Everyone and their dog

I blogged a little while ago about playing "omg, do you know so-and-so?" with hockey players. People ask me fairly often, "how DO you know everyone in life!?"

I really don't know everyone ... I do know a lot of people, however, and I have an uncanny knack of remembering where they are from. When I meet someone new, especially from some small back-wood town in Canada, I always ask them, "Do you know my friend so-and-so?" who I probably met at some tournament somewhere, or that played on one of my teams.

This then forms an instant bond, and you're all of a sudden in their good books (unless they hate the person you know haha oops?) Last spring, I was covering a function my boss had sent me to. When I got back, I was happily typing away at my desk when she came to ask how it had gone. "Great," I said. "That guy you wanted me to interview, turns out he's from Marathon, and knows my buddy Travy."

"I swear, you know someone from everyhere," she said.

In addition to knowing someone from everywhere, I've also BEEN practically everywhere. If you haven't travelled the wilds of Canada, but are at all interested in hockey, I suggest going on a little tour. Not an NHL tour, but a tour to some smaller places, watch some junior hockey (major junior or tier II) and visit some rinks. I also read a lot of stories about rinks, like by Roy MacGregor, and stuff like that.

I think I'm going to start keeping a list of all the little rinks I have been to. I recently saw one of those contests on TV where you win money for your rink and one of the finalists was Bentley, Alberta, and I mentioned to whomever I was watching with at the time, "Good, that rink needs a facelift pretty badly."

And when you do meet someone from a little town, and you can say you've been to their town, or better yet, their rink, you're always "in."

I direly miss my old rink. So many memories there.