Hockey night in Fife

Well, ladies and gentlemen, the weekend has come, and boy am I glad to see it. This week was tough. We had a bunch of dull lectures, a mounting workload, and all sorts of other requirements for our placement schools. I came home on Friday afternoon a little disheartened, but I was buoyed by the thought of going out to ref on Saturday evening.

On Saturday I was slated to go to Fife to work the Scottish National League game between the Fife Flyers and the Kilmarnock Avalanche. I met my partners around 4pm and off we went. One plus of reffing the hockey is that I get to see a bit of Scotland, so it was kind of nice to take the drive.

Now, last week I was in Kilmarnock and the rink was abysmal, but this rink in Fife was much better. It still had the curling circles on the ice, but it was much larger, had proper rounded corners, and better yet, stands for the crowd. Apparently they draw decent crowds in Fife because the Flyers are consistently among the best teams in the league. Check out the photos of the rink.

It reminded me of game back home because they had the pre-game warm up, the music, a mascot, chuck a puck, and everything I come to associate with a hockey game, but it is still a little surreal. I set foot on the ice and no sooner than I had made one lap around the ice then they cut the lights and bust out the spot light. They announce each of the officials (including the ‘making his debut in Fife, all the way from Ottawa, Canada, Mr. Bruce Gray!!!!’) with the spotlight. The visiting team came on the ice next to a chorus of boos, and then the announcer rumbles, in his thick Scottish accent ‘now, please welcome to the ice your very own… FIFE FLYERS!!!!!’. It really was bizarre. Check out the program.

The game itself was largely a non-issue. Fife won 9-1 over Kilmarnock, who are incidentally about the worst hockey team I have ever seen. The Fife squad was quite good, although there is still no where near enough body contact for my liking.

My partners were a pair of really nice guys, Allan and Archie, but they both smoked like chimneys. I have never had to stop the car en route to a game so that the other guys can get out and have a smoke. Over the course of the evening they probably had about 8 or 9 cigarettes apiece, which is gross. They smoked in the room between periods, the smoked outside, they smoked just about everywhere. High performance athletes clearly.

Anyway, that was Saturday night…I was home by 10:30pm and at midnight I put on the radio and listened to my Ottawa Senators destroy the New Jersey devils. It was 6-1 when I went to bed, and I was pleased to see that they added a few more for good measure. Hooray for TSN! I can still watch all my highlights on the internet, just like I would back home. I guess you can take the boy out of Canada, but you can’t take Canada out of the boy.

So long from Scotland. Keep me posted on what’s up back home. I’ll be back in a little over 7 weeks so be ready!!

Cheers,

Bruce