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The perils of the Canadian game

An exhaustive list of my shortcomings is beyond the scope of a single column. While generally not wading too deeply into the seven deadly sins, I would certainly have to include sloth on the list.

An exhaustive list of my shortcomings is beyond the scope of a single column. While generally not wading too deeply into the seven deadly sins, I would certainly have to include sloth on the list. If it weren’t for deadlines – rarely self-imposed – I’d quite likely never get anything done.

Mañana, as both lifestyle and philosophy, has held me in a tight embrace since long before I knew there was a word in any language to describe it. I used to think my indolence was the result of an inherited procrastination gene but now I realize even that evaluation is overly hopeful; procrastinators eventually stop procrastinating and get whatever they’re avoiding done.

And I’m not what you’d call a snappy dresser. This may just be a variant of sloth, I’m not sure. I enjoy clothes shopping about as much as I enjoy digging deeply-lodged slivers of wood out from under a fingernail. Given a choice, I’d undoubtedly take the slivers – the pain doesn’t last as long and the result is generally successful.

I once thought I’d outgrow this particular failing but there’s no sign of hope and the horizon is rapidly receding. I’ve now adopted a strategy of smearing grease or soil on my hands and using the excuse of either fixing the car or gardening as justification for whatever I’m wearing. It’s a promising ploy though not foolproof and embarrassingly hard to explain in the middle of January.

Of course, it’s built on a lie and lying is not one of my strong suits. There was a time in my youth – most of it – when I showed promise of becoming a pretty good liar. I could spin a spontaneous tale to explain just about anything, absolve myself of any responsibility or wrongdoing, deflect criticism, garner sympathy, or keep from getting the snot beat out of me by someone I’d just insulted.

But to be a real player at the lying game, you need a near-perfect memory and whatever memory brain cells I was born with were pretty well squandered between 1968 and 1978. I don’t remember exactly how. I do know by the time I moved to Canada in 1979, I’d adopted a doctrine of strict truth. Unless the truth was going to get me in trouble or beaten up. It wasn’t any easier to remember the truth but getting caught telling the truth was less embarrassing than getting caught telling a lie.

This propensity for telling the truth compels me to come clean about a shortcoming that is particularly noticeable this time of year. I’m a hockey weenie. I know virtually nothing about hockey. Worse, I care even less.

As the Victoria Day weekend rolls around – Canada’s unofficial start of summer – this is the sum total of my hockey knowledge: the season isn’t over yet.

Karl Belanger was the first Canadian who took it upon himself to save me from hockey ignorance. He was understanding about how someone growing up in the desert might not have a firm grasp of the sport and he burned with the desire of a disciple to set me on the path of true belief. He failed miserably and finally gave up when I opined about how the sport would be much better if it adopted non-contact rules along the lines of pro basketball, itself still a non-contact sport during those days.

"Are you out of your mind? ’Itting is what ’ockey is all about," he said in a Patois brought on by hockey fever and too much beer.

I’d just watched Guy Lafleur roar down the ice and steal the puck from some guy who’d outskated all the other Canadiens and was about to go one-on-one with the goalie. After robbing the other guy of a shot, Guy skated the puck back down the ice, deking out the opposing defencemen, twisting, pirouetting and breaking free of all of them, getting close enough to have set up a deadly shot with no one between him and the goalie, raise his stick and then be tackled to the ice by some big goon who tripped him from behind.

"Why don’t they just pull switchblades?" I exclaimed. "This is the stupidest game I’ve ever seen."

Karl gave up and that’s still pretty much my take on hockey.

Admitting it is yet another shortcoming.

Which brings me to the sordid, if fascinating, tale of John Davy. I was going to let the whole John Davy thing go without comment. But after a full page exposé worthy of People Magazine in last weekend’s Globe – bidniz section no less – I realized there was a larger morality tale to tell. Embraced by the comical shenanigans of Mr. Davy is, in fact, a parable for all Canadians and our place in the world.

My last encounter with John was a pleasant one. He ran in to where I was working and handed me several hundred dollars he owed me. Admittedly, and apparently in keeping with his character, he did not perform this deed voluntarily. He’d bounced the last umpire cheque of the season, not just mine but everyone’s.

I resubmitted the cheque as he’d requested. "I didn’t get the deposit in on time," was, I believe, his excuse. It bounced again.

This is pretty much the message I left on his phone. "John, the cheque bounced again. I understand how these things can happen. So here’s the plan. Bring me cash by the end of the day tomorrow to cover the cheque. If you don’t, there’s a biker named Eddie who hangs out at the PemHo who will visit you before midnight tomorrow and will, ironically, take a baseball bat to both of your knees. Have a nice day."

What I don’t understand about the whole John Davy affair is how anyone who’d ever had a conversation with the man would hire him for any job, let alone an important job. Charming and bright were not labels I’d use to describe him. Shifty and doofus were, to which horrible liar can now be added.

But reading the story, it became clear how he succeeded. He manipulatively played on two of Canadians’ outstanding shortcomings: hockey and niceness. From Riyadh, to Hong Kong to New Zealand, John bamboozled Canadians into hiring him by playing hockey with them or talking hockey with them or somehow dangling the national obsession in front of their faces. Having established himself as "one of us" he played on the other shortcoming, terminal niceness, knowing no well-raised Canadian would look him in the eye and say, "Are you full of shit or what?" Which, of course, he was.

The lesson here is obvious. So obvious, I’m not even going to tell you what it is.

I can’t be bothered.