Category: Uncategorized

Trip to Trana

I haven’t taken a short haul train trip since Mulroney killed off the local trains in NS. Ah, those were the days – summer job in Truro, hop on a 7:00 pm train Friday, a couple of cold Olands Ex’s in the bar car with Capers and a short hop from the train station in Halifax to the Seahorse to rub elbows the other regulars.    Trains are great – 3 hours from my house in Kingston to downtown Big Smoke. Snacks on route. A good look in everyone’s backyard for 230 km past towns with OHA teams.

Anyway, I was in the land of my birth to go to the IT.Can course at the LSUC for two days. Had dinner with Chip and Jenny at this place.    Talked about Phil Sedor, The Guys at the Library, Blackpool and Kearney Lake Road.  Over all, however, Toronto is not looking so good.   Hotels are cheap and empty.   The homeless are as utterly abandoned as I have ever seen.   People running by me at 5:02 pm down Bay to Union Station to catch their 5:15 pm GO train.   My VIA train sat in Oshawa station for a few minutes as a GO train unloaded – a thousand people as one rushing from the train they rushed to get to, to get into their cars in the mega mall sized parking lot to rush to the traffic jam at the parking lot exit.

VIA has first class and coach.  GO is steerage.

Paddy Roy

CBC.ca says “according to the newspaper report, Roy’s house in Littleton, Colorado has been for sale for the past couple of months.  Jacques Demers says he packing it in.  If so, it is the end of something that should be noted.

I have never liked the Habs, mainly due to living through the ’70’s liking the Leafs and Red Wings listening to the divine right of Les Canadiens.  The Colorado Rockies is another team that should have won many more Stanley Cups in its own mind.  But I have always liked Roy.

In the spring 1986, I came back from Europe with $2,000.00 still in my pockets with no other excuse than the playoffs were on TV.  I could have gone to Spain or Italy.  Instead, I went night after night to rec rooms to watch the playoffs.  Glad I did.  He talked to his posts, wiggled his head like his helmet was too big and won the last all Canadian finals.  Europe is still there, I understand. Think 'curse of the babe', Habs fans

My favorite memory, however, was from 2 December 1995 when, as described by one web wag, “Habs coach Mario Tremblay left Roy in the game for 9 Detroit goals before yanking him. When Roy finally skated to the bench he screamed at Tremblay and the team president Ronald Corey, vowing never to wear the sweater of the Montreal Canadiens again.”  You gotta like it when the greatest goalie ever to play for the Habs does that.