain the kids for the day, and you end up at an ice skating rink, with Devils season tickets and a Stanley Cup picture in the mix. A near-death experience involving Bubba yelling at Philadelphia fans creates dramatic tension.

Chapter 6: Today I Am An Adult. Why I started playing hockey again even though all of my equipment was encrusted with mold. Skating with a bunch of Jewish guys on a team named the Saints, and why that was less humourous than the picture of an asthmatic stallion on our jerseys.

Chapter 7: Travel Hockey. My indoctrination to the life of a travel hockey parent. Literally having the snot frozen out of me, but thinking it was OK. My first ever hockey tournament, and why silver cups are important.

Chapter 8: The Hagiography of Saint Patrik. The life and times of our favorite Devil, Patrik Elias, and how Lord Stanley’s Cup ended up in New Jersey one more time.

Chapter 9: The Physics of Hockey. Yeah, really, physics like melting points and inelastic collsions. But also what holds teams together, and why I’m thrilled to come home at 1:00 AM with rink stink and bruises.

Chapter 10: A Two-Way Game. Our first lesson in the school of hard hockey knocks, involving a nickname and scoring on your own goalie.

Chapter 11: Beer League. Playing on Friday nights, Sunday nights and in between with men of my own age but far better skill. What happens in the locker room, and why Cheap Trick sucks.

Chapter 12: Love Covers Pain. We go to Lake Placid but there’s no Miracle on Ice. It happens on the car ride home. [done]

Chapter 13: Welcome to Management. My life in the scorekeeper’s box where time is malleable at the press of a button. How to prevent locker room disasters with 10 year olds: the facts of life, Santa Claus, and who brings the bad donuts.

Chapter 14: A Poem In The Cards. The life and times of my entire pasteboard empire, from sticking baseball cards in the spoke of my bike to discovering that I was tied to an NBA player’s son through a Topps card given to me by my grandfather. Inspired by Cory Doctorow’s short story Craphound. [done]

Chapter 15: Silver Anniversary. 25 years after the Miracle on Ice, another form of silver enters our house courtesy of the NJ state hockey playoffs.

Chapter 16: Snapping My Twig. Jewish men, their sports equipment, our Russian heritage, and why Scott Niedermeyer’s stick changed my life.

Chapter 17: A Great Miracle Happened Here. Yes, it’s a dreidel joke. It involves Lake Placid again. [done]

Chapter 18: Finding Pops. Return of the son of the snowman, in a different form. What the book should have been about from the very beginning. [done]

So the book has a beginning, middle and end. It could qualify as a novella, if there was continuity and context provided. I consider this my meta-writing exercise for the day, if i write about writing maybe I’ll be stimulated to write my 500 word allowance. But for now, the day job is calling.

Another in a continuing series of craps references while writing about hockey….

I gave it my all in the last 10 days as a Devils fan. I had scores texted to me so that they were waiting when I landed in strange, horrible, anti-hockey (and anti-people) airports like Charles de Gaul in Paris; I stayed up until 3:00 AM listening to last Friday’s game from South Africa; I had the pilot on my Continental flight from Mumbai radio ahead to get the score of Game 5 (and bless him, it was good news, or there wasn’t enough cheap booze on board to keep me from going non-linear). But through this all, I did not repeat the superstitions, the rituals, the motions, the minor religious observances that truly mark me as a fan of the Devil. Bubba and I will not be denied tomorrow night.

Patrik Elias Russian jersey (for me) and Czech jersey (for Bubba): ready.

Czech flag to wave triumphantly when Elias connects: folded neatly.

Proper t-shirt underlayment for above-mentioned jerseys: ready, and already being worn (me in Devils Elias jersey tee, Bubba in the whats-a-matter-Sioux Notre Dame hockey tee)

Diet of chicken fingers, Carvel ice cream, and pretzels: already saving calories for tomorrow night’s intake.

Does any of this matter? Of course it does. Sports mixes belief and intent in a unique way; players believe that they can (or they can’t, as evidenced by Colin White’s complete refusal to move his feet last night) and carry that belief into a melange of physics and passion. From intent and belief it’s only a small (vertical) leap to ritual and religion, passing by tradition on the way to fervor in believing our actions affect what happens on the ice.

This minor insanity runs deep with me. As captain of the high school math team (stop laughing) I carried a small alabaster egg in my jeans pocket for every competition. I did it once, and we won, and after that it was accepted practice (along with the playing of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Freebird the night before - don’t ask). In 2003, Bubba insisted that the Devils hadn’t score a goal in Game 7 of the Cup Finals because we had failed to eat a pretzel at the intermission. I ran out to the concourse, picked up a soggy excuse for a pretzel, and minutes late the Devils scored - we threw the ends of the pretzel into the rows behind us, possibly into the laps of unhappy Ducks fans, and for once felt no guilt about wasting food (even Meadowlands fare). The Devils have not lost a game at the Prudential Center when Bubba and I are both there. Not even down two goals to Tampa Bay, with their energy and division lead seemingly draining away, did the Devils fail to deliver on their end of the disconnected cause and effect (our last game at the Rock, April 3).

