Sunday, April 01, 2007

Marty McSorley is Magically Delicious (also known as the 2007 NHL Alumni All-Star Classic)

Yesterday, Leigh-Ann and I went to see the NHL Alumni All-Star Classic at The Orleans Arena.  It was generally full of players I’d never heard of, due to the fact that I’ve only been a hockey fan for a few seasons.  But, because I like hockey fights, I knew all about the infamous Marty McSorley.  I didn’t realize how young he is though - he’s only a year older than I am, so super super incredibly stupendously young.  Because he’d retired in 2000, I didn’t know what he looked like, as I’d only read articles about him and hadn’t seen pictures.  We stood in line to get autographs for our jersey, and it seemed to take forever for the players to come out of the dressing room; and not all of them did - I’m looking at you Pokey Reddick, Ron Elgaard (CFL Hall of Famer), and a couple of others who I don’t even know, so I guess didn’t really care that they didn’t bother to sign.  However, Alan Thicke wandered past the line (a small line or I wouldn’t have bothered) and because we were nice and didn’t bother him during his private time, our politeness was thrown in our polite faces because he didn’t bother to sit down at the signing table with everyone else.  I feel free now to let everyone know that Alan Thicke is a terrible hockey player.  He was also wearing the most incredible facial protection I have ever seen.  I hope Leigh-Ann got a picture of it.  I imagine that the movie/tv actor hockey leagues are full of players protecting their pretty faces and dental work, but I’d just never seen anything so, uh, thorough.  Anyway, Alan was outplayed by a 9 year old boy (Lance Maxwell) who was there representing youth hockey, whatever that means. (I think it means his family runs the event)  Lance sat at the table signing jerseys, so Alan Thicke could’ve sat his butt down and done it too.  There were only about 30 of us in line.  The Maxwell boy seems like a nice kid and you could tell that he had a great time playing in the game.  The grownups were super nice to him during the game - he got to score a goal, and more importantly, get into a faux brawl with a man I assume is his father.  They have the same last name.  It was a cute father & son moment worthy of a LifeSaver or two.

I’ve digressed, haven’t I?  I started out by talking about Marty McSorley and ended up talking about a nice little boy.  I’m going to let you keep wondering about Marty for a bit.  The first guy who signed the jersey was Ian Turnbull.  He was really nice and we got to talk about how frustrating the Leafs are, and how Saturday night’s game was going to be a tough one.  (The Leafs, of course, won that really tough game against the Penguins, but choked against the Rangers on Sunday - so typical)  Ian has the NHL record for most goals in a game by a defenseman - 5.  Next was Darren Banks , who might hold some sort of record like Most Teams Played For in a Short Period of Time.  He scored a lot in the alumni game.  He seemed nice.  The next guy was Jay White, a Neil Diamond impersonator who played goalie.  Between periods, he sang “Sweet Caroline” while skating around and still wearing his goalie equipment.  He’s pretty good, and he does indeed look and sound like Neil Diamond.  Most of the other guys were a blur for me, except for Clint Malarchuk, a goaltender most known for one of the most gruesome injuries sustained in a professional sports game.  His carotid artery was sliced by a skate.  (don’t click on that link if you’re not prepared) He was lucky that the team’s trainer had served as a medic in Vietnam, because very few people would’ve been able to handle something like that.  He was amazingly back playing a week later.  On Saturday, he was all spiffied up and wearing a really nice black cowboy hat.  He’s cute.

The game was very poorly attended, but we had a good time anyway.  Most of the guys can still skate like pros and we even saw some pretty good goals.  The Hanson Brothers were there and every so often popped into the game for some hijinks.  Sadly and embarrassingly, Leigh-Ann and I still haven’t seen the movie “Slapshot”, which is where they found their fame.  Plus, we didn’t even get their autograph for the jersey because while we were standing and waiting for the other guys to come out of the locker room, they were signing pictures and jerseys, so we assumed they’d stay when the other players came up.  We were wrong.  They were also selling $10 autographed pictures.  I just checked the price on their website and the pictures were a terrific deal, if we’d wanted one.  They charge $30 on their site.

...and now we return to Marty McSorley.  He’s cute.  He has a twinkly smile and it’s hard to imagine him beating the crap out of people.  I think it was a public service what he did to Donald Brashear.  Gah, can’t stand Brashear.  Marty also has a nice muscular upper body (probably lower body too, but he was sitting, so I couldn’t see it) and if I was straight, I certainly would’ve been imagining what it would’ve been like to touch it.  Oh, who am I kidding, even a gay chick can appreciate a great male body.  Yummy.

For more pictures from the game, check out Leigh-Ann’s Flickr account.

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1. The only thing Marty McSorley did wrong was not hitting that jerk Brashear hard enough. If I ever am lucky enough to run into Marty, I’m buying him a beer.

   Helly  on  04/03  at  07:37 AM

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