Pretty Cool

HNIC's opening montage intro to last night's Leafs-Habs game:

Pretty cool, as I noted in the post title.  But let me say a few things about this...  The Leafs and the Habs have an historic rivalry, to be sure.  But it's not the ONLY rivalry in the league... similar and just as storied rivalries exist between Boston and Montreal, Boston and the Rangers, Chicago and Detroit, the Wings and the Leafs, the list goes on.  And on.  

Whitehorse isn't a unique city, either.  There are many open-air rinks in Michigan, New York, Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, and all the other northern-tier US states.  And while we're on about North Dakota... there's  college hockey, exemplified by the Fighting Sioux, just to name ONE team... that's alive and well in these United States.  Northern Michigan University, Boston College, Colorado College, Big Blue, the Spartans, and MANY more college hockey programs mean just as much to the game as the NHL or the Canadian Junior League and mebbe more, depending on your point of view.

MY point, when ya get right down to it, is that Canada may have invented the game but they no longer own it.  Hockey belongs to all of us now, and I haven't even mentioned the Swedes, the Russians, the Finns, and all the other countries that play and love the game (scroll down at the link and note the medal winners over the years).  

Yeah, we owe ya, Canada, but back off on all this chauvinistic crap, will ya?  Please?  It's not all that becoming for a nation that prides itself on accomplishment AND humility.