Joshua Prager’s The Echoing Green weaves the story of Morty Rothschild into that of Bobby Thomson and Ralph Branca during the last game of their 1951 baseball playoff game, the season in the balance. With his beloved New York Giants losing in the bottom of the ninth, Rothschild left the ballpark, considering that the Giants had never lost a game he’d listened to on his car radio. And so Thomson’s “shot heard round the world” was heard by Rothschild over the air waves, not seen in person. But his team had won, his own superstitious behavior no doubt contributing, from his point of view, to the team’s come from behind victory and the pennant. The rational among us dismiss such behavior as irrational and physically impossible, as well as statistically improbable and mildly irritating.

Princeton University President Shirley Tilghman, a noted molecular biologist, was asked to speak about evolution and its detractors. Her comments in the speech The Assault on Evolution do not dismiss viewpoints that some see as irrational or physically impossible, but rather explain that “science and religion are merely two different manifestations of the human experience.” We all see and hear the same events on the ice; we slam into our seat-mates with the same feelings; we choose our own interpretations of the causes of those effects.

We know the science: chemistry that causes ice to form a miniscule layer of water beneath Gionta’s skate blades; elastic collisions between Elias’ stick and the puck; inelastic collisions between pucks and Oduya’s shin pads; optics of the red light behind Cam Ward; wave mechanics of 16,000 screaming fans.

We know the religion: pandemonium, the time of all demons, the house of all possible Devils.

Tomorrow night, we dance this dance one more time, mentally and physically prepared for our role as fans.

Let’s go Devils.

It was a strange week. Last week was actually stranger, as I had a few rough work days strung together by red-eye, delayed and over-booked flights across the country. But it ended well, if not equally strangely, when the Devils broke their 6-game losing streak by grounding the Bolts. But even for a Devils game, it was a strange day, indeed:

Bubba announced, publicly, that the Devils would end their losing streak as he was attending the game. The Devils have never lost with little Bubba in the (new) building. Not once in 19 tries, and last Friday was indeed a try. When the Devils went down 2-0 Bubba was bent, but not broken. He’s got more of what my grandmother would call koyach (strength, backbone) than his dad.

Before even departing Bubba-dom, I wavered on my jersey selection. Yes, I wear an appropriate jersey to each game. Yes, it looks like I’m 4 months pregnant and wrapped in nylon. Normally, Bubba picks up his Czech Olympic Elias jersey and I wear my Metallurg Elias jersey, but for some reason I went very — very very — old school: The red Koho Devils jersey from 2000, with a crest more wrinkled than the face you make when Rupp takes another dumb roughing penalty. Bubba talked me out of it. Czech mates we were.

As soon as we landed in our seats (last row of Section 21), Chico came by ostensibly on his way to the bathroom. We got high fives. A period later, NJ Devil came by, and gave us more high fives (although in his larger than life state, they count as seven and a halves, I think).

Despite Holik taking (another) dumb penalty, the Devils wrangled a power play out of it when Jeff Halpern came flying in from the far circle to rough up Holik. Halpern? The Princeton guy? Bubba’s quote: He didn’t learn that in Hebrew school.

Shanahan scored on a penalty shot, becoming the oldest player to do so in the NHL.

Throw in the other strangeness of the night — Weekes getting hurt and Marty playing in a game he was meant to sit back and enjoy; two blown leads in the third period; the thrown stick resulting in the penalty shot; Elias coming onto the ice in a suit (nursing a leg injury) to honor Marty — and the net result should have been something bizarre. A goal overturned by Toronto. Holik or Rupp bouncing one in off of Marty’s rear end. But none of that happened; if there was a bottom to be found in the market for Devils wins, we found it. It was good. Weekes isn’t down for the count. Devils won in OT. The Bubba streak was preserved. It may have been a weird week, but upon further review, it ended well.

Call me quelle stupide but the Devils just embarassed l’habitant du but: Price wasn’t the guardian of the net tonight, he was a regular resident inside the twine. If I still lived in Boston, I’d already be relishing the morning headlines forming puns on the Canadiens nom du plume: Hab A Nice Break. Habbin’ A Streak. Heaven Hab Us, Devils On Top.

So the Devils enter the break in first place, after a 24-hour stint back in second thanks to the Rangers’ scheduling urgency and the Ducks’ inability to convert at the Garden. What can we expect down the stretch?

Will Elias, Parise or someone else break 100 points for the first time in franchise history?

Will the team have a 50 goal scorer, again for the first time?

