Big day for the Sens. Big day.

Jarkko Ruutu has, unsurprisingly, been suspended for two games for that attempted elbow to the head of Maxim Lapierre. “I had no intention to do it,” says Ruutu, “but accidents will happen.” They sure will, Jarkko. They just didn’t this time.

Ryan Shannon has been called up from Binghamton to take Ruutu’s spot in the lineup for the home-and-home against the Islanders on Thursday and Saturday. Where precisely Shannon will fit on the Sens’ forward lines is not clear, but it appears that Antoine Vermette’s time playing with Jason Spezza and Dany Heatley is over. Craig Hartsburg had Nick Foligno on their line in practice today.

Oh, but if you thought that was the most interesting thing that happened at practice, then you were sorely mistaken. There was not only line juggling going on, but also rage. Anger. Frustration. Fury. Plus violence done unto inanimate objects the likes of which hasn’t been seen in Ottawa since Ray Emery left town as Daniel Alfredsson swung his hockey stick of furious angry rage and accidentally (there you go, Ruutu) broke a pane of Scotiabank Place’s glass. According to the Sun, the Captain was frustrated by the team’s “inability to complete a drill.”

Additionally, Bruce Garrioch reports that Heatley and Chris Kelly got into a “heated debate,” and Heatley and Hartsburg had a “long discussion” at the end of practice as well. When asked what he and the coach were talking about, Heatley said “my skates.” The video report on the Sun’s website (which appears on the page linked to above) includes footage of Heatley talking to reporters and well, I don’t know the guy, but I’d say he seemed a bit irritated.

All of this leaves me wondering: um, what the heck happened? Okay, I get that the team lost last night and believe me, I was pretty irritated too — actually, I had to ban myself from watching more hockey last night after I saw that the FREAKING BLOODY PENGUINS had come back on Detroit; the combination of that and the Sens getting shut out was just too much — but I can’t quite see how that leads to half the team (possible exaggeration) suddenly being overcome with berserker rage. Is there no joy in Sensville these days? What’s up? Can’t blame it on Emery this time. (Though, he was in town recently … but no.)

Sens … you’ve got to calm down. Remember what Yoda says: anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. Anger, hate, and suffering are all stops along the path to the dark side. I know the Emperor said that anger could give you focus and make you stronger, but he was creepy. Who are you going to believe: the deathly pale guy in the black cloak or the little green puppet who sounds like Kermit the Frog? Also, I’m pretty sure Darth Sidious was talking about anger directed outwards. If you’re angry at yourself all the time, that’s just toxic.

So. Meditation. Group yoga session. Ice cream party. Whatever. Let’s nip the infighting in the bud before this turns into a horrible repeat of last season and I have to fly home and beat you all with my frying pan.

Brace Yourselves …

I want to give you fair warning, my loyal reader(s?), that I will not be making my usual game posts on Thursday and Saturday. My good friend Golly will be visiting from England starting tomorrow. She’s going to watch Thursday’s game with me, and I’m thinking it might be slightly rude to blog with her in the room. On Saturday, Golly and I will be attending the Canucks-Leafs game, which is unfortunately at the same time as the Sens game, so we’ll have to miss the Sens entirely. It’s for a good cause: Golly has never seen live hockey before. Don’t worry, though — I’ll make sure she knows to boo the Leafs.

A few random tidbits for the day:

Please, Just Shut Up. Those bloody Spezza trade rumours are surfacing again for some reason, and this time they seem to be tied to the Nikolai Khabibulin to Ottawa rumours that just won’t go away. A report from Chicago has it that the Blackhawks may be interested in Spezza, while HockeyBuzz’s Eklund is saying that the Sens will send Spezza to Calgary to clear cap space for Khabibulin. Which makes total sense, because obviously Bryan Murray would want to trade the guy who has probably been Ottawa’s best player this season so far, who is only 25 years old, who finished eighth in the league in scoring last season despite missing six games, and who is signed long-term for what seems like a pretty reasonable cap hit of $7 million, to make room on the payroll for a 35-year-old, injury prone goalie whose $6.75 million deal expires at the end of this season. Right. Did Murray sustain a head injury I don’t know about? I guess the nice thing about Eklund reporting all this is that it means it will definitely never come to pass.

