five red balloons

I love being a Canucks fan

Two older men sit at the table to our left.  Longer grey hair and glasses and an expression like they should be listening to classical music, but instead the changing lights from the hockey game on the massive screen are flickering across their faces.  Canucks hockey, game seven, facing first-round elimination from the playoffs.

They speak in low murmurs: “Come on, guys.  That’s it.”

One of the men rubs his glasses and returns to his meal – something with olives and onions, isolated in the middle of a large white plate.  The other hugs his beer glass and watches the screen.  I am unable to decide if they are devoted fans who have been disappointed too many times, or apathetic Vancouverites who take a mild interest in hockey.

The table to our right, however, leaves nothing to the imagination.  We get a steady stream of play-by-play from the loud man with beery breath, shouts of “Get it out of the corner!” intermingled with his choice of select profanities.  He has a birthmark on his cheek, and his girlfriend is wearing a floral blouse.  He stands up a lot.  Quite frequently he makes biased and ignorant remarks, but it’s okay.  He is clearly a Canucks fan. All is forgiven. 

I wonder what they are thinking of our table, as I sit on the bench with my feet up on the stool, hugging my knees and staring at the screen.  Out of the corner of my eye, I keep seeing the stripes on Taylor’s shirt.  Everyone in our group has glazed eyes, everyone’s attention is glued to the screen, with occasional commercial breaks spent texting about the game.  Shoot!  SHOOT! Aw man, they have to score!  There are abandoned French fries on the table, and a quarter inch of beer left in the pitcher, but we have forgotten it.  Tabitha shoves her food towards the rest of us.  Not hungry anymore.  I can hardly blame her; my stomach is in convulsions too.  I haven’t even realized that I am clutching my legs so tightly that my skin is stretched and white.

First period over.  1 – 0 Canucks.

“It’s not over, it’s not over,” Tabi repeats like a mantra. 

“They have to get another goal, they need another goal, if they don’t get it, Chicago will!” Taylor says, and we all agree.  Everyone is eager not to be too optimistic, as if somehow optimism would impede our team’s chances of winning.  As if we are carefully trying to break our fall in case they don’t.

Which, I guess, we are.

“It’s so loud in here; I find it difficult to converse,” comments one of the older men, as he leans in over his beer.  Subconsciously, I am pondering his choice of words in a crowded bar full of the smell of beer and tension and shouting hockey fans.  Converse.  Who uses that word in reference to speech?  Who uses that word while watching game 7 of playoff hockey?! A simple talk works for most of us. 

Tabitha and I smile at each other.  I reach out and we squeeze hands tightly.  Everyone is shaking.  The girl with the Canucks tattoo at the next table has a perpetually worried expression – her face is gleaming with sweat.  The table in front of us is talking to someone in their group who was at the last playoff game.  “You’re a rockstar, man!” one of guys is telling her, although she is a girl.  “You’re a ****** rockstar!”  He pumps his fist in the air, and I am thinking about celebrity status and how relative it truly is.

Rach texts me, What’s the score?  I know that she is perfectly capable of watching the game for herself and has chosen not to, but I am too hyped up to resist telling her that my team is winning.  She texts back, Oh good.  I can’t tell this time, the guys upstairs used to yell only when there was a goal, but this game they’re screaming and yelling at EVERYTHING.

And that is exactly what is happening here.  Every glove save by Luongo, every hit into the boards, every clearing of the puck out of the Canucks zone, every penalty called, every shot on net.  Screaming pounding yelling shouting Go Canucks GO.  Chants are starting around the room, and my fist is on the table, BUR-ROWS! BUR-ROWS! BUR-ROWS! How can everyone around me be so in tune with the group spirit, yet so focused on the screen as to be almost unaware of the presence of anything except hockey?

I love that about Canadians.  I love being Canadian.  I love being a Canucks fan, at this moment in time,  I am so ridiculously proud to be a Canucks fan and to be in Vancouver and to have a team that plays as well as this, the team we have been awaiting for 40 years, the team that might actually make it.  (But we say that in whispers, because – after all – we have been awaiting this for 40 years, and we know, we know that anything could happen.)

The Canucks’ defense strips Chicago of the puck yet again.  They are unstoppable.  Offense and defense.  Luongo sprawling spectacularly across his net.

BUT THEY NEED ANOTHER GOAL.

Scrambling, shot after shot, they set up, they shoot, Chicago blocks it.  Set up, shoot, miss; set up, shoot!  SHOOT!

I think the loud guy next to us is standing on his seat.

I can’t take this.  I am so stressed.  I am shaking.

Yet somewhere in this mad rush, we start laughing.  It’s just crazy that the Canucks have not yet scored a second goal.  Somewhere in this mass of moving players and hockey sticks, there must be potential for another goal.  THERE MUST.  THEY HAVE TO.

They don’t.

The horn sounds; second period over  We head for coffee across the street.   A tall Americano with a shot of raspberry, Tabi is saying, and the barista is mhm-ing, but my ears are tuned for the sound of hockey. 

“One nothing,” says a woman, putting away her wallet.

“One nothing, heading into the third,” says someone on the other side of the room.

