The Hockey Musical

I know what you're thinking.

Is this next post really going to be about the hockey musical movie that just came out?
Everyone knows that the only thing that goes better together than hockey and musicals are nuts and gum.
Even more questions race through your mind. "Why did he even watch the movie?".
Just give me a chance to explain.

I did a lot of flying this past winter break, and it was all through Air Canada. My dad used to have a line that I actually loved as a kid. "Air Canada: we're not happy, till you're not happy". That's a great one. But Air Canada has really stepped up in the last couple of years. I'm talking specifically about their in-flight entertainment system. There are touch-screen TVs on the back of every chair, which means you can pick from a pretty big library of recent movies and TV shows. Try to understand, I don't have an iPhone or anything I get to touch or play with so this is pretty exciting shit for me.

I got to pick from quite a few movies. I first watched The Matrix (1999), because that movie is such a classic and I always seem to walk in my front door right in time for the final scene. Seriously makes you contemplate the nature of reality (this is coming from the guy who got that F1 in philosophy don't forget). Had the chance to watch Dinner for Schmucks (2010), which was actually awkward to the point where I almost turned it off but it ended up being worth a laugh or two, especially at the end. Everything Paul Rudd touches turns to gold. Finally I watched The Social Network (2010), which I was stunned they even offered considering the movie came out like 20 minutes ago on DVD. Didn't really like it. Apparently I don't understand normative criteria for rating entertainment, because I didn't like that movie and everyone lost their shit over it, but the albums Lateralus by Tool and Metallica's Death Magnetic are two of my favorites of all time and apparently they suck. Also, if anybody reading this ever wants to make a movie about my life, can you please wait until I am dead. Thank you.

At this point I still had one more flight and another movie that I could watch. I decided for whatever reason to check out the Canadian section (sweet), and while browsing I saw that the hockey musical movie was listed. I had heard some pretty shitty reviews about this movie. Actually I'm pretty one journalist actually called the movie "gay", which is something that is not allowed in the professional world? I dunno.


Anyways, the movie starts by introducing some dude at a local rink who is challenged by an older guy to a game of 1-on-1 hockey. Loser has to pay the other guy $50. A couple things jump into my mind here: I'm no rink rat, but nobody plays hockey 1-on-1. Furthermore, if a 45 year old guy challenged me at a rink when I was 17 years old I'd probably tell him to go fuck himself. Anyways they launch into these slow motion scenes of him skating circles around the dude, and the whole time he's singing. One thing you begin to realize as the movie goes on: every song sounds exactly the same.

The end result of this intro is you've got a dude who has never played hockey, is scouted to play, but he doesn't play the way he's supposed to. The dude wants to score goals and he doesn't want to fight. His parents are educated cowards and they taught him that pacifism is the way to go. Oh yeah, he's also trying to bang his next door neighbor. This is all a recipe for a shitty movie. What really got me are the cameos in this thing. Steve Kouleas is in it, and at one point I was staring at the screen looking at Walter Gretzky. But nothing prepared me for when I saw Theo Fleury start to sing about following your dreams. I've always wanted to own a bankrupt concrete company myself. Seeing Fleury in this was funny to me for a different reason.

Before my departure, the World Juniors Canada/USA game was on and I guess everyone was watching that. The USA were the heavy favorites entering the tournament and had beaten Canada earlier in the round-robin. So Canada went out and dominated the game, and Fleury decided to show some love to his followers on Twitter:

Apparently I was the only person on the internet to see anything wrong with this, coming from Theo Fleury:

Also, the Flames play in Ottawa tonight. I wish I had something interesting to say about them but in a season where Tim Jackman has two less goals and is +9 higher than Olli Jokinen, I'd say its about time to shut the club down. The more games this team plays the more and more it looks like the Island of Misfit Mascots.