Prepare to Die! There was an exciting post-game altercation in Buffalo last night, which involved Adam Mair trying to charge into the Sens’ locker room in order to do violence to Chris Neil. Apparently, he grabbed Jarkko Ruutu but was sent on his way by locker room defender Luke Richardson, who calmly tried to explain that what happens on the ice should stay on the ice. (In case you missed it, someone has conveniently uploaded it to YouTube. Ruutu’s interview about it is here.) According to the Sun, the NHL is reviewing the incident. So. A couple of fights, lots of personal insults, plenty of hate … pretty much par for the course for a Sens-Sabres game.

Senator vs. Senators. Bad news for the Sens as Barack Obama has forced them to move their practice tomorrow in a blatant attempt to woo the all-important Florida Panthers fan vote by sabotaging their opponent. But has he shot himself in the foot with Lightning supporters?

Greatness By Association. In blog news, I am happy to announce that Sens at Land’s End is soon to become part of that excellent organization known as HLOG: Hockey’s Ladies of Greatness! I read and enjoy many HLOG blogs, and am very excited to be joining such an illustrious group of hockey bloggers, including fellow Sens blogger Sherry of Scarlett Ice. I just want to thank the ladies for this opportunity, and I will do my best to bring honour to the HLOG name.

Much as Buckingham Palace flies the royal standard to indicate when the Queen is in residence, my place in Vancouver displays a giant Sens flag in the window when I am home. That flag is now up, and I start back to school tomorrow. This can only mean one thing: summer is finally almost over, and hockey season is nearly upon us! That sound I hear, it sounds like a gust of fresh ocean/mountain wind, but I think actually it’s the sound of hockey fans everywhere noting that today is September 1 and breathing a huge sigh of relief. At last, we are done with the horrors of August and of hockey blogs filled with non-hockey-related posts. Except this last one.

100 Things About Me - Episode III: The Good, the Bad, and the Random

63. I hate orange cheese. I accept that orange cheddar is fundamentally the same as yellow cheddar, but it disgusts me. As my friend Cocoa says, just because they haven’t proven that the dye is carcinogenic doesn’t mean it isn’t.

64. I am ridiculously afraid of sharks and I was even when I lived nowhere near the ocean. Are there sharks in the waters near Vancouver? I have no idea, and I have no intention of finding out. You will not see me swimming in the ocean anytime soon.

65. Last summer I travelled by road and rail from Ottawa to Vancouver and visited my friend the Doc in Winnipeg. It was the first time I’d been to Manitoba. Now that I’ve covered that one, I have been to every province of Canada except Newfoundland. (I’ve never been to the territories either though.)

66. I try to live an environmentally-responsible lifestyle. I do all the easy little things everyone should do, like turning off lights and using energy-efficient bulbs. I am fanatical about recycling and I compost. I also take public transit or walk everywhere. It’s easy for me to do that because I do not own a car, but still.

67. I have a subscription box at a comic book store in Ottawa, and when I moved to BC I got them to send my list to a store in Vancouver so I wouldn’t miss anything. In Ottawa, I always stay and visit for a while when I go pick up my comics, and I’ve become good friends with several people I’ve met through the comic book store.

68. Booster Juice is like crack to me. I was thrilled — thrilled — when I realized they were opening a loaction on UBC campus.

69. Sometime last year, I started seeing Al Pacino everywhere. I’d turn on the TV, and one of his movies would be on (one time when I woke up in the middle of the night and just randomly starting channel-surfing, there was Any Given Sunday on in French). I’d hear references to his movies. I’d go to the movies and there would be segments about him in the pre-movie slideshow. It was odd. I’m still pretty convinced that the universe (or maybe Pacino?) was trying to tell me something, and now if ever I see Pacino somewhere I pay attention. I even watched 88 Minutes, which was really lame, on the plane back to Vancouver the other day because I felt I couldn’t not.

70. Last year I fell while playing hockey and jammed my finger. When it was still sore after about a month and had developed a bump on the side I finally went to the doctor to have it checked out. Turns out I cracked the bone and the doctor says the bump may never go away. I managed to live my entire life without ever breaking a bone. Then I started playing hockey, and I was scarred for life within a month.

71. A few years ago I had a job at an unnamed government department. This job was so tedious and mind-numbing that I realized there was no way I could spend the rest of my life working at similar jobs and not want to kill myself every day. That is why I decided to go back to school.