Can the Devils actually have two of the top ten scorers in the league, during the same season?

Will we see Jay Pandolfo again as time, age and the late season duress catch up with Rolston, Holik or Shanahan?

When Marty is back, will things get even better, and will Sutter finally give Marty the rest and recuperation he needs going into the playoffs?

Elias’ absence from the All-Star Game shows the dangers inherent in starting the process before Election Day and allowing more creative voting than a Florida election. Patrik is the only top-ten forward (statistically) not represented in Montreal this weekend, but as usual he’ll take it in stride and let his stick do the talking until April.

Six game road trip, big change in perspective. Lots can happen in a hockey work week:

1. Riding atop the Atlantic Division is such a sweet thing. I’m looking at the Hockey News’ 08-09 conference predictions with the entire division minus the Islanders ahead of the Devils. Predictions are made to be broken.

2. Shanahan still has “it”, whatever “it” may be. He gives hope to over-40 hockey heads everywhere. Two years ago, I called him a nudnik, but maybe he was just looking for better team chemistry? I yelled “dangle” so loudly that The Bubba put down the Rock Band drum sticks. It qualifies as an event.

3. If Shanahan continues to score at this pace, he’ll have more goals on the season than Gomez by about Valentine’s Day. With just one goal, Shanahan is now 300% more cost efficient than Gomez (8 goals for $10M versus 1 goal for $400K, your spreadsheet mileage may vary).

4. Travis Zajac is horribly under-rated. Everyone said “huh” when the Devils drafted him.

5. Speaking of draft oddities, how badly are the Islanders kicking themselves for passing over Parise? JP Parise (like, his father) played for the Islanders, and was respected, revered and remunerated for being a killer of Ranger dreams.

6. Patrik Elias is on Twitter, and it’s really him. A bunch of the other puck heads on Twitter trusted, then verified, but the Snowman has unnamed sources. Meanwhile, no tweets from Elias in ages. Maybe Lou found out? Something tells me Lou would tweet in all caps. Just a thought.

Not making the list: Salvador’s stomach credited with Nashville goal; Who needs shutouts when you’re winning games; We miss Pandolfo but he is a Team Player; Mike Cammalleri gives Calgary hope and consistency (actually, that may be tomorrow’s list).

Minor disclaimer: Just got back from vacation, after a wickedly rough December, which is why the blog has been quiet and my loud Devils thoughts have remained unvoiced. But lots of time in airports, airplanes and transit gave me reason to catch up on The Hockey News back issues, and spurred me to capture some of not so quiet thoughts that resulted.

Case in point, that of course starts with another disclaimer. I am not a fantasy hockey player, nor do I play one on TV, nor does anyone have me in their asthma league fantasy team (sorry if that one made you puke a bit). But I think I now have the perfect counter-indicator for fantasy players: The Hockey News. It’s not quite as bad as the Sports Illustrated cover curse but it’s up there.

Marty Brodeur on the cover early this year: I didn’t even finish the issue before Marty was clutching his torn tendon. That was the early warning indicator for me, the beacon that perhaps THN was so out of phase that it could be the anti-news source.

Here’s the latest: December 1 issue, page 8, the bi-weekly “plus/minus” roundup of who’s on the wax and wane on the icy plane — and you could have made serious ground up in your league by shorting the printed word. On the plus side: plaudits for Roberto Luongo, who then began fighting off injury as well. On the minus side: cross-bow shot at Patrik Elias, asking how he turned into “only” a 20-goal scorer post lockout. No sooner did the ink dry on this one than Patrik ran up a 10 game point streak and is bumping up against 20 goals before the halfway point in the season (to be precise: 17 goals in 37 games, putting him tied for 17th in the league). Perhaps they meant “top 20 goal scorer” and not just “20 goal scorer”?

It’s not so much the lack of timeliness in reporting here; it’s the complete lack of journalistic effort. “Do the work,” as critic-owner Mark Cuban would say. Elias missed the first half of the first post-lockout season recovering from a bout with Hepatitis A; last season he played more center than left wing and was involved in enough line combinations that you needed a periodic table of the Sutter elements to figure it out. Hard to score goals when you aren’t sure if you’re play making, checking, shooting or figuring out a new coach and system. If you want to make this section interesting, how about offering some insight into your comments, so perhaps those of us who actually follow the sport (and the players mentioned) can grasp some of the underlying rhyme even if it’s lacking in reason?

If THN wants to pick on someone’s lagging production in front of the net, how about Gomez? THN would no sooner pick on the Rangers and their staff than it would endorse George Parros as a good role model.

