Watching hockey after dark:
Guy Lafleur and Bobby Clarke,
Esposito, Dryden, Shack.
All the names still take me back
to those winter weekend nights –
power plays, hat tricks, and the fights
that would always make my dad
mad as hell. “This stuff is bad
for the sport,” he always said,
as an unprotected head
(before helmets) hit the ice.
We thought it was paradise
(Dave and me) when overtime
meant that we stayed up past nine
forty-five or later still.
When Dave Hodge (or sometimes Bill
Hewitt) called out the first stars
and the crowds went to their cars
in Buffalo or Montreal,
we’d be headed down the hall.
