When Hockey is More Important than Football?

(When is hockey more important than football? -- When you're playing it, not just watching it! Team reminder...)

My fellow Dragons:

(Please note: there is an important contest near the bottom. Oh sure, you could skip to the bottom, but what about Paul Anka and Gordie Howe? Think about them!)

No comfy chair this week. No Starbucks. No non-existent bespectacled French librarian to be tempted by and then ultimately resisted.

Instead it's an evening of Doctor Who, some gargling and it's "Not Penicillin!" medicine, all because of a dry cough that's trying to loosen up some not-quite-green awful stuff and a sore throat that occasionally feels like razor blades when I swallow.

In other words, an evening of rumpy-pumpy with the missus is probably not in the offering.

Be that as it may, the Dragons *will* take to the ice on Sunday.

And yesyesyes the Super Bowl is this weekend and if I was feeling better I'm sure I would have started with a message about Canada's national sport and the importance of hockey over football and the start time of OUR game versus the start time of THEIR game and how after OUR game you can still manage to have wings and beer in a post-victory celebration and how it's your giant, patriotic duty to play hockey this weekend, and I would have had an attachment of many, many photos of Rosario Dawson to weaken your resolve, coupled with an mp3 attachment that would have had Paul Anka, Gordon Lightfoot and Gordie Howe singing "O Canada" in a powerful and moving Bee Gees-like falsetto.

It would have been an email of such wondrous magnificence that you would have swelled up with manly tears of empathetic hockey-loving astonishment and it would have made the siren call of the Dragons impossible to resist.

Instead it was an "oh poor, poor me, I've got a sore throat and ear infection" egocentric introduction followed by...

Gentlemen!!!

Hockey!! This Sunday!!! At a perfectly suitable afternoon start time that will allow you to play our game and then watch the other game. The Halloween start time of years past has now been karmacally balanced by the start time of this Sunday's Super Bowl weekend hockey game.

Dragons! 4:40!!! Dragons versus Black Dragons!!!!! More exclamation marks than ever before!!!!!!

And don't forget about our first ever, never-before-mentioned, probably never to be mentioned again contest as our "yes or no" summer Dragons get to vote and then potentially win a date with their choice of the sexiest woman in the world.

So far the votes for the Dragons' unofficial mascot Rosario Dawson are astonishingly low, with the surprise front runner being German Chancellor Angela Merkel, closely followed by Betty White and then a feisty third place position for Canadian chanteuse Carole Pope.

Get your votes in! But remember, your vote will be counted only when you accept (or pass) on your place in the summer 2012 Dragons roster.

So your "yes" or "no" to a summer of magnificent hockey will allow you to vote and perhaps win an evening with Rosario Dawson, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Betty White or Carol Pope. (Contest rules to be cooked up later.)

Yes, the Super Bowl is this weekend and, yes, I am finding it difficult to talk, but wouldn't it be simply wonderful to play a game where there's the potential that I might not be able to speak louder than a sultry Jessica Rabbit-like whisper? Damn, since I've put it that way, I'd sign up myself. Pasquino quieter than usual? That would be friggin' Christmas, Hanukkah and a decade's worth of birthdays rolled together.

And there you are. The aardvark is fine, the meat was not spoiled and it was the taste of a Kit Kat that proved her salvation. So, it's all come together, hasn't it?

Enter the contest! I sincerely hope you didn't skip to the end. Start at the top if you have to.

Sunday afternoon! I'm hoping to see you there.

And apologies for the short message. I'm not feeling quite myself.

All the best,

Kevin