I’ve been looking for a bit of writing inspiration lately — blogging has been slow, I haven’t had the energy or creativity to devote to working on the hockey book, and work has been, well, more than a job. Perhaps it was the rainy day today, or perhaps it was the fact that I got the urge to clean up my office (it happens, usually once every 3 or 4 months). About two years ago I managed to find an autographed 1980 Olympic Men’s Hockey Team jersey, with silver autographs of gold medal winners, all save the late Herb Brooks. There was a fairly large set of them released around the 25th anniversary of the Miracle on Ice, and one ended up in my jersey collection. I finally had it framed for my birthday this year (thanks to my mother in law) and it quite simply looks nicer than the motley collection of Devils swag on my “jersey wall.” As much as I like my BC jersey with Gionta’s handwriting, the Jay Pandolfo jersey I won in a raffle, the Patrik Elias jersey with a really funny autograph (before he got serious about signing his name) and a Scott Gomez/Jamie Langenbrunner dueling penmanship sample, they just didn’t “feel” right.

The Talking Heads’ David Byrne once said that art is something you should rotate, something you should like, not permanently mount on your wall as if it’s part of the building. I think jerseys fit that profile even more tightly than paintings or posters; jerseys each tell a story, have a life or a background, give you a snapshot of time and space. Give or take a few years, the Miracle on Ice marked the first third of my life; becoming a father to a son who would later help me rekindle my passion for hockey marked the second third. There’s a nice symmetry in that, and perhaps the backwards looking perspective will get me motivated to work on the next big forward looking projects.

Sometimes you need to change your focus, and that’s what I did in hanging the 1980 sweater over my left shoulder.

It’s another night of saying “no ken a horas” after watching a 5-0 Devils lead shrink to 5-3. As the Festrunk brothers would say, “I blame myself.” Had to tweet that Elias’ points streak is now five games with the assist on Zubrus’ second goal. An extended two on one that started with Elias falling down (and later admitting to the “D” that he made a mistake, most likely, in a sidebar by the bench). A bit of 4-on-4 as a result of slightly time offset penalties, and then a penalty shot goal? This game is passing strange on the way to heart-wrenching.

Bright spots: Defense looks solid, to the point where Chico and Doc are commenting on it. Jay Leach (up again from Lowell in level, down in geography?) notches NHL point number one, just to add to the counting. The second period is only 3-3 even though the last 3 were scored by the Bolts.

Dim spots: A few minutes of el-stinko hockey made a potential laugher into a game that can go either way. It’s dark - literally - on the ice. Not sure if it’s me or my semi-random, pausing and stuttering MSG broadcast, but the ice surface looks like the players took out half of the lights during warm ups.

With accountability extended to fans, armchair coaches and those of us flipping between the NFL and NHL tonight, I’m going to stop counting altogether.

I discovered that Elias has a Facebook fan page a few weeks ago, and while it’s short of content (for now), it takes you to some interesting places and seems to be populated somewhat regularly with syndicated news feeds. A few emails back and forth, and perhaps some trackbacks from his sports management team, and I ended up on Elias’ blog roll; his Facebook page now has a badge on the sidebar of this blog.

If you’re on Facebook, check it out, become a fan, and be vocal. Or at least feed the Czech language comments through an online translator if you want creative Rock signage ideas. If you’re not on Facebook, then you don’t know that Elias has his own church. He probably doesn’t know that either, which is partly what makes it fun.

Increasingly, Facebook is being used to create vibrant communities ranging from a few people (check out those of us who favor “mixed crustaceans” on Facebook) to a few thousand - the Washington Capitals use Facebook and other social media to alert fans when there are last-minute tickets available for a game. It’s a great way to keep your most die-hard fans in the loop, and at least make them feel like they’re getting direct access without media filtration, time constraints, language barriers, or non-hockey aware editorial types intermediating the bit stream. Octagon promises that Elias will begin putting up content on a regular basis.

In the meantime, he’s had a great two games - Friday night’s goal was a thing of beauty, the kind of play that made Bubba and me move him to the top of the favorite Devils list; Saturday’s 3-point night made all of the difference in the game. Maybe it’s me; maybe I just haven’t been watching enough Devils hockey with my travel schedule, but Elias was moving more, creating space and time with the puck, being aggressive on the forecheck, and playing well, like Patrik Elias. It’s the kind of (TV) face time that we love.

According to the Devils team website, Elias is wearing the “A” again this season, along with John Madden. I can’t remember seeing a formal announcement of this, so perhaps it’s a subtle entree to a season in which predictions of the Devils’ demise are so frequent they go past the point of Clemensy. Perhaps it’s Sutter’s implicit call on Patrik to return to the winger of years past. Or maybe it’s just time for Patrik to be the Czech point among himself, Holik and Vrana. According to that ancient Sports Illustrated piece, we know what the “A” resolves to for Holik - and I, for one, can’t wait to see it resolve in person.

Under 48 hours, 2 days of work, and one Jewish Holiday to go.