It’s often said that every Canadian kid grows up with hockey in their veins. We learn to skate before we can walk, have our first near-death experience playing street hockey, and know the (former) theme music to Hockey Night in Canada better than the “real” national anthem (that’s the song they play when we win at the Olympics, right?). While this may be reality for many young Canadians, my childhood sports experience was a bit different.
To the extent that I played sports at all, I only played baseball. I could hit the ball pretty well, but my favourite position in the field was “that kid who picks grass in left.” For some reason, they never introduced the designated hitter into house league. I collected baseball cards though, and loved going to games with my dad—even if half the attraction was the subway ride there.
As for hockey, I had mixed feelings. I watched, sometimes, during that strange period of the late 90s when the Leafs seemed to make it into the playoffs every year, but mainly to keep up in grade five gossip circles. I never played, was never jealous of those who did, and soon came to realize that the OHL kids at high school were often not very nice people. I loved mini-sticks and the McDonald’s memorabilia, and yes, I longed to be on the ice some day. But when I skated my plastic mini hockey players in circles around my Bruce-Wayne-who-turns-into-batman action figure it wasn’t because I dreamt of being the next Gretzky or Lemieux. It was all a front, as I’m sure the whole game is, for the magical time in between periods when I could pull out the most storied of all hockey fixtures: the Zamboni.
A kid’s got to have some kind of ambition: mine was to be a Zamboni driver. I mean, why not? One minute, the ice is all scratched and bumpy. Then this guy comes out on this monster machine, drives around in circles for a few minutes, and bam! The ice is sparkling, shiny, good as new. It’s like those CLR commercials or the old Mach 3 ads with the animated blades conquering even the most stubborn stubble so that all men could be muscular and constantly fondled by beautiful women. Except this wasn’t a cartoon, and it didn’t need any fancy editing. The Zamboni is the greatest making-things-beautiful machine that exists, period. And if there’s one thing the Redmen Carnival game showed me, it’s that that still looks like a sweet profession.
But I think the Zamboni driving world may be in need of a little renewal. It has its traditions, to be sure, as does hockey. Change can be a rewarding thing, though, and as a fellow editor and I contemplated the future of Zambonis, we realized that not only are they magnificent engines of ice renewal; they might be the greatest party machines ever invented.
Think about it. Hockey, unlike other more lucrative sports, is still about the game. How antiquated. The Super Bowl is the most successful TV event of the year because people who think that down is just a direction can still enjoy aging pop stars, big production values, and the promise of occasional nudity at the halftime show. The NBA is still benefitting from lending its biggest star to the Looney Tunes’ team to beat the Monstars, and baseball, like the 2008 financial crisis, is most important for giving U.S. congressmen opportunities to make preachy speeches that are broadcast somewhere besides C-Span.
Hockey needs something to attract people who don’t actually care that much about the game. Solution? Party Zamboni. We’re talking pounding bass, flashing lights, smoke machines, dancers on top of the hood, and blasting music as the Zambo-nay rides around the ice, making provocative designs in it before finally cleaning the whole thing up. This could be those Mach 3 ads meets a halftime show for an under-50 crowd meets Disney On Ice for the over-10 demographic. Guest Zamboni drivers. No matter how raunchy it got, it would still be less offensive than Don Cherry. And because hockey has three periods, this could happen twice. It would make the Super Bowl halftime show look like a Jane Austen dinner party.
Well, that’s the dream anyway. It may not happen. But it’s important to remember how many things “love of the game” incorporates besides just loving the game. More and more, Canadian kids are growing up living soccer, not hockey. And why not? Shakira sings its theme song, and it has a proprietary noisemaker everyone loves to hate to love. True, hockey had Mighty Ducks 1, 2, and 3. But if it wants to keep bringing people into the fold, it may be time to amp up the party (without losing the game of course. It rocks).
