"Hockey Night in Canada" is the name of CBC's national broadcast of NHL hockey games on Saturday night; they carry a double-header. HNIC has been around since the '50s, and since our cable system carries CBC, we get to see it.
Once we got home, we sat on the couch and turned on the TV. The first game had just ended, and announcers Scott Oake and Kevin Weekes (a former NHL goalie) were introducing the second game--the San Jose Sharks at the Edmonton Oilers--while a pair of Zambonis resurfaced the ice for the start of the game.
Weekes was giving a report on the Sharks' recent play with his back to the ice. Meanwhile, the Zambonis had finished their work and started exiting the rink. Guess where Oake and Weekes were standing?
This, folks, is live TV!
Would mayhem ensue? No! Oake saw what was about to happen and pulled Weekes off to the side in the nick of time. Meanwhile, Weekes continued his report. Totally focused. Totally nonplussed. Didn't miss a beat.
Here is what my wife and I saw. Things start getting crazy about the 50-second mark.
But if you want to cut to the chase, here is a shortened version from YouTube.
Hmmm. An attack from out of nowhere? While Weekes was talking about the Sharks? Someone inevitably came up with a "Jaws"-inspired version ...
We needed a laugh, and we got one.
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Here it is, the first week of December, and we only have a little snow on the ground. Less than an inch. This was in late November, as clouds were rolling through. Usually in winter, you don't see any details on the clouds. It's just a uniform mass of gray. So seeing some detail was unusual ...
The Weather Channel boldly forecast 1 to 3 inches for us this Tuesday. The National Weather Service forecast said the Weather Channel forecast was all wet. "Less than a half inch," it says. They were right. The big snow went elsewhere.
We got 2 or 3 inches of wet snow last week, our first real snow of the winter season, so I went around with my camera. First stop: the local Road Commission garage, where big plows stood at the ready ...
... and a huge mountain of sand had barely been touched by the front-end loaders that fill the bins on the heavy trucks ...
After that, I drove around. Here is the hillside at the fairgrounds ...
A snowy street ...
The snow was wet and clung to everything it touched, like these branches ...
Winter has struck hard in some places--even in England. Not so here. Not yet. We are waiting for the other shoe.
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This has been a quiet week. Basketball season is starting--the girls this week, the boys next week. That continues into March. There are so many games I need to cover each week that it will be hard for me to get out of town for any fun. (Hard but not impossible!)
I may have a very quiet December. Over the holidays, it will just be me, my wife and son--my other son and his GF will stay down there. Maybe we will go somewhere, just to break out of the rut and do something different. It won't be to her sisters-in-law. That doesn't seem to be happening.
I had been hoping to visit S and T during the week between Christmas and New Year's (no local sports that week). If my wife and I haven't done gone anywhere else, maybe I'll take her along. She has met S several times and T once (last spring).
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