It takes the same amount of time to drive to Myrtle Beach as it does to drive to Sault-Ste-Marie.For one, apparently there's a lot of Pittsburgh Steelers merchandise around and this is confusing me.
But as I stand just South of 'Canes Country (even though I'm pretty sure South Carolina has way more hurricane activity than North Carolina), I can count on one hand the things I've seen related to hockey. And TV isn't one of them.
- A kid in the lobby was wearing a Crosby shirt.
- A guy seated in the chinese restaurent was wearing a Red Wings jersey (and I think it was his own name too).
- A car had a lame attempt to decal itself with a painted Go Redwings (sic) on it.
- A guy working at some Surf and Board shop in a fancy new marketplace was apparently a Caps fan.
- A car parked at the Cracker Barrel had one of those Hurricanes fan plates on for the front of the car.
When the finals kicked off, Versus was showing rodeo. Television sets were tuned to football or baseball, hell I even saw soccer, while the Pens made a series out of the series. By the time I even find NBC's awful feed the games are already over. (Nevermind it took me the entire week to find a decent radio station). The "sports" section at the local Barnes and Noble doesn't even have The Game let alone anything that related to the legends or history of hockey but there sure was plenty of baseball. I have no idea what the newspapers are like. They're mostly about Obama's day anyway, which is a step up from last year being mostly about Britney Spears I guess.
Bravo, Gary Bettman. You're plan to expose and convert the Southern sun-fried bible-thumping masses was apparently a smash hit!
I'm kind of sad to be leaving on Sunday, as I hear the weather is beyond shit back home and the seperatists are starting up yet again with more stupidity, and Mario Tremblay is rumoured to be coming to the Habs as assistant-coach-gag-me-with-a-spork... but school's out finally around here and the kids have all gone insane. Kids apparently have a curfew too, so they try to go insane just before it's time for bed. So in a way, I'm thankful to be heading home soon before some idiot launches a firecracker from the beach into my room. Also this humidity is ruining my hair.
5 comments:
But as Gary would say "there is nothing wrong with our teams in the South. It doesn't matter if there is no hockey on TV or in the paper. These teams can thrive in those places even if nobody has a flipping clue about them".
I'm totally avoiding any and all kinds of media so I have no idea what's happening at all... but I do know that the weather isn't bad. A little cool but at least the rain has stopped =)
Cool blog, and you're in beach country! Excellent.
It's too hard to figure out, this Gary Bettman way of thinking. You don't get it, I don't get it, nobody gets it. Hockey in the south. Nope. This madness has to be stopped.
Hope you had a good time.
PS Anywhere off the Strip in Vegas, hockey is very foreign. I watched one of the Washington-Pittsburgh games off the Strip and in a packed bar, I was the only one watching. Everyone else was watching basketball on the other TV's. So I feel your pain.
Welcome to the US!
Now you understand my pain. And my utter fascination with being in Montreal, where I could find at least 3 stations in the hotel room talking about hockey. Well, talking about the Habs, but hockey nonetheless.
And really, it's not just the south. I would say that is representative of most of the country....
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