Team sports. If fashion was a stretch for me, the subject of team sports is a light year leap. I'm not all that good at figuring out what other people are thinking, and I'm certainly not good at doing that quickly. Team sports, where you have to figure out what all these people on two different teams are going to do?
No way.
I even had the requisite years of Phys Ed in public school to no avail (well, except to pull my GPA down). Even as a spectator, I'm bizarre. My favorite Olympic team sport is the four man bobsled.*,**
This may be the only traditional team sport post I ever write (though my post on Shyness and Self-Confidence did have a small Christine Lavin section*** (song) about baseball). The next part will be mostly quotes.
Breakfast with Pandora, back in February, introduced a new blog, Te borscher sporttelegraaf: Borschland hockey news, which is written by his son:
I have created a large number of imaginary worlds, beginning from
the first days of my fascination with maps. I made a quick transition,
at nine,
from copying maps of the real world to creating ones from my own
imagination...
As I was and am still a big sports fan, sometimes I created worlds
and then populated them with sports teams, and sometimes I made sports
teams and created worlds around them. The amount of time you can spend
managing an imaginary sports league is bounded only by the ability to
stay awake and free from other responsibilities on any given day...
But now one of those worlds has come back, not by my own efforts,
but from the prompting of my son. He loves imaginary sports teams, too,
though not as obsessively as I did, and when he got wind-- somehow--
about my Borschland Hockey League, and I told him it might be fun to
create a blog around it, he latched on to the idea and has made it
happen.
Official notice: Te staff sporttelegraaf
is born, the only blog in the entire world dedicated solely to
following the Borschland Hockey League. Now, the league has a proud
history of almost one hundred years-- these Borschers love their
hockey-- so the fact that the blog is new should not give the false
impression that the Borschic league is some upstart. By no means...
I love the description of the country:
Borschland is located on a phase-shifting continent in the southern
hemisphere, between Australia and the southern tip of Africa. It is
only intermittently visitable by the outside world, and during one of
those periods the territory that would become Borschland was colonized
by the Dutch, the Germans, and a few Belgians.
Being closer to Antarctica than any of the other parts of the
continent, Borschland's climate is conducive to hockey, and its
midsection, the rolling country between the sea and the mighty
Borschland River, is conducive to apple orchards. Thus, it is sometimes
called the land of brandy and pucks.
Given my total non-team-sportsishness, I have been a silent lurker. This week, BwP has summarized recent events:
...the great traditional powerhouse team, Te Staff, was unbeaten and seemed destined to win another championship.
The main reason for the team's success was the American hockey
player Sherman Reinhardt, who had lately begun a romance of sorts with
a local poetess.
Now we find that Sherm has disappeared without a trace, and so has the poetess.
What will happen? Anyone's guess, but the post
that broke the story of Sherm's disappearance has received a comment
beautifully envisioned and written by one Erki Turkommen, a Finnish
fisherman who sails out of the Borschic port of Onatten.
You can go over to the blog and get in on the fun. Be part of the
creative collaboration. Create a persona of your own who lives in
Borschland, or post as yourself and play tourist or eavesdropper.
Go check it out.
I know little about hockey, besides its
being the national religion of Canada. But music... that's another matter (grin). Enter: my very favorite folk singer, Canadian Stan Rogers. In his notes for his album, from fresh water, Stan Rogers introduces "Flying:"
...Competition is severe in the Junior leagues. Once every several years we get one like Gretzky. Flying is an allegory - it is also the very real story of a third round hopeful who once coached Gretzky and now coaches little leaguers and sells saunas.
The complete lyrics are here. Stan Rogers tells the tale with his usual poignancy:
...I tell them to think of the play and not of the fame.
If they've got any future at all, it's not in the game.
'Cause they'll be crippled and starting all over again
Selling on commission and remembering
When they were flying, remembering dying.
And every kid over the boards listens for the sound
The roar of the crowd is their ticket for finally leaving this town
To be just one more hopeful in the Junior A.
Dreaming of that miracle play.
And going up flying, going home dying.
(Click here to listen to a clip)
* Or the relays - cross country, swimming, running. But those are closer to individual sports, which is where my interest lies (gymnastics, skiing, running, diving, luge, etc.). My favorite Olympic event is a pairs one - Ice dancing, of course!
** I also find curling interesting because it is so unlike anything else in the Olympics.
*** Small section of the post, not small Christine Lavin, though she is my height.