(Editor’s note: Welcome to Under the Bucket, where Deaner from the classic flick Fubar tackles all things NHL for VICE Sports. You can follow him on Twitter and read previous installments here.)
Well Valentine’s Day is in the rearview, and I’m just tickled she’s finally eatin’ dust. She’s gotta be the dumbest holiday in the fuckin’ world. I mean Easter, fuck yah, let’s celebrate dead guys coming back to life. Christmas, fuckin’ rights—a fat dude flyin’ high above the world, shape-shifting his way into your house eating cookies and shit. And Halloween, fuck, who doesn’t dig being surrounded by sexy nurses and havin’ a deadly excuse to wear roller skates and carry around water guns full of whiskey. Wanna shot? SQUIRT SQUIRT.
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So, yah, all them holidays are deadly, but man, ain’t none of them come close to the ultimate party, the Stanley Cup of Givn’r… St. Patrick’s Day. A day where anything can happen and usually does. A magical day where it seems the whole world is loaded, and where the night seems impossibly far away, and to get there you just gotta put your head down and giv’r. Cuz anybody who’s ever partied with a bunch of Irishmen on Saint Paddy’s knows there ain’t no better feeling than being one of the chosen few, those valiant warriors of whiskey, who are still standing at the end of the night.
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Which is kind of fucking awesome, because just like for some people, St. Patrick’s Day starts too early and goes on too long—the same goes for the NHL season. Come mid-March, for the good teams it’s crunch time. You don’t wanna slide into the playoffs with skid marks on your shorts, you wanna tear into it like a lion ripping open a gazelle. Like, FUCK YAH, STEAMING HOT INNARDS ALL OVER MY FUCKIN’ LION FACE. For some teams it’s straight up desperation every night; when you walk into the dressing room and you see that jerkoff team is still ahead of you by three points, and they’re playin’ the Leafs tonight so if YOU don’t win there’s a good chance you’ll be five points back.
So you fuckin giv’r out there finishing checks and cashing in on chances, but when she’s all over and the points are in the bank, you gotta ratchet back the intensity even higher for the next game. Cuz ask players—the hardest thing about being in The Show is being consistent. Anybody can go on a hot streak, but try staying on one. Like, fuck, anybody remember goalie Brian Boucher, who got FIVE fuckin’ shutouts in a row during the 2003-04 season? Then he got FIVE shutouts over the REST OF HIS CAREER (nine seasons). What the fuck, right?
Nice roller skates you got there, Deaner. —Photo by Daily VICE
Then you got regular-season heroes like the Capitals and Panthers, who are like teenagers at their first St. Paddy’s. Like, ‘Oh I was the king of drinking in high school.’ Well, this is the big leagues now. You might finish at the top of the standings, but let’s see what you got when you’ve been chuggin’ back whiskey since 10 AM, got dragged by the float for 100 metres, and trapped in a garbage chute in the hotel parking lot (IE: played the Bruins/Flyers in the first round).
And then you got teams like the Hawks and Kings who know what the stretch run is all about—they don’t take their foot off the gas, but don’t giv’r all they got cuz the Cup is still a million miles away. These are the guys who know that on St. Paddy’s you start off the morning with Guinness, stick with that until noon, then you get into the whiskey. At around 4 PM you do a little jig with one of them Irish lasses, recharge the tank with some potatoes and ground beef, and then explode your way into the evening like a gas-soaked blankey on a tirefire by shotgunning a few beers.
And I know she’s sad for fans of other teams right now. Like how can you get up for a game when you know they don’t mean nothin? Which leads to fans gettin’ all negative and sayin’ really stupid shit. Look, Vancouver, you got the most insane fuckin’ fans, which is good but if you’re arguing with some asshole on Twitter for four hours about how management shoulda drafted Chris Chelios instead of Garth Butcher in 1981, you gotta get a fuckin’ life. Like if you get kicked out of the Irish pub for being too wasted, don’t smash the fuckin’ window, just go home, man, there’ll be another St. Patrick’s Day—you just gotta wait a year.
And speakin’ of next year, if the Flames get a goalie, the Sens shore of the blueline, and the Habs fire their coach (first they gotta reverse the fucked up mind-meld Michel Therrien has on GM Marc Bergevin), I think we might see three Canadian teams in the dance next St. Patrick’s Day. As for the rest… Sad to say, but next year your day is gonna be Halloween, cuz dressin’ up like winners is the closest you’re gonna get to a Cup for some time.
