The Hockey News

I get emails in my mailbox and dm’s on my twitter from time to time. It is a mostly enjoyable experience. Sometimes you write about a memory I shared that you also lived through long ago, and want to remind me of something from that time. I probably enjoy those most of all. Some others offer advice as to where I might shove Corsi, I can’t say they are my favorite emails but they are clever.

Over the last several days there is a growing impatience in your correspondence.

You want to see Leon signed, sealed and delivered. You would like Jaromir Jagr added, please and thanks. You would like some news about Andrej Sekera (I can help you there, click on this link and then google translate will give you about 10 minutes of interesting reading).

I think in some ways we’re spoiled with twitter and the internet, the instant news right now. You know, July was always the toughest month for me as a hockey fan. The radio gave the baseball scores and then moved on to the weather. I used to wait patiently for the July Hockey News, which would give me the draft, the trades and then all of the likely changes for the fall. I was a fan of the Boston Bruins, so reading about them winning a Stanley and Bobby Orr walking off with all of the trophies was a pleasure. I also cared about the California Golden Seals, but the stories of their summer usually involved losing television deals, finding out the general manager had signed Dick Redmond to three different contracts (with three different salaries) and getting royally screwed over by Sam Pollock. You can look it up, it’s all true.

I looked forward to that July edition of The Hockey News more than anything. This is the 1974 edition, I found out Don Cherry was the new Bruins coach and that they had traded Derek Sanderson, damned fools, for Walt McKechnie of all people. Didn’t even have the decency to trade him to the Seals (who traded McKechnie in a three team trade), in fact Turk Sanderson was heading to the Rangers. Awful. Painful. Very real, and acquired the old fashioned way: cash on the counter, Rexall Drug Store, downtown Maidstone Saskatchewan.

So that’s my answer to your impatience. Anticipation is in short supply these days, maybe take a moment to enjoy it before the Leon contract and the day you buy your Jagr Oilers jersey. That’s all for now, want to remind you it isn’t physically possible to do with Corsi what you’ve suggested, but clever by you to think of it.

Sleep well.