Offsides

So, it is day two of what amounts to a four-day Rosh Hoshanna for Minnesotans; it is the state high school hockey tournament. As threatened, we have set up the office television, stretched the bunny ears across the bookshelf, fiddled with the horizontal and the vertical. We only saw a little of yesterday’s game between Warroad and Albert Lea, such was the struggle to get tuned to the new channel—45 on the UHF.

We’ve been meaning for a while to turn you onto a wonderful new Canadian magazine called The Walrus. Now is a perfect time to do that, because nothing brings Minnesota and Canada closer together than our mutual love for the game of hockey. While Canada may have a stronger claim on the game (having, after all, invented it), by proximity and practice, Minnesota is more or less a provincial extension of Ontario. We like it that way.

In fact, there are two related articles in The Walrus that we wish to bring to your attention: This month’s cover story by Jeremy Rifkin (he’s the fabulous author, by the way, of that book everyone is talking about that describes how Europe will now eclipse the US as a superpower, so we better get used to playing second fiddle) describes a shadowy alliance between Blue State America (that’s us!) and Canada. (Let’s not get too excited. There is an accompanying article titled “Is Canada Fading From the International Stage?” Uh, we’re not sure anyone noticed one way or the other.)

Secondly, last month’s issue had a wonderful story on hockey literature that asked why there has been no great hockey book since Ken Dryden’s wonderful book “The Game,” which was published way back when we were playing goalie for Mankato West High School. Indeed, it is hard to believe that a game that condenses the poetry of motion of soccer and combines it with the violence of pugilism, and the choreography of basketball, does not have a body of literature worthy of the game.

For our own part, we pledge to work on this one of these years. We figure it’s a good start that we’ve had the skates out a few times this year to wet a blade with the young ones—nothing inspires a reconsideration like the next generation.

And finally, we note that in that same back issue, a Walrus writer paid us the indirect compliment of rewriting one of our stories—about the innovative approach of a certain Minneapolis lawyer who is revolutionizing (and humanizing) the process of divorce. Oh, and Utne magazine, our hometown blue-state bible of self-help, has recognized The Walrus as “Best New Title” in its annual alternative press awards. (We have been jumping and waving our arms from across Hennepin Avenue for three years now, and no one seems to notice over there. We love them, and they don’t seem to believe us. We are very needy, it is true.)