The Continuing Adventures of The Scottish Geisha
Chapter 81, Installment 415: On Being A Woman and The NHL
All New Installment! April 15th, 2004
“The only reason to be a man in this world is for
the chance to play hockey for the NHL,” The Scottish Geisha announced
out of the blue one day.
We all were silent, pondering this, the only reason to be a man.
“Otherwise,” she continued to no one in particular, “Being
a woman is so much more interesting.”
We continued to maintain silence, knowing what peril existed in voicing
an opinion.
“I can envision,” The Scottish Geisha continued in a deceptively
pleasant voice, “A world in which Cheechoo, Rutu and Tuutu all play
for the same team.”
We pondered this notion, smiling at the trouble that those names would
surely cause hapless sports announcers.
The Scottish Geisha was in full play-off mode, watching the Sharks take
down St. Louis in the first two games. “Wasn’t Surly just
the perfect gentleman?” she sighed, delighted. ‘That dreadful
player from St. Louis actually hit him in the head twice and still he
didn’t get into a fight.”
When we remarked that most other players wouldn’t have taken such
abuse, The Scottish Geisha took offense.
“You people know nothing of strategy,” she snapped. “Surly
had no choice, not if he was to put his team first. He couldn’t
afford to take a five-minute penalty. He is always one of the top three
players, time on the ice wise. They needed him on the ice, and he definitely
couldn’t risk injury. It is far too early in the play-offs for that
sort of nonsense.”
What with her flawless logic and natural inclination to grasp the finer
points of hockey and professional sporting strategy, it is no small thing
to state that, generally speaking, we hate the Scottish Geisha.
“Such a grown up young man,” The Scottish Geisha continued,
blithely unaware “And look at our dear Scrappy, he is trying to
grow a beard, like the rest of the team.”
In our ignorance, we didn’t know it was NHL tradition to grow a
beard during the play-offs. It wasn’t the first time our lack of
understanding of the nuances of hockey would show. And The Scottish Geisha
was pretty certain, as were we, that it wouldn’t be our last.
We peered at the images of the Shark’s players and it didn’t
seem to us that everyone was on the beard bandwagon.
“Of course they are,” admonished The Scottish Geisha. “The
play-offs have just begun and you really can’t tell for a few days
anyway. That Patrick Marleau always looks like he has a five o’clock
shadow for instance. And Scrappy is so blond and fair it is going to be
sometime before you can see his beard. It has nothing,” she added
pointedly, “to do with age or maturity. Damphousse is in his mid
30s and he’s so fair and blond that doesn’t look like he has
a beard yet either.”
And what of Surly?
The Scottish Geisha reversed her neutral opinion at the speed of speech.
“Ah, Surly is a mature young man, he grows facial hair very easily.
And it looks so nice on him,” she said.
Ah yes, of course.
The Scottish Geisha shrugged. “Any team we can beat in four games,”
she replied thoughtfully. “The boys need to rest up while other
teams are forced to go seven games to our four. If we can maintain that
take the round in four games pace to the finals, we will go into the final
round far more rested than our opponent.”
It all sounded good to us but then again, none of us knew a thing about
hockey beyond dreaming that we could play in the NHL too, if only we really
wanted to.
We decided that growing beards, in solidarity with our skating brethren,
was far less risky.
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