72. I am known among my family members for the weirdness of my dreams. My grandfather also has really strange dreams, so perhaps it’s genetic. Speaking of my grandfather, I dreamed a few months ago that he and I were snowboarding. He’s almost 90 and has broken his leg three times. Pretty sure he shouldn’t be doing that. I often dream about losing my teeth. It’s horrible.

73. I haven’t travelled a whole lot outside Canada. I’ve been to the US states that are closest to Ontario as well as Tennessee. In terms of overseas travel, I’ve only been to Ireland, Wales, and England.

74. I used to work at Lush. It was a good job — I could sell that stuff because I knew it worked. Also, there were lots of freebies.

75. For a while I worked at a kiosk in a mall. Yep, I was one of the people working at those carts. My brother-in-law Coco (not to be confused with my friend Cocoa), whom I didn’t know at the time, worked at the same mall while I was there. He and his friend had nicknames for several of the other mall workers (I did too — like Gord Downie Guy, who worked at the grocery store). It was only after we’d known each other for a while that he realized he used to know me as Kiosk Girl.

76. I wouldn’t be offended if someone making romantic overtures to me couldn’t remember what colour my eyes were. I’m not too sure myself. Green? Maybe? I’ve tried looking in a mirror and it doesn’t help.

77. I don’t tan. I just burn. And my burn doesn’t fade to a tan; it just goes back to white. This is why I stay out of the sun.

78. I hate eating in restaurants or at other people’s houses.

79. When I’m listening to music, I compulsively tap my fingers along with the song (unless I’m doing something else).

80. I am not religious at all and never have been. I’d probably describe myself as an agnostic. The closest thing I’ve got to a spiritual philosophy is that I believe in the idea of “ripples” — that every action has many effects and we should observe what they are and be aware of them. So basically I got my philosophy from Joan of Arcadia.

81. I have never really considered myself superstitious but actually I’ve had to revise that as I’ve noticed that in fact I can be quite silly about certain things. I would never open an umbrella indoors, walk under a ladder, or scratch my right palm if it itched. The thing I’m most superstitious about is (of course) hockey: I always wear something red or something with the team logo on it on Sens gamedays and I try not to change anything I’m wearing during the way. If I notice that I’ve done something in particular on a day when they win, I’ll try to repeat that thing again.

82. Once, the Stanley Cup was on my front lawn. And I didn’t get downstairs in time to have my picture taken with it.

83. When I was a TA, I caught two of my students copying their assignments off the internet. Note to cheaters: it’s called Google, and your prof/TA is very capable of using it.

84. I have my DVDs arranged in an intricate system which only I can understand.

85. I generally don’t like people to see me cry. If I’m crying at a movie or something I’ll do my very best to cover it up. However, if I’m genuinely grieving, then I will cry wherever and whenever, no matter who happens to be around.

86. I’m not a vegetarian, but I also don’t eat a lot of meat. This is partly because I don’t know how to cook it (I am a sucky cook but I’m trying to get better), and partly because I prefer eating fruit and vegetables. They are delicious.

87. I have a fear of falling, I guess it is. It’s not a fear of heights — I don’t mind heights if I feel I’m secure. But I don’t like it when it seems as though there isn’t much between me and a horrendous fall. I really don’t like narrow, high places, or elevated things with transparent walls or low guardrails. For example, I hate crossing the locks on the Canal.

88. When I did my undergrad, I minored in Classics. I did three years of Ancient Greek and my class’ project in the third year was to translate Euripides’ Medea from Greek to English. It was really bloody difficult. I like using my Greek and Latin to figure out word origins. That’s pretty much all it’s good for.

89. I’m anal about spelling and grammar. I’m naturally good at both and I re-read my own writing several times because errors bother me.

90. When I went to Bath, I caught a cold. I drank some of the spa water and it cured me.

91. The first time I saw Radiohead play live was in Ottawa in 1997. The mosh pit was so bad at that show that I had to get out before Radiohead even came on stage. Ever since then I’ve had a fear of mosh pits.

92. I’m very picky about my clothes. They have to be comfortable and totally not itchy or I won’t wear them. I also hate having tight collars around my neck.

93. I’m fairly tall (5′8″) and have big feet. Most really nice women’s shoes either are heels or only come in small sizes. I therefore hate shoe shopping.

