Texas Hockey

 

A big theme down here when we watch the Stars is “Texas Hockey.” As in rowdy announcers warning us to get ready for some … Texas Hockey!! It’s on the advertising, it’s on the pre-game commercials. Texas Hockey.

Which just strikes me as odd. Sorry, I enjoy it and all, but hockey is … a winter sport. Yeah, the playoffs run to mid-June. Yeah, the season starts in October when it still can get quite warm and the leaves have not yet turned colors and fallen off the trees. Hockey was always associated with cold, snow, and, well, ice. As a kid, we all played baseball in the spring and summer, football in the fall, and when it got too cold to go outside to play, we broke out the sticks and played hockey in our basements.

Now, it doesn’t rise to the level of full oxymoron. You know, “Jumbo Shrimp” and “Honest Politician” and all. But it’s up there on the scale. Maybe a linguistic taxidermist could label it a “minor oxymoron” or, even better, an “oxyminor.” I dunno. I’ve had better ideas.

Texas Hockey!

The Stars have been down here since 1993, and that’s 31 years, so yeah, I guess there is a thing such as Texas hockey. They moved down here, however, from the more apropos Minnesota, where they were called the North Stars. When I study a map of NHL franchises, I see a handful of teams south of the Mason-Dixon Line (eight, actually), and two that are of latitudes more southern than we here in Dallas (the Tampa Bay Lightning, formed in 1992, and the Florida Panthers, founded a year later).

I guess my gut is telling me hockey “should” only be played in a location where … ice stays ice when left outside. At least for more than a couple of hours a year. You know, anywhere in Canada. Chicago. New York, Boston, Pennsylvania. Anywhere potentially north of the Sun Belt.

Anyway, I’ve spent a while trying to convince my wife of my convictions, and she’s come to see things my way. We amuse ourselves now trying to come up with similar “oxyminors”, activities that are proudly done in places where one might least suspect them. Such as …

 

New England Bull-riding!

Miami Skiing!

The 2024 Arizona Luge Championships!

Seattle Surfing Safari! Catch the Wave!

…….

Texas Hockey!

I absolutely do not own this t-shirt, nor do I absolutely want it for 

Father's Day, my birthday, or Christmas.

Dallas Stars Playoffs

 

I’ve only been to about ten NHL games in my life; most in the three years we’ve been down in Texas and a couple in the 40+ years I lived up in New Jersey. Even though I don’t go often, when I do go it’s usually eventful. One memorable game was the start of my brother’s bachelor party in 1997. At another I sat a few rows behind the Rangers bench and caught a puck. It flopped over the plexiglass literally right into my jacket. So many hands assaulted me I thought I was pickpocketed for a moment.

 

Anyway, the wife is a networker, and when she networks she gets stuff. One company looking to do business with her offered us front row seats right on the ice. Along with VIP passes. For Game One of the first series of the playoffs. We instantaneously said “Yes!” So though it was a tough loss for the Dallas Stars, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, ate and drank pretty darn good for free in the VIP longue in the depths of the arena, got our playoff towels, and even made it on to TV.

 

The Stars lost again at home Wednesday, putting us in an unfortunate 0-2 deficit against the Knights. The away game in Vegas is tonight, but since it’s late we’ll watch it tomorrow morning. The Stars had a pretty dominant regular season, winning their division with multiple offensive weapons and an All-Star goalie, that it would be a shame to be sent home after the first series in the hunt for the Stanley Cup.

 

Here’s some pics from Monday’s game:

Opening ceremonies

Joe Pavelski, my wife's favorite player

Captain Jamie Benn after scoring 

Jake Oettinger in net

Faceoff

Tanev racing up ice with the puck

Tyler Seguin getting frustrated

Another faceoff

Marchment, one of our favorites

Mrs. Hopper banging on the plexiglass

Results 48 hours later of Mrs. Hopper banging on the plexiglass

Return to the Clancyverse

 

I’ve written several times in these here electronic pages how I devoured Tom Clancy’s work way back in the 90s, how the books were completely different from anything I had read up to that point (classic science fiction, King, and Koontz, mostly), how technically intelligent they read, how they reflected competent, heroic, patriotic men and women. As well as real evil in the world. They were eye-opening to young me, and I burned through nine of them from 1994 to 2001, with the majority in the first three years.

Anyway, I had such a blast reading The Bear and the Dragon this time last year. I bought it for my stepfather for his birthday. It was such a change of pace from the heady, hefty readings I was immersed in at that time. I spotted two Clancy hardcovers, Patriot Games and Without Remorse, at a library book sale and picked them up for two bucks apiece.

Then, an idea came to me.

Why not read through the entire Jack Ryan series again? After all, it’s been, wow, nearly thirty years, and I enjoyed Bear and Dragon so much. After a little thought decided to jump headfirst back in to the Clancyverse, but in a unique way this time.

Now I would read the books in chronological order. Not the order the books were published, because Clancy messed around with the timeline of his main character. No, I’d read it in the chronologic order of the internal story. Start off with young Jack Ryan, then middle-aged Jack Ryan, then elder statesman Jack Ryan. It sounded quite interesting and appealing to me.

Here is the order of the books in the story’s internal chronology. The parentheses are the year of publication:

 

Without Remorse (1993)

Patriot Games (1987)

Red Rabbit (2002)

The Hunt for Red October (1984)

The Cardinal of the Kremlin (1988)

Clear and Present Danger (1989)

The Sum of All Fears (1991)

Debt of Honor (1994)

Executive Orders (1996)

Rainbow Six (1998)

The Bear and the Dragon (2000)

 

In Without Remorse, Jack is a teen and it’s his father, Emmett Ryan, a detective in Baltimore, who’s more of a character, though even he is a secondary character. The novel is basically the origin story of CIA agent John Clark, played by Willem Dafoe in the Harrison Ford movies. It takes place in the late-60s / early 70s. Then the timeline skips in Patriot Games to 1983 / 1984. The final books, Executive Orders and Rainbox Six, take place in the late 90s and catch-up to the publication dates.

So excluding Bear and Dragon, that gives me ten books to read. Each is a doorstop to be honest; anywhere from 500 to 800 pages. That gives me about 7,000 pages to read, but that’s okay, because they are still page-turners for me. I imagine finishing them sometime in the late summer, and that’s acceptable because I am enjoying them immensely so far. I may post later how different they now appear to me.

I’m currently on the third book, Red Rabbit, the one and only book I have not read during the original go-round. The first two, Without Remorse and Patriot Games, each took 12 days to read this past month. This one’s taking a little longer because I am reading nonfiction alongside it. But I’m not looking at it as a race.

Red Rabbit has Jack beginning his career in the CIA. He is a rising star but hasn’t yet proven himself, which happens in The Hunt for Red October. I’m a little over halfway through, and the powers-that-be are aligning Jack to play an important role at a decisive plot point. This book’s more spycraft and espionage than Bear, Remorse, and Patriot Games were, more like a Robert Ludlum novel, which is interesting in and of itself. Kinda like an introductory course to a John Le Carre novel (whose works are on my bucket list). The first half has been slow and steadily building, with real-life figures such as Yuri Andropov as characters. I sense an action-packed climax coming though.

Anyway, that’s where I stand on my fiction reading. Professor Tolkien is still lurking about in the distance, in the mud in the mire with his boots on, smoking a pipe looking over the green be-sheeped countryside, patiently waiting for Hopper to get his act together. Hopper is thick in a nostalgia binge right now, but hopes to visit Middle-earth in the fall and winter.

Happy readings!