Saturday and Sunday and Monday were all about hockey.
Boy plucked this slapshot down, hurling style during his game Sunday, Ace got physical.
Sunday #15 was on fire.
Nope!
I’m very pleased that he took my advice to stretch. It’s important to stay loose and let the lactic acid escape. Plus when you stretch and your opponent sees you, it messes with their mind.
Here he is benched with two other worthy champion defensemen. When at least one of these boys are on the ice, we are reassured that the outcome would be positive. Alas, here the three are on the bench and yes the Brass Bonanza lost 2-1.
Polar Ice House League Elite Defenders
Yes, the team is now called Brass Bonanza. Let me spare you the Google search now, just know it is awesome.
Go ahead listen to it again. It’s awesome, and we will wait at the next punctuation mark for you.
Monday involved more hockey and camaraderie.
That’s my tax guy right there.
There was more hockey to be had. Oh yes. Spring Break Hockey, the purest.
Dropped in on the Canes v Canadiens NHL game. Canes brought a barrage, but fell 3-1 in their third loss to the Canadiens this season. Still had a blast. Ace got to watch the Devil’s game the day before, different outcome. Lucky dude.
I ran into the Canes General Manager, Eric Tulsky in crowd as I was looking for some snacks for Ace. Told him he was doing a great job, have him a thumbs up. Mr. Tulsky gave me a befuddled smile and I went back to the seat. Canes played great but couldn’t deliver against Montreal.
Great time, but that game was trash
Boy had a lot of hustle Monday evening and it was less a practice and more a tour de force.
Really pleased with the new laces I got the boy
The day after practice, decided to check out New Orleans. Checked out the aquarium, place had a nice vibe.
Baby penguin with a lovie Baby gatorsPenguin friendsChomp the albino gatorsMoon jelliesJaws
Kicked out around the city. Saw some amazing things
Monument to the immigrantLee Harvey Oswald’s family tombLooking for spirits among a 900 year live oakBayou
Spent some time in Gulf Shores, nice people good strand.
Sandy feetAce spent more time in the water than the rest of the beach combined. Evidently 78° is too cold
A delightful features of hockey the musical theme that plays following the horn sounding a successful goal.
It’s good to have something up-beat & celebratory for the tune, a local relevance or affinity is a plus. How well did the competing nations of the Olympics fair in their horn sound selection? Below are the samples and my thoughts, alphabetized based on their names in English:
CANADA
Couple things to get out of the way here: despite the recent rough patch in our national relations, I love Canada and will always love Canada, and have a profound reverence for its culture and people. Canada introduced the world to poutine and Hockey itself, and is second to none in its donut culture.
With that out of the way, I note that Canada has a strong stable of significant, hard-driving anthems that most cultures and people throughout history can only aspire to:
Guess Who, Rush, Tragically Hip, Neil; all have huge catalogues of driving anthems. Instead they chose the Sheepdogs ‘Feeling Good.’
Sorry, this beat sounds like a recycled Norman Greenbaum tune. Not worthy of a squad with Crosby, McDavid, or MacKinnon on it. If Seth Jarvis scores on the USA tomorrow morning, the Hockey Night in Canada theme would be a superior sound.
Don’t know much about the Walda Gang, but dig the driving beat and horse shouting. I’d imagine Pastrňák or Necas really enjoyed hearing this whenever they scored. An entire NHL home season’s worth of this anthem might be a bit much for a fan but among the more solid choices of this Olympics.
DENMARK
Denmark’s ‘Vi er dem’ by Kim Larsen is the first in the alphabetic series that has a touch of Eurovision to it. It’s fun. The translated lyrics to the song are somewhat ominous:
We are the ones the others are not allowed to play with Vi er dem, de andre ikke må lege med
We are the bad company Vi er det dårlige selskab
We have a weak character and a cheap imagination Vi har en svag karakter og en billig fantasi
It’s good that we were born Det’ da godt, at vi blev født
Before the abortion it became free Før aborten den blev fri
Sounded good when Ehlers scored despite the off-putting back side of the chorus.
FINLAND
Finland is known for its death metal, and while VilleGalle’s ‘Peto on irtie’ turns out to be a punchy pop song, according to my google-foo it translates to ‘the beast is loose’ and I think that aligns nicely with the death metal idiom even if this is much easier to dance to. Well done Suomi for delivering one of the better anthems this Olympics.
FRANCE
Ok, points for the African beats, but TR3NACRIA’s La Foule (Le Monde Club) sounds like a jewelry commercial. Next.
GERMANY
Germany has Peter Schilling’s ‘Major Tom (Völlig losgelöst)’ and I gotta say I’m a little confused and sad when I listen to this.
Let’s turn to the lyrics:
There it is, thoroughly checked Gründlich durchgecheckt steht sie da
And waits for the start, all clear Und wartet auf den Start, alles klar
Experts argue about some data Experten streiten sich um ein paar Daten
The crew still has a few questions Die Crew hat da noch ein paar Fragen
But the countdown is on Doch der Countdown läuft
Effectiveness determines actions Effektivität bestimmt das Handeln
You rely blindly on the other person Man verlässt sich blind auf den andern
Everyone knows exactly what depends on them Jeder weiß genau, was von ihm abhängt
Y’all are welcome to help me out in the comments.
ITALY
Italy pumps Gabry Ponte’s Tutta L’Italia after the goals. It was only heard 4 times this Olympics. As a man descended from a line of Italian musicians, I am not sad about that.
LATVIA
Latvia’s theme has a Billy Joel sing-along vibe. Points for the vibe. Can’t really piece together who sang this song (Marhils, Dons, Muktupāvels, Fomins, Kaukulis un Čakste, ‘Par Latviju’), but I think its about Latvia so props to Latvia if they have a pub song.
SLOVAKIA
Are you still with me, because if you are, its time to talk about Slovensko’s squad, making it to the semis; they played hard. And how about their sweet uniforms? Easily the sharpest looking of the dozen this year.
Their horn-tune is Ščamba’s ‘Tak, tak, tak + A ja taka dzivočka’. I visited Bratislava almost 15 years ago. Great city, great people. Bring back HC Slovan Bratislava. This song checks out.
SWEDEN
No thank you.
SWITZERLAND
Swiss have Stubete Gäng / Richi. I’d like to take back half the things I said about the Canadian horn anthem.
USA
Ok, we’ve made it to the 12th and final theme song.
I will cop to being more of an Allman’s guy, myself, but I have to say to the dude that has been coming to 2/3rds of all live concerts the last 50 years screaming ‘FREEBIRD!!!’: ‘Strange agitated confused person yelling ‘FREEBIRD!!!,’ you have a point when it comes to the Scorcese part of the song.’ This part whips and there is no denying it.
This would be the perfect horn song for any bird-themed NHL teams. Alas for the Atlanta Thrashers, they picked a Motley Crue song, which is probably why Atlanta shed a second NHL team to a mid-market Canadian town after already losing the Flames. Incidentally, the Flames picked TNT by AC/DC. Should have picked Skynyrd, ATL.
Will ‘Freebird’ be heard more often than ‘Feeling Good’ tomorrow? Only time will tell.
