Monday, May 30, 2011

Is there Life After Hockey?



"Dream come true?" "Happiest day of his life?" REALLY?

Spending a day with the Stanley Cup "and all his friends" is going to do this? REALLY?

Um, how, exactly? I mean, I get that this kid is a "big hockey fan"- but actually, let's start right there. Who the hell is a "hockey fan?" Surely they mean that he's a fan of a professional hockey TEAM, right? I mean, the kid doesn't really just follow professional hockey without rooting for a particular team, does he? Because that's actually pretty stupid (not quite as stupid as his 70s-style shorts, but pretty close.)

And mom telling us that this is a "hockey family-we're crazy." Thanks for telling us what is already obvious, Weird Mom. Just wondering- what do you guys do during the offseason (otherwise known as the month of August?)

Let's be real for a moment. For exactly how long will it be really be Super Awesome Amazing to have this big, ugly trophy sitting around? I give it thirty minutes, tops, before the kids get sick of looking at it and touching it and having their pictures taken with it and want to move on to do something else.

Now, maybe if this kid's team had actually WON the cup,* and paid him a visit, and gave him a tour of the locker room and a behind the scenes look at the rink, etc. this might be an enjoyable, even extremely memorable experience. But- just having the trophy for a day? Is it just me, or does this seem like a lot of hype for not a whole lot of payoff?

I love when companies to do this- they make a colossal big deal out of very little, and are aided and abetted by the Discovery (no pun intended) of some weird loser who, with the help of his ultra-indulgent parents, has managed to devote his Just Getting Started But Not Much to Celebrate Life to some narrow niche activity which has turned him into an obsessive little creep with sadly limited interests. Truthfully, I don't think that this kid needs to spend a day with the Stanley Cup. I think he'd be better off getting out of his room every once in a while and trying out different activities. It would be nice to think that one day this kid wakes up and, like Frances with her bread and jam, suddenly realizes that variety isn't a bad thing, and that even your Very Favoriteist Thing Ever can become a real bore when you let it become the center of your existence.

Seriously- What am I missing here?

*Go Bruins

3 comments:

  1. At least it's not a curling trophy. Then again, not even Discovery could make Americans curling-mad. Winters South of the border are usually too mild and short to leave people with no other way to kill the days.

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  2. An entire family obsessed by the same thing worries me a little. Wouldn't that get incredibly boring after a while?

    My son likes football and he's a Chargers fan (in Green Bay territory, no less). The spouse is a NASCAR fan. Neither of the girls like sports. I don't like sports all that much either. The spouse doesn't share all my interests, my kids make their own choices about what they want to be interested in, and we still manage to be a family. But we're not all obsessed with the same thing.

    Also, I'm not seeing how fun it'd be to drag around the giant trophy all day either. I mean, even if you liked hockey and all that, the trophy is cumbersome and ugly. Plus, once you're done with that whole half hour of photos and touching, what do you do with it? Maybe eat your cereal out of it? Have mom make potato salad in it?

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  3. Well, someone used it as a planter not knowing it for a national icon of ours once so that's not much of a stretch.

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