Others might nominate the Canadarm, or the Avro Arrow or the
stubby beer bottle but I say, no, the greatest Canadian industrial product of
all time is the good old made-in-Canada table hockey game. No contest. I
acquired my first about age twelve. It was a terrific tonic. I may have been a
bum at baseball and helpless at real, on-ice hockey but I proved to be
something like an ace at table hockey.
I had friends willing enough to take me on but none of them
could match the intensity I brought to table hockey: one by one they grew tired
of losing and would suggest we do something else: stick six-inch firecrackers
in country mailboxes, start a grass-fire, throw snowballs at passing cars. Over
a period of four or five years I might have worn out three of these wondrous
games. At 17 I went off to university, got distracted by other endeavours and
forgot about table hockey for a good long time.
Then a few years ago, during a visit to my antique-dealer
friend Diane Bradbury, there it was – a table hockey game just like the one I
used to play sixty years ago. Six metal Montreal Canadiens, six Toronto Maple
Leafs just like the ones of my early teens. It was for sale . . . amazingly still in its original cardboard box.
I snapped it up. Trouble is, after years of neglect in someone’s attic or damp
basement, the playing surface was warped and uneven, which made it impossible
for the stamped-metal Leafs and Canadiens to show their best stuff. I devised a
solution for leveling the ice but it wasn’t until this summer that I got around
to actualizing the fix – a combination of a dozen inch-and-a-quarter posts and
hardwood levelers all glued together on the underside of the playing surface.
The fix worked perfectly: the playing surface is now as even
as the day it came out of its Ontario factory in 1959 or ’64. Suddenly I was
back in business – The Table Hockey
Terror. Yes, Jan beats me like a drum at cribbage; yes, I am Cousin Lynn’s
roadkill at Bananagrams 11 – the toughest of all the Bananagrams varieties –
but it turns out that like riding a bicycle, playing table hockey is a skill
that can be revived even after years of inactivity.
With the game restored to something very like its original
glory I first humbled Jan, then nephews Michael and Rex. Next up was the
longest-suffering of my friends, Stephen, a pal since we were both seventeen. Let’s
play a five-goal game I proposed – first to five goals wins – and I’ll spot you
a 4-0 lead. He agreed. I won. But take my word; table hockey is infectious,
irresistible. Stephen couldn’t help himself – he wanted more. The game even
delivered revelation, bringing out a side of my old friend I had never seen. Ordinarily
a man possessed of the finest decorum and refinement, table hockey soon exposed
that Stephen is something else previously unseen – a trash-talker. I ate it up.
He got better, much better. I reduced the handicap. The trash talk intensified.
I still won.
On Monday we took the game to our friend Carl’s birthday
bash. He too was a boy who played table hockey in ages past. It was his
birthday: would I go a little easy on him? No. I was merciless.
But there is trouble on the near horizon; I see it plain as
day. Also attending Carl’s event were Lynn and Louise, my identical-twin
cousins. I introduced them to Bananagrams 11 years ago and for a while – just a
short while – I managed to win. Soon enough Lynn reduced me to a stomped-on doormat.
I introduced the twins to astronomy and wildflower identification. It didn’t
take long before I was eating their dust in both endeavours.
On Monday I spotted the twins no lead whatsoever and managed
to beat them both. But we all know what comes before a fall. I watched in
fascination as they played each other with absolute intensity, sweat flying off
each determined face, each utterly determined to beat the other. I know with complete
certainty that it is only a matter of time – and not much of it – before my
undefeated streak will come to an end and one of the darlings – Louise or Lynn?
– will exult in victory over the Table Hockey Terror. They will come up with
something new – a trick I have never thought of – and make me a loser yet
again. I dread what I know is certain. What then? To what do I turn? Canasta? Snakes-and-Ladders?
Bingo?
No comments:
Post a Comment