94. I recently started doing yoga. All that stuff about how yoga heals your mind, body, and spirit sounds so cheesy … but it’s actually true.

95. I’ve got a sweet tooth. This is another trait I seem to have inherited from my grandfather, who grew up in Smiths Falls. Whether growing up in a town with a chocolate factory contributed to his love of candy I do not know. But anyway, I love chocolate. I’m a chocolate hoarder: my mother gets me a big Toblerone for Christmas every year, and I usually still have some left at Easter.

96. I love making lists! I also love looking at lists of great movies and books and things and checking off the ones I’ve seen or read. Ta-da Lists and Lists of Bests are two websites I enjoy.

97. I talk to myself frequently. I also talk to my computer, the mountains, whatever. I especially talk to (or yell at) the Sens when I’m watching or listening to games. I’m sure my neighbours think I’m mental.

98. I daydream a lot. Sometimes my daydreams are like stories and they continue for days and days. Does everyone do this?

99. I’m a good researcher. I’ve had luck in the past at finding obscure information that I didn’t think I’d be able to come up with and I really enjoy hunting stuff like that down. I think I’d be a pretty good reference librarian or archivist.

100. My nose runs when I get overtired.

And with that scintillating bit of information, we are officially finished with the dog days of summer posting! Countdown to Sens pre-season game 1: 19 days.

I’ve spent much of the weekend trying to get myself ready to go back to school. I’ll be leaving the rainy climes of Ottawa next Saturday, heading back to the perhaps equally rainy city of Vancouver. Let me tell you, this packing stuff is a job of work, and I realized today that I’ll have to mail some of my stuff back to myself because it won’t all fit in my suitcases. And one of my suitcases is a hockey bag. Clearly, someone made too many trips to the Gap this summer.

Anyway, in the absence of any Sens news or hockey books to post about, here is part two of the 100 Things About Me thing I started about two weeks ago. Today, you will learn about raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens, and a few of my other favourite things.

100 Things About Me - Episode II: Things I Love (Besides Hockey)

31. I am a huge, huge fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I firmly believe it to be The Greatest TV Show Ever Created. I often quote the show (in fact I did so above) and can name all the episodes in order. I once went all the way to Nashville, Tennessee to present a paper at an academic Buffy Studies conference, and I own a bag with the word “Buffyologist” printed on it. Buffy is one of my heroes.

32. I also love Buffy’s spinoff, Angel, and consider it to be The Second Greatest TV Show Ever Created. Such is my love of Angel the character that I started watching Bones solely because David Boreanaz is on it. Angel’s series finale, “Not Fade Away,” is, I’m pretty sure, the best series finale ever shot. Six Feet Under’s last episode, “Everyone’s Waiting,” is the only one that comes close to it, if you ask me.

33. Perhaps you could see this one coming: Joss Whedon is one of my favourite people, and I’m also a big Firefly and Serenity fan. I was ridiculously excited for about a whole week before Serenity opened. My good friend Cocoa and I went to see it on opening night. We own matching Jayne hats, knitted for us by our other friend and fellow Firefly geek, the awesome Sner.

34. I have watched all three Joss shows over and over, and love marathoning them. If there’s a Joss marathon on TV, I’m there. The aforementioned Sner and Cocoa and I, along with Doc and a few other friends, once voted on our favourite Buffy episodes and then sat down for a 12-episode marathon. I also participated in a group re-watch of Buffy, Angel, and Firefly — we watched an episode per day, and we alternated between Buffy and Angel during the seasons when both were on the air — with a few of my close online friends. I’ve also got my mother to watch all three shows. When she started Firefly, she kept saying, “I don’t know about this whole ’space western’ thing.” By the time we finished it was “I don’t understand why this show got cancelled!!” Neither do I, mom.

35. U2 has been my favourite band since I was about 14. I’ve seen them play live five times, and each time it’s been amazing. “Where the Streets Have No Name” is my favourite song and I’d have to say that some of my best ever experiences have been being in the crowd when they’ve played that song.

