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.

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.