The goalie spirit

by RAF KATIGBAK

Last Sunday, as some of you know, was Easter Sunday, the holy day when Christians believe that Jesus rose from the dead after being entombed for three days. For some, it’s the most important religious feast of the Christian liturgical year; for others, it’s just further proof that the Son of God was actually a zombie.

Traditionally, there are different ways to spend the Resurrection Day. For Western Christians, the Easter Vigil is the most important liturgy of the year, and begins in total darkness with the blessing of the Easter fire, the lighting of the large Paschal candle (symbolic of the Risen Christ) and the chanting of the Exsultet, or Easter Proclamation.

In Polish culture, the Rezurekcja (Resurrection Procession) is the joyous Easter morning mass at daybreak, when church bells ring out and explosions resound to commemorate Christ rising from the dead.

In my ancestral country of the Philippines, the morning of Easter (known as “Pasko ng Muling Pagkabuhay”) is marked with joyous celebration, the first being the dawn “Salubong,” wherein large statues of Jesus and Mary are brought together to meet, imagining the first reunion of Jesus and his mother after his resurrection. Oh yeah, they also like to whip the shit out of themselves with strips of leather with razorblades on the end (although I suspect the actual motivation is less religious repentance and more of a national guilt for contributing a member to the Black Eyed Peas).

In Montreal, there was self-flagellation of a different kind. After seeing hopes of gaining that final coveted playoff spot crushed following Saturday’s tremendous loss in Toronto, Habs fans spent Sunday kicking themselves.

Montreal takes hockey as seriously as Filipinos take Easter. While faith can help some Filipinos forget the fact that 40 per cent of them live below the poverty line, and the fact that they can’t pronounce the letters F and V, Montrealers use hockey to forget how it’s actually pretty uninhabitable here for several months out of the year. It gives us a chance to bond with complete strangers and allows us to be nationalistic without feeling like too much of a flag-waving redneck.

But why hockey? Well, look at our other pastimes: figure skating? Curling? These things are about as thrilling as waiting in line for a dental exam. Or is it that we are living in such a male-dominated society that, while we secretly admire the timeless grace and skill of these sports, our machismo-driven patriarchic society won’t allow us to express it? No. Actually, these sports are just super lame.

The fact is nothing can compare to the rush of playoff hockey. A friend visiting from New York last Saturday decided to go to a local sports pub to see what all the fuss was about. As a huge baseball fan, she was skeptical. “I’ve watched Boston vs. New York in the World Series, I think I’ve seen emotion.” By the end of the game, this epitome of New York cool was screaming, crying, hugging strangers and ready to start a fight with anyone in blue and white. “That was amazing!” she shouted as she left the bar. “It felt like the final chapter of a Nathaniel West novel.”

Personally, I wasn’t so disappointed that we lost. Not that I’m not a Habs fan—in fact, when it comes to playoffs, it seems everyone is a Habs fan—it’s just that any attempt to grow a playoff beard would leave me looking like a Chihuahua with alopecia.

A good friend of mine recently explained how, last Sunday, he proved his theory that “Hockey is the opiate of the masses, especially in Quebec.” On a whim, he and his girlfriend decided to check out St. Joseph’s Oratory. Not to seek solace in the house of the lord after the crushing 6-5 defeat (he’s agnostic) but mostly for shits n’ giggles—he’d never been there before. Eventually they found themselves alone in the beautiful turn-of-the-century chapel perched adjacent to the main building. Opening a few drawers in the main altar room, they uncovered random bits of paper upon which devout worshippers had inscribed various calls for blessings. As he went through each drawer, he discovered an archive documenting the hopes, fears and dreams of the faithful: “Brother André, please bless my womb, I want a child” and “Brother André, please help my misguided brother walk the path of the lord.”

The one that stood out the most, the one that leapt off the page, through his heart and into his soul, he found in the final drawer. It read: “Brother André, please let Saku Koivu score 3 goals and 7 assists.”

Riff-Raff@sympatico.ca