Thursday, December 29, 2011

The Winter Classic

So I had intended to keep this blog up a bit more regularly, but it's been a little rough with The Holidays.  Alas, tonight is Game 2 this season of the Battle of Pennsylvania, so time to get writing.

Most of you that know me, know that I love the game of hockey.  I play on not one, but two teams in Philadelphia.  I stay up late to watch the West Coast Games, pay extra for both the NHL Package on Comcast, as well as, Satellite Radio (okay, that's just so I can hear Mike Lange call goals) and generally, love all things hockey.  As you might expect, I was thrilled for HBO's 24/7 to launch this season.  While I despise the Flyers,  Talbot is always good for a laugh, and while not so much anymore, the Rangers have always been the dumping ground for some of my favorite former Pens.  This year I couldn't watch the debut episode of 24/7 live, so I DVR'd it.  And you know what?  It's still sitting there...only one episode recorded...30 seconds watched.  As soon as the opening footage started to roll, tears welled up in my eyes and I suddenly got nauseous.

Last year's Winter Classic was great!  I watched every second of the HBO footage from the Greatest City on the Planet, laughed my ass off at Boudreau's chicken sauce soaked face and clung to every word Danny Disco said in the locker room.

Winter Classic Weekend I met Brendan Shanahan...
made 2 out of 3 shots in Sidney Crosby's dryer (would have been all 3 but I rushed #2)...
attended the Alumni Game and saw my childhood heroes skate again...

And this year?  Well, I don't care.  Okay it's not that I don't care, it's that I get too nervous watching the game.  I used to be nervous about the outcome of the game and now I'm holding my breath for what's going to happen next.  2011 couldn't have been a worse year for hockey and I can't wait for it to be over.  I feel like since January 1 of 2011 we've been taking some really hard hits, some, unbearably tragic.  The rain that day should have been a sign.  Being a Yinzer (read: highly superstitious) and also a hockey fan (read: believes in Hockey Gods) I have to believe that 2012 will be better.  I'm not someone who believes the game should be "soft" (I firmly believe that fighting has a place in the NHL) nor do I believe that every injury is avoidable, but I have to believe that the Worlds Greatest Player will return to the ice for good in 2012, and that Yaroslavl Lokomotiv will continue to find strength to play the game, and that Shanny's explanations will help future generations of young players understand what will and won't be tolerated, and that the tough guys on the ice make the right tough decisions on their mental health.

I have hockey practice with my Nationally Bound Over-30 team, the Philadelphia Voodoo, at 9pm and will miss the end of the game tonight.  Rest assured I'll spend periods 1 and 2 in the car listening to Bourquey and Lange and wildly taunt my Flyer-loving teammates.  But the outcome of the game?  The return of Talbot and Jagr?  Yeah, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter all that much...that is...until 2012.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Pens v Flyers - Round 1

What a better time to get this blog rolling than the eve of the first Pens v Flyers game of the season!  My previous blog post explained why I'm proud to be a Yinzer, so the next logical step is to explain why it is relevant that I live in Philadelphia.

Earlier this week I became engaged in Facebook Altercation with a Flyer fan (shocking, I know).  The debate had all of the usual Turnpike-Battle Banter; the '75 Flyers, the '93 Pens, Lombardi trophies, Santa Claus (he brought it up, not me), batteries, ticket prices, the air quality of Pittsburgh in the 70s, the hitting quality of the Pirates in the 90s, etc.  Of course the cliched, Sidney Crys-by was thrown around more than once.

Our closing arguments went something like this:
Me: Flyer fans are hockey illiterates that think yelling "Fight" and "Hit 'em" are how you win hockey games.
Random Friend of a Friend: You're so wrong, we know hockey. You're just like everyone else saying we're stuck in the 70s, that's only a small minority, that's not everyone. Pittsburghers just think everything with in 2 ft of #87 is a penalty.
First off, yes, I was in said Facebook Altercation with a random friend of a fairly newly introduced co-worker.  Anyway, this discussion had me wondering...was I right with my comments, were Flyer fans living in the Broad Street Bully days or had I judged this new generation of fans on their 70s predecessors?  Then I re-read the start of the thread.

It had begun when my co-worker posted about having an extra seat to The Game.  I noted that I would be at The Game...in a luxury box.  My co-worker immediately called me a "sissy."  I politely explained that I preferred to wash my hair with shampoo and conditioner and not mucus and beer, but again I was called a sissy.  The next comments pertained to how Sidney Crosby is a whiner and a diver.  Now, I'll be the first to admit that our dear Captain did have a knack for occasionally imitating a flamingo in his early days, but in the past few years, I'd argue he's been mauled more times without a call, than he's pleaded with a ref for a call on a dive.  During this discussion, it seemed the only insult anyone could drum up about the Pens was related to either A. how tough they were compared to everyone else or B. things of the past.