36. I once saw Bono on the street! Well, I didn’t just run into him. I went downtown specifically to see him, but still. He was in Ottawa for an announcement about aid for Africa. I didn’t meet him, but when he was getting into his car he made a peace sign, and I’m pretty sure he was looking at me. Oh yeah! After Bono went away, I saw George Stroumboulopoulos, so I went to ask him if MuchMusic was covering the press conference. He was talking on his cellphone when I approached him but he gestured for me to wait. I heard his end of the conversation and gradually realized he was actually talking to Bono. When George hung up, I said “You didn’t let me say hi!!” I was joking, but George apologized, even though, really, I was being very rude. I thought he was a very nice guy.

37. I saw Titanic in theatre 11 times. Yes, I was that girl. I still think it’s a great movie. Screw you!

38. When I was in high school, I loved the Smashing Pumpkins. I had one of those ZERO shirts and everything. They won my heart when I saw them play live at Scotiabank Place (then the Corel Centre) and they did “Thru the Eyes of Ruby,” which was my favourite song of theirs. I don’t listen to them as much anymore, but “Cherub Rock” is my favourite song to play on guitar in Rock Band. I kick ass at it!

39. I was a total grunge kid when that was popular. I had babydoll dresses like Courtney Love had, and flannel shirts and Doc Martens. I still remember how I found out that Kurt Cobain had died, and I think of it every year on the anniversary.

40. On a related note, I used to be able to calm myself down when I’d have an attack of nerves by listening to “Even Flow” by Pearl Jam on a loop. Yeah, I’m not really sure why that worked.

41. For a few years, I was totally obsessed with the Manic Street Preachers. My first major attempt at a website was a Manics fansite. I started wearing lots of eyeliner and even some leopard print.

42. Radiohead is my favourite band that isn’t U2. Thom Yorke’s voice is one of my very favourite sounds, and they rarely come up with a song I don’t like.

43. I love The Verve, and they are the only one of my favourite bands I’ve never seen play live. I was excited when they got back together because I thought I might get a chance to go to a show, but it hasn’t happened so far.

44. I am a Harry Potter fanatic. I took the Harry Potter course at Carleton when I was in fourth year and got to present my paper at the Children’s Literature Association conference. My final paper for my Master’s was a comparison of Buffy and Harry Potter (which, incidentally, now that both series are over, I think was pretty much dead on). Before the final book in the series came out, I counted how many chapters there were total in the first six books and planned it out so I cold re-read them one chapter per day and finish on the day Deathly Hallows was released. Did I mention I was a geek?

45. During the summer I spent writing that epic paper on Buffy and Harry, I nearly went mental. I will never try to write a thesis of any kind ever again! The only thing that kept me from losing my mind completely was taking frequent dance breaks every day, during which I would listen to and sing along with the first three tracks of Oasis’ album Heathen Chemistry. “Hung in a Bad Place” became my essay-writing theme song. That August, I went to see Oasis play in Montreal, rocked out, and felt totally reinvigorated afterwards. I can honestly say that Oasis saved my sanity.

46. I’m a huge Tori Amos fan. She is my most-listened artist on my Last.fm profile because I never get tired of her. She is a genius: very strange, but very brilliant.

47. Tori and Joss used their combined powers to get me into comics — Tori by making frequent references to Neil Gaiman and the Sandman series, and Joss by writing Fray, which was set in the Buffyverse. Neil Gaiman is now one of my favourite authors, and I highly recommend anything he’s written. I find that I sometimes have more interesting dreams when I’ve been hanging out with the Dream King.

48. I enjoy superhero comics, but only Marvel ones. The DC characters don’t do that much for me. I find that is true of both the comics and the movies, though sometimes I get in the mood for Batman and I continue to watch Smallville, even though I don’t really think it’s all that good (because Tom Welling is incredibly hot).

49. Spider-Man is so by far my favourite superhero. Spider-Man 2 is my favourite movie ever. I absolutely adore it, and I saw it 12 times in theatre. I will read just about any Spidey comic Marvel comes out with, no matter how lame it is, and I even saw Spider-Man 3 three times, even though it kinda sucked. Spidey, Buffy, and Harry Potter make up my holy trinity of heroic fictional characters.

50. Perhaps largely because he has done such a wonderful job playing one of my heroes, Tobey Maguire is my favourite actor. Aside from the first two Spidey films, Wonder Boys is my favourite of his movies. It and Tim Burton’s Ed Wood are two movies I’m always recommending to people because they’re both so good and so underwatched.

