How Watching a Game has evolved
As I was watching two hockey games and a baseball game the
other night, holding the tv remote in one hand and a cold Heineken in the other,
I paused for a second, took a mental time out, and started to reflect on the so
called “Good Ole Days”
Hockey on a Saturday night was a weekly ritual. Throughout
the week at school, there was the buildup that led up to game of the week. Conversation
amongst friends would be who was the best player, and defending our Habs
against the odd Black Hawk or Bruin fan. We didn’t need a program, because we
knew every player in the NHL off by hard. We didn’t have to Google stats, all
we had to do is take a quick look behind an O Pee Chee hockey card to prove a
point.
Today, we start off with the pre-game analysis, then there
are the in game interviews, the colour commentator between the benches, HD TV
cameras located everywhere including in the net, super slow replays and the L’Antichambre
after party. I got one game a week back
then and not even in its entirety. HNIC broadcast started at 8:30, after the
first period because teams relied on the gate as their main source of revenue. Many years later, when I attended my first
game at the Forum, I remember how I just stood there in awe…it was the first
time I had ever seen a game in colour. I remember listening to radio broadcasts
and hearing the legendary Dick Irving start off his broadcast by saying..The
Canadiens are skating from left to right on your radio dial. Talk about using
your imagination. They leave nothing up to your imagination anymore.
I may be watching the games in colour on a plasma TV these
days, but a lot of the colour in the game has disappeared. Colourful iconic
figures of that era have been replaced mostly by corporate like, dull hockey
players with their agents, who have been schooled not to say anything
politically incorrect and feed us the same smorgasbord all the time. The boys back then played hard for the jersey
and partied just as hard afterwards without any repercussions of being on the
front page of Le Journal de Montreal or on YouTube. Even the officiating
appears to be headed in the direction of factory cloning. I knew exactly who
was refereeing the game, whether it was Frasier, Stuart, Van Hellemond, or Friday.
Now, I’m clueless to whom the man in stripes is.
I guess I’m getting all these flashbacks of the Good Ole
Days as I approach my 55th birthday. Ok…my mental time out is over. Mannnnnny!!!
(my son)… How about you get me another cold one?? Back to watching the game. At least the part of Son and Dad watching a
hockey game together remains a constant.
PS:
I miss… The Good Ole days!!!
