Note: We've been lax in posting lately(which should be changing soon). So while I go back to fantasy booking the next WWE pay-per-view or whatever it is I do to avoid writing, this guest post is courtesy of writer and fellow podcaster Chris Collision. -Brandon
Into my inbox pinged the link. No body text, subject line only "best 14 minutes of my life." I looked around the office, waited for my bosses to disappear behind their closed doors, dragged my browser around so the YouTube video window was nestled into the bottom right of my their monitor, and positioned my text editor atop it, so I could screen the images from prying eyes with a quick-fingered ALT-TAB. I hit the GO button.
What I saw wasn't the best 14 minutes of my life--that would probably be the first 18 times I had sex--but it wasn't that far off, either. Let's skim some cream:
- Patrick Roy--if you're talking "pissed-off goalies," the conversation begins as this video does: with Patrick Roy flipping the hell out. (Ed. Note: he has not mellowed all that much since moving off the ice and behind the bench:
So... Patrick Roy is back. VIDEO: http://t.co/JJVjUa6R3Q #TSN #NHL pic.twitter.com/UZtVBBtTgs
— NHL on TSN (@NHLonTSN) October 3, 2013 - Roy also stars from around 12:05 to 13:02, and, as a longtime partisan of the team he played for, I found these high spots somewhere between thrilling and transformative, if a little familiar. Then again, I'd say the same thing of every record that changed my life, from "This Ain't No Picnic" to "My War" to "Youth of America" to "All Lies" to "Great American Going Out of Business Sale" and on and on and so on.
- Another unsurprising moment of perfection comes at 1:01, with perhaps Sean Avery's greatest troll move ever, flipping the TOTAL RAGE switch on Martin Brodeur with one offhanded flyby.
- Well-known lunatic Ron Hextall is ably represented as well, with unbelievable moments at 1:31 and 13:22, including the always-satisfying moment when you see a goalie waddle-skate out to fight a guy who's NOT wearing umpteen pounds of padding...and overcome that obstacle.
- A few new discoveries await the careful viewer: J-S Giguere proves himself as hot-tempered as his Quebecois idol Roy, sallying forth to do battle with the ever-irritating Ryan Smyth at 13:22, and doing I don't even know what at 1:40... Even-keeled handsome man Henrik Lundqvist dishes out the punishment along with some nicely captioned profanities, but New York State's finest representative of the Insane Goalie turns out to be...Martin Biron, of all people. To see this second-tier goalie and zeroth-tier cultural figure revealed as a legitimately compelling lunatic was my favorite takehome from these 14 minutes (which I have watched a none of your business number of times).
- There is some darkness here, however: at 8:55, Flames backup Jamie McLennan takes a baseball swing into a man's gut, and around minute 10 we're graced with some spectacularly one-sided beatings...not my black cup of coffee at all.
Not long after that link landed, an attachment arrived. Lee Ginsberg--the resident visual genius of my hockey blog--had been moved by Patrick Roy's rampages and, inspired, reached back to the mysterious proto-viral campaign of our youth. Where Shepard Fairey mobilized the imposing visage of pro wrestling's indomitable legend Andre the Giant, Lee went with Saint-King Patrick, going so far as to make a sticker sheet, for maximum fidelity with our misguided younger years slash ability to enlighten this craven world about the glories of puck by means of low-stakes vandalism.
Naturally it doesn't stop there. Lee churns on, focusing for now on hockey legends of the 90s: pests, agitators, enforcers, and the immortal. It's a series of two, thus far: Roy and the likely demigod Teemu Selanne. Coming soon: Chrises Simon, Pronger, and Neil, alongside Burnaby Joe Sakic. Heroes and villains, faces and heels, all will end up stuck to flat surfaces in time. (We're looking for great bloodied pics of Jarkko Ruutu, Ron Hextall, Chris Simon, etc. If you have one, shoot it at us, won't you?) I've moved from surreptitiously watching the video at work to sneaking MACtac into the office printer to get some post-fight Roy mugs out there, and I'm still waiting for the next couple announcements to hit my inbox like McLennan's stick hitting a gut. See you in the streets, puck buddies!
Chris Collision writes about sports, sometimes, for The Classical and The Classical Magazine, podcasts about other things, and rabble-rouses about hockey, coffee, mescal, bikes and justice on Twitter.