51. I’m also a big Keanu Reeves fan and I’ve got a stack of his movies on DVD. After all the Matrix movies came out, I decided to watch them all back to back in one day to see if the ending made any more sense if I did that. It kinda did … but not totally. The Matrix remains one of my favourite movies, though.

52. When I was a kid, I watched Grease and Dirty Dancing about a million times each. They’re still two of my favourite movies, and I think Grease in particular is a total classic. I never knew all the words to some of the songs when I was young, and the first time I saw the movie when I was old enough to realize what they were saying I was really shocked!

53. I love watching the Oscars every year, and I also love old movies. It’s a goal of mine to see every Best Picture nominee. The fact that I get Turner Classic Movies in Vancouver makes me very, very happy.

54. I am a dedicated TV watcher. When there’s a show I really like, I will make a point of setting aside the time to watch it every week. My current favourites are Lost, House, Battlestar Galactica, and Dexter, among others. My ritual every Sunday used to be to sit down and go through the TV Guide, making a note of when things I wanted to watch were on. However, I no longer get the paper so I don’t actually have a TV guide anymore.

55. Before the glorious advent of TV on DVD, I was really anal about taping my favourite shows. I had boxes of tapes in my closet with every episode of The X-Files, Buffy, Angel, and Party of Five. TV on DVD saves me a lot of shelf space.

56. I have massive love for Farscape, though I only discovered it after it had been cancelled. I tend to watch a whole bunch of episodes at once, and after a while I start thinking in Farscape terms like solar days, cycles, yotz, dren, and frell. I guess you could say it makes me slightly fahrbot.

57. I don’t participate in the Lost extended universe, but I do like looking for the literary and historical references in the show and trying to figure out what it all means. I always read Doc Jensen’s Lost column on Entertainment Weekly’s website.

58. I love to be shocked by TV and movies. I’m always trying to predict what’s going to happen, so when something genuinely surprises me, I’m really pleased. The season 1 finale of Battlestar Galactica and the ending of The Departed are two things that have managed to make me gasp out loud recently. Lost is constantly pulling of fantastic twists. Due to my love of the big surprise, I hate spoilers. I never read them, except sometimes for shows I don’t care about.

59. Arrested Development cracks me up. I sometimes randomly start saying “Bob Loblaw’s Law Blog” over and over. I find it very soothing. And also hilarious.

60. One of the best papers I ever wrote in university was on Rick Mercer’s Talking to Americans. I re-read it once a couple of years after handing it in, and I actually could not believe I had written something so good.

60. Aside from Neil Gaiman and J.K. Rowling, my favourite writers are probably Jane Austen, Mordecai Richler, and Carol Shields. I am pretty much strictly a novel reader. I almost never touch non-fiction, unless it’s about hockey.

61. I grew up watching soap operas and have at various points in my life followed All My Children, Days of Our Lives, and Another World pretty closely. I was most dedicated to General Hospital, though: I watched it daily for several years. I loved Carly and Sonny. The fact that Sarah Brown is back on the show has me almost tempted to start watching again.

62. I have a small collection of action figures and fandom collectibles. I don’t buy a lot of stuff, and I try to get things that are unique in some way. In particular, I like silly action figures, such as Darth Tater. I’ve got bobbleheads of Angel and Spike, a plush Rygel from Farscape, and a Harry Potter Quidditch mobile as well as my very own Puppet Angel. I have about 20 or 25 Spider-Man figures, which might sound like a lot to the average person on the street, but trust me, I know people who have many more.

(100 Things About Me - Episode III: The Good, the Bad, and the Random coming soon to this space!)

And what kind of a shell has a nut like this? I’ve been reading Sherry’s 100 Things About Me posts and, despite my fears that I might not be able to come up with 100 things to say about myself, I’m going to give it a shot. I apologize in advance for my boringness.

100 Things About Me - Episode I: Origins

1. I was born in Ottawa, many years ago, very close to Christmas. The plus of having a near-Christmas birthday is that everyone who can remember when Christmas is can remember the date of your birthday. The big minus is that when you’re a kid and you want to have a birthday party, all your friends have gone away on their Christmas holidays, and you end up being alone and pathetic every year.

2. My mother loves Anne of Green Gables. She gave me the middle name Blythe, after Gilbert Blythe. I also enjoy Anne of Green Gables, so I think that’s a pretty cool person to be named after, really.

