PJ Stock

Where to begin? Let’s start with summer.

I don’t know anything about your summer, but I can tell you about mine.

I saw the movie The Hangover, which was waaaayyyyyy overrated. Everyone kept saying that I had to see it. It’s the greatest movie ever. It’s the funniest movie ever. You’ll pee your pants. Um, nope. No pee. It did have its moments as did Gigli and Glitter, but hold your horses with the greatest movie ever stuff. Hello? Have you ever seen Old School (you’re my boy Blue!), Gladiator (Maximus), Rocky 4 (I must break you), Schindler’s List, The Godfather I + II (It's a Sicilian message. It means Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes), The Departed (I don't want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me). Life is Beautiful … anyhoo, you catching my drift?

I went swimming. I ate 64 hamburgers. I golfed five times. I read the newspapers.

Oh, yeah, the newspapers. That’s where I was going with this. I can’t remember a summer where in late July and all of August, the NHL was front and centre in Canadian newspapers for all the wrong reasons. In the US of A, hockey actually moved up from page 118 to page 96 at times. Unfortunately, it wasn’t always for good news.

Whoever said "there is no such thing as bad press", I’m guessing never actually had any press. Ask Patrick Kane how his summer was. Ask Gary Bettman. Dany Heatley. Jim Balsillie. Patrick Marleau. The Phoenix Coyotes. Wayne Gretzky. Paul Kelly. The NHLPA. The Tampa Bay ownership. I can probably keep going, but I think you catch my drift. I spent the entire summer eating burgers and reading about the NHL for too many of the wrong reasons.

As a hockey fan in Canada, after the Stanley Cup playoffs and the first week of UFA craziness in July goes by, we are left with emptiness. No disrespect to the CFL, but for a hockey fan, the Roughriders playing the Rough Riders just isn’t the fix we are looking for. (OK, maybe not the best example!).

Of course, as previously mentioned, neither is The Hangover.

Time stood still for a while for me but that all changed on Oct. 1 when HNIC aired probably the most anticipated Habs-Leafs game in years.

Both teams were made over with new players, coaches, GMs, captains (actually, we are now the middle of October and neither team has yet to anoint el capitano). I was restless with all kinds of nervous energy running through me. I couldn't wait for the game we all love to start up again. How would Gionta, Cammalleri, Gomez do? Who would Exelby run over? Mike Komisarek playing his old team, who would he cheap shot and what would be meant by that cheap shot? This was a Hollywood blockbuster in the making, until they dropped the puck. That blockbuster film quickly became as fun to watch as Brendan Fraser's Monkeybone.

Oooh the Leafs. Oooh the Habs. Oh Boy, it's going to be a long season for both those teams. Nevertheless, we are a couple of weeks into the season and my void has been filled.

Hockey every night. Watching Al Strachan on Saturday nights, reading Elliotte Friedman's novels (sorry, blogs) and of course, le piece de resistance, le bubble.

Let the good times roll.