Now I was forced to review why I felt such animosity towards the Flyers...was it because Hextall chased Robbie Brown around the ice like a lunatic?  That my friend who I'm going to the game with had a beer dumped on his head when he was 10 for wearing a Lemieux jersey?  No...I don't live in the past.  It's because I now have to wonder if all of Max Talbot's antics were sincere or just for notoriety, mostly to get a bigger paycheck.  It's because Jagr, who once said he was "dying alive" in the city that I love, pulled the biggest tease ever saying he might come back to Pittsburgh only to sign with one of our biggest rivals.  It's because I cannot respect a group of men who call themselves a Team while allegations of players cheating with each other's wives swirl around.  It's because Chris Pronger stole game pucks that weren't his to take.  It's because Hartnell bit Kris Letang's finger in a scrum.  You see, in Pittsburgh, it's not just about being a tough guy (though you can ask DiPietro's jaw about that) but more about 'aving 'art. (That's "having heart" for those of you who so quickly forget the Therrien years.)


So not only do we Yinzers have more than a big fist to throw around, but we know the game.  Last season I saw the Toronto Maple Leafs play the Flyers in the Wells Fargo/Wachovia/Whatever the Hell it's Called building.  During a break the organist played the typical stadium jingle of "dun dun dun," that would normally lead to a cheer of, "Let's Go ____!"  Instead, it went "dun dun dun, Cros-by Sucks!"  I was shocked.  I mean Crosby is a Canadian citizen and Toronto is a city in Canada...but I was confused.  I looked to the out-of-town scoreboard assuming that the Pens must have been winning and that I must have forgotten there was a game.  Nope.  The Pens weren't playing.  In Pittsburgh, when the Pens play the Leafs the chant is usually "six-ty-seven" as in the last year the Leafs won Lord Stanley's Cup, something that is relevant to the game of hockey.

So this is why my blog is significant...any Yinzer that has to put up with this level of stupidity and asinine aggression  should at least let it be known to those back in the 'burgh.  I've also resolved, at least for now, to avoid all Altercations involving Flyer fans until they learn a thing or two about the game and stop living in the 70s.  Until then, I'll treat them as such...Losers since 75.  

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Being a Yinzer

So one of the biggest problems with being a Yinzer in Philly is that many Philadelphians (how creative) don't know what a Yinzer is.  In all fairness, there's some debate amongst Yinzers as to who fits the definition.  Yinzer can be sort of like Canuck...you can say, "I like the Vancouver Canucks" and people will give you a high-five and then you can say, "Those drunken Canucks rioted in Vancouver" and you will be punched in the face.  Likewise, with Yinzer, you can say, "Yeah, he's a Yinzer...grew up dahn the run" and immediately you and your speaking partner can begin comparing the years you graduated from 'Dice.  Contrary, you say, "A bunch of drunken Yinzers" and offense is immediately taken.  As with both words, you have to be on the "inside" to have the privilege to use them and by "inside" I mean native...locals, maybe, but only after an extended tenure.



The definition of Yinzer to most is "someone who says Yinz", meaning they speak Pittsburghese.  Yinz is a Pittsburghese contraction of "yous ones" or "youses" - meaning more than one of "you."  Growing up, only my grandparents spoke Pittsburghese, my mother found it abhorrent and insisted that I wash my clothes, not worsh them and that I clean up my room, not red it up.  I went off to college believing that I had no discernible traits of Yinzer in me.  About a week into my upstate New York college experience it was pointed out that I said rad at the beginning of radiator instead of the proper long a as in radiate, I wore tennis shoes (even when going running), and my o's were quite nasally.  When trying to figure out who you are as an 18 year-old freshman, it's easy to want to be someone different than who you were in high school.  Most of the people I went to college with were from New England.  Other than a few die-hard sports fans (who knew better than to getting in a pissing contest with a Pittsburgher), most of my college friends assumed Pittsburgh was a dirty city, with no culture; just another mill town filled with people inferior to New Englanders (again, creativity points here).  If you've ever interacted with a large segment of New Englanders at once, you know, convincing them otherwise is nearly impossible.  In the end, I decided it was nice to be different from my classmates, I liked that my o's were funny and I thought the icy sidewalks were slippy not slippery, I enjoyed telling people they were nebby and even more so, I enjoyed explaining that meant. Looking around campus, where everyone resembled a walking version of a J.Crew catalog it was great to remember that there was a whole city that dressed exactly like me...in Stiller jerseys.

After college, the economy was pretty brutal, many of my friends and I were forced to move back home, where rent was free.  Many of us found jobs in the 'burgh and started to embrace what a wonderful place it is.  With my second "real" paycheck I purchased Penguin season tickets (which I still have).  I started to frequent the bars that my grandfather told me to never enter (of course Kelly's is no longer a cabbie bar, but a cool, trendy place for 20-somethings) and while Pittsburgh has a pretty solid economy now, my husband's job required us to live in a city that had more financial offerings, which is how we ended up in Philly.

So for me, Yinzer means Pittsburgher...someone who thinks the only appropriate attire for Sunday is a Stiller jersey, someone that can read, write, understand and (sometimes) speak  Pittsburghese, who has pride about the great city from which they hail and above all, understand being a Yinzer.