3. I am left-handed. The only scissors I own are a few pairs I … liberated from my elementary school.

4. My parents separated when I was about 6 and eventually divorced. My sister and I lived with my mom.

5. I have one full sibling — we’ll call her Mrs. Coco (because my brother-in-law is Coco, obviously) — as well as two half-sisters and a half-brother from my dad’s previous marriage. I’ve never lived in the same house with my half-siblings though, and they’re much older than I am.

6. My maternal grandparents have been very important in my life. They always lived in the same general area as we did when I was growing up and we saw them quite often. We called my grandmother Tutu because that’s Hawaiian for grandmother, and she was in Hawaii when my mom found out she was going to have me. I used to have a t-shirt that said “If mom says no, ask Tutu.”

7. When I was a kid, my family went to Prince Edward Island on vacation (see #2). While walking on a wooden bridge at Cavendish Beach, I got a splinter in the bottom of my right heel. My parents had to take me to the doctor to get it removed, and the doctor we went to basically just dug it out without any kind of anaesthetic or anything. My dad says he could hear me screaming from the waiting room and my mom eventually just carried me out of the place. I had a scar on my heel for many years afterwards, not to mention the mental scars — I wasn’t very old at the time, but I still remember screaming and crying. Trauma!

8. Until I moved to Vancouver last year, I had lived my entire life in the part of Ottawa that is bordered by the Canal on the north, Bank St. on the west, the Rideau River on the south, and Carleton University on the east. I lived in three houses during my youth, but they were all within that very small area. As a child, I spent a lot of time playing in Brewer Park, skating at Brewer Arena and on the speed skating oval in the park, and swimming in Brewer Pool.

9. I love to swim, but when I swim I’m not generally doing laps or any kind of organized fitness training or whatever. I really love being under water, and I pretty much just swim randomly around the pool. I developed this habit when I was a kid and my sister and my best friend and I would go swimming at Brewer on January weeknights. Most nights, we’d be the only people in the pool, so we could do whatever we wanted. Now when I go to adult swimming time I pretty much have to stay in the slow lane so my non-structured swimming won’t interfere with the serious swimmers. I end up chatting with senior citizens a lot.

10. I had a lot of toys when I was little. One of these was a stuffed Smurfette. Apparently, I was so attached to Smurfette that my kindergarten teacher told my mom she was worried about the possibility of me trying to go back inside to retrieve her if ever there was a fire at the school. I also had a large stuffed rabbit named Big Ears. Ironically, Big Ears’ ears eventually fell off. I never played with Barbie dolls; no, my sister and I had a huge Jem doll collection instead. Jem was way cooler than Barbie.

11. My parents put me in French immersion so I had all my classes (except an hour of English per day) in French starting when I was 5. I switched to English when I started high school and it was the first time I’d ever had Math class not in French. I remember I didn’t know the English word for a protractor. These days I can understand French extremely well and speak it at an acceptable level. I can also read okay (though very slowly), but don’t ask me to write anything.

12. I basically sucked at math in high school, until I got to grade 13 (yes, I’m old enough that I had to do grade 13). At that point I ended up doing two math courses at the same time, Finite and Calculus, and I was so afraid that I’d fail and not be able to graduate that I worked my butt off, especially in Calculus. I ended up getting 90 in Calculus and 95 in Finite. On the last day of school, my Finite teacher asked me in front of the teacher I’d had in grades 11 and 12 whether I was considering doing math in university, and my grade 11 and 12 teacher laughed. Despite my math suckiness, I enjoy trying to reduce numbers to their smallest factors in my head. I also really like multiples of 9.

13. When I was in grade 7 and 8, I was in the school band. I played the clarinet. I loved music class, and I tried out a bunch of the other instruments my school had, like the trumpet, flute, baritone, and trombone. I’d sign one of them out for the night and play them at home. I wasn’t good at any, but I figured out the basics of all of them. When I graduated from elementary school, I won the music award because of my enthusiasm. Then when I went to high school I kept on playing the clarinet and also picked up the cello. I tried out all the other stringed instruments too but I was never very good at anything beyond the simplest stuff.

14. I went through a phase as a tween where I was obsessed with Broadway musicals like Les Misérables and The Phantom of the Opera, but especially Les Mis. I saw it three times and I’m pretty sure I still remember the lyrics to most of the songs. When I was in grade 9, I conducted a small orchestra of my classmates playing some of the music from the play for a school project.

