THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT

With the holiday season upon us it is hard to avoid the overwhelming myriad of Christmas carrols. I’m not sure if anyone actually enjoys them, but what I do know is that Rudolph has a serious drinking problem if his nose is so bright red and he hallucinates flight, Theodore from the chipmunks has some sort of a growth stunt syndrome if he hasn’t grown his two front teeth in over a decade, and the guy who sings about how much fun it is to ride in one horse open sleigh has never been exposed to the Canadian wind chill factor.

Oh the weather outside is frightful,
but the fire is so delightful
And since there’s no place to go,
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

Well this guy finally got his wish with over 30cm of snow in the past three days. He might be happy and ready for the holidays, but unfortunately for the rest of us we all have a place to go and we have to shovel 30cm of snow from our driveway plus the other 90 that the city decides to push onto my property. Every morning I wake up to the horror of a wall of snow blocking me in only to look over and see a shovel the size of a large soup spoon awaiting me. Some people might appreciate the morning exercise, but for someone who doesn’t gain consciousness until about noon and his fourth cup of coffee, having to dig through the Great Wall of China has done wonders for my back end for my mood. Unfortunately for my colleagues, I have been suffering from POBSACL syndrome. Short for “pissed of because of snow and the city’s laziness”, POBSACL syndrome has severe side effects in the form of flying staplers, irrational and incomprehensible lectures at very high decibel levels and vast amounts of extra carbohydrate intake in the form of fermented yeast, which leads to further more severe syndromes of loss of basic motor skills, short term memory loss, loss of driving skills, and speech disorders.

The only real benefit from all this snow has been the entertainment of sitting at my front window with a cozy cup of cocoa, looking outside into the winter wonderland, Christmas lights in the background, and watching dense drivers trying to take the corner at speeds that exceeds what should be used during dry conditions, slide across the intersection and either: a) Slam into that big birch (which for the record has claimed seven lucky winners in the past three days), cool.gif take out another dimwitted driver doing the same things from the other end or c) do their best impression of Disney on ice, pull a triple salco, and get back on their way safe and sound. I’ll admit option “c)” is not as entertaining, however the alternatives provide means for an entertaining game. So far I’m winning: HLD-14 Zorro the beagle-2.

The other benefit has been the opportunity to legitimately try all the different pain killers available both over and behind the counter. I must admit the pharmaceutical companies are quite creative and providing us with all the colors of the rainbow in the form of painkillers ranging from “this hasn’t helped at all… everything still hurts” to “this hasn’t helped at all… everything still hurts… but at least that magical golden polar bear behind you, juggling elephants is quite entertaining”

This cocktail of pills my doctor has got me on has also proven itself useful in dealing with the agony of watching recent HABS games. Even with these numbing effects, watching the last four Canadians games I was as comfortable as a cat being sprayed with a water bottle. This is the slump that we’ve been on the verge of, and that I have feared throughout the whole month of November. I’m not going to sit here and try and point fingers, rationalize, or justify this series of horrendous games, however at this rate I believe the Montreal Canadiens would have a difficult time beating the up and coming Zimbabwe Thunder.

This team is not the best in the league, and this is apparent when one looks at the likes of Ottawa and Detroit. On the other hand, we’re not as bad as our recent record suggests. This team has all the assets to succeed and it is up to the coaching staff to figure out how to use it. Hopefully we can figure all this out before the holidays so Christmas can come early to all HABS fans.