This is where the countdown begins.  We have 20 minutes left to win this series; we are only one goal ahead.  In hockey, that can turn upside down in 17 seconds.  We grip the table, we grip our seats.  People are filing in late from having a smoke outside, and the place smells like cigarettes, but mostly like a mixture of dread and anticipation.

10:57, the timer says at the top of the screen.  Ten minutes left to keep this alive.  My mind keeps telling me this could be the last ten minutes of hockey you see this season, but I refuse to say it out loud.  I know Taylor next to me is thinking the same thing.

3:02.

The pressure is intense.

1:57.

Chicago scores.

The place is silent. 

“I knew this would happen if they didn’t score another goal, I knew it!  I told you!  I TOLD you!” Taylor bursts out.  Tabitha is wearing what she thinks is a smile, but it’s more like a grimace, as my head sinks to my knees, and Mel meets my eyes with her lost puppy-dog expression.  Andres has his head on the table, his cap almost touching the used napkins.

Period over.  The teams are tied 1-1.  Twenty minutes of overtime is next, and I can’t take it.  Shaina texts me: I can’t do this!  I can’t do this!

We need fresh air to get rid of this smog pushing into our heads.  Scrambling outside; the cold night air and I forgot to wear my hoodie, misty rain beginning to collect in the gnawing darkness.  Damp concrete sidewalk.

RUN!  I grab Tabi’s arm and Mel’s arm and take off, past the store fronts, over the trampled cigarette butts.  Whaaa—Tabitha sputters, but I keep a firm hold of her arm and tell her this is necessary.  We run past a man with headphones and a beige trench coat.  Get it out of our system, get this tension out of our system.  AAAAHHHH!

The end of the sidewalk, and we are out of breath and half laughing.  Slowly, we turn around.  I am thinking, in twenty minutes we could walk this again and be euphoric.  In twenty minutes we could walk this again and feel destroyed.

Overtime, on the edge of our seats.  I am half crying, I can’t take overtime.  I feel the older man next to me turn to glance at me, and I imagine an amused smile on his face, but I can’t deal with his cynicism right now, and I continue to stare at the screen. 

We have to do it.

The Canucks take a penalty.  Someone somewhere in the bar is saying This is it.  They kill off the penalty; someone somewhere is saying They can do it!  Chicago misses the net by a few feet.  The Canucks rush back the other way. 

My phone buzzes and I glance at the table.  New message.  Jorge.  Don’t worry, you will soon be jumping up and down when the Canucks score.  I show it to Tabitha and we both smile strained smiles.

But two minutes later, the Canucks score. 

It’s as if everyone in this bar is on the same string, propelled by a giant puppet master.  Elastic, jumping, jumping, hugging, screaming, fists in the air, Take that Chicago!  

I have never seen Tabitha so happy.  I have never seen Taylor so happy.  Everyone hugs, and it’s not just an arm hug, it’s a hug ecstatic with joy.  I hug Gerald twice.  Every highlight of that goal is more beautiful.  Every highlight of that goal, more fans are yelling.  They begin to play We Are the Champions and everyone knows every word, throwing the lyrics into the air in a beautiful defiance.

Afterwards, when we stand around outside, I wonder if Alex Burrows and his beautiful goal will be a moment that will flash on the TV screen in a couple weeks.  If this will be on the highlight reel of the Canucks victorious playoff run.  If this will be a moment during which we will take pride in remembering where we were. 

Back on that same stretch of sidewalk on Commercial Drive, and yes, this time I am euphoric.  Every single car passing is honking.  We start to drive and people high-five us out the window.  Our voices are gone.  There is such a feeling of love for everyone on the street, and as we walk down Granville, we can feel the crowd beginning to build. 

Andres rushes ahead, fists pumping in the air, holding the Canucks flag high.  We are making our way through the crowd.  Tattoed musicians on the drums and masses of people chanting WE WANT THE CUP! WE WANT THE CUP! 

I keep getting texts that say something like Aaaah! Aaaaah!!!  and I am too excited to text back.  I need to see, hear, live in this moment.  The moment when the Canucks have not disappointed us, the hundreds of fans pushing into Robson square, the man wearing a Jack Daniels box on his head, the girls carrying the Canucks sign, the group holding a Canadian flag above their head, the woman holding a cooking pot and banging it with a mixing spoon.  A TV reporter stands on a stool above the crowd, holding his heavy camera and focusing on the girl sitting on her boyfriend’s shoulders amongst the swaying people, yelling with all her heart.

My hand stings from all the high fives; I pass 6 people and high five every single one.  I trip over a bicycle and almost dive onto the street.  Behind me, Tabitha is laughing, and we are all laughing, and it is so good to laugh in this ridiculous joy.  “It shouldn’t mean so much to us,” she says, “I recognize that.  But somehow it does.”

And as we walk home, there is a strange exhaustion in my joints, from all the stress and the relief and the emotion.  I am going to sleep well tonight. 

I set my phone on alarm, and cuddle into my pillows.  As my eyes are gluing themselves shut, my phone light turns on, and I reach to turn it over.  Lor has just texted me, and as I sleepily fall asleep my mind is echoing her words. 

YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!

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