15. The first concert I ever remember going to was New Kids on the Block at Lansdowne Park in like 1989. (Shut up.) It rained really hard and we were completely soaked by the end, but it was awesome. (Shut up!) My favourite New Kid was Jordan and you know, I still think he’s pretty hot. (Seriously, shut up.)

16. I had several pets growing up. My parents had a cat named Marilla (see #2) before I was born and she lived until I was maybe 10 or so. After she died we got a new cat named Tibby. My sister and I had a series of hamsters, my favourite of which was named Fudge. We had a Japanese fighting fish named Sir Percy Blakeney, and later I got goldfish who were called Simon and Hecubus. When I was in high school, we got a dog: Daphne, a schnoodle. She was a wonderful dog and I was very attached to her. She died pretty suddenly when she was nine years old and I was absolutely devastated.

17. Like many people (I think), I wanted to be a marine biologist for a while. I loved killer whales and dolphins. My family went to Marineland in Niagara Falls on vacation once, and though I have absolutely no artistic talent whatsoever, killer whales are the one thing I’ve ever been able to draw well.

18. I’m not sure if this is connected to my desire to be a marine biologist, but the only time I’d visited Vancouver before moving there was when I was little, and the only thing I really remember is going to the aquarium in Stanley Park. I have a vivid memory of seeing an octopus in a tank and being completely grossed out by its tentacles.

19. Twice during my childhood I managed to knock out a loose baby tooth and swallow it. Twice.

20. I was the section head for the Arts and Entertainment section of the school newspaper when I was in high school. I then went to Journalism school when I started university, but dropped out after a year.

21. I had never seen the Star Wars trilogy until I was a teenager. People used to give me the weirdest looks when I’d tell them I hadn’t seen it. I had one friend in elementary school who was so shocked by my failure to see the movies that he made me a VHS copy of all three. I’ve now seen all six movies several times, and I still have that copy along with my DVDs.

22. My grandparents used to live in Almonte, near the Mississippi River. A few times, my grandfather took me canoeing out there, and my cousins and my sister and I would wade in the water and climb the rocks by the small waterfall near their building. It was really nice. I also learned to drive on the quiet highway between Almonte and Pakenham. (These are small towns outside Ottawa.)

23. I was not at all athletic when I was a kid or teenager. I was usually picked last or maybe second to last in gym class. Last year, I started playing hockey, and guess what? I’m still not athletic. However, it’s a lot of fun.

24. The first time I ever went to a hockey game, I was in high school (I developed my interest in the game kind of late, I’m afraid). My dad took me to a 67’s game. Before I left I told my mom I would catch a puck and bring it back to her. She said “Yeah, right.” During the warmup, a Belleville Bulls player shot a puck that hit the top of the glass, bounced up high, hit the railing in front of our seats, then deflected off my dad’s wrist and bounced off my head. We looked for the puck but couldn’t find it until I realized it was in my hood. My mom was amazed. My dog tried to eat the puck.

25. When I first discovered hockey, I was all about the 67’s. My feelings about the Sens were mostly resentment that they got so much attention and the 67’s got so little. I knew a lot about the CHL, not much about the NHL. It was really only after Wade Redden was traded to Ottawa that I started paying close attention to the Sens. I do remember the whole Dave Allison saga though. I also remember the Patrick Roy trade very well, because I became *dramatic music* a Montreal fan for a while afterwards, and the first jersey I ever bought was a Jocelyn Thibault Habs jersey. I am deeply shamed.

26. My first favourite Sens player was Radek Bonk. I loved him! For my 18th birthday, I received an autographed Bonk jersey. My dad once took me to a Sens game, possibly sometime near my 18th birthday but I’m not sure, against the Bruins. It happened to be Bonk’s first game back from an injury. We sat in the 100 level and I remember Bonk scored a goal right in front of me. It was great!

27. The first Sens game I ever went to, also with my dad, was an exhibition game against Montreal. I was one of those obnoxious people cheering for the Habs at a Sens homegame because of my Thibault love. Sorry. During the game, Darcy Tucker made a questionable hit on Bonk and I think gave him a bloody nose or at least took him out of the game somehow. I have hated Darcy Tucker ever since that day. I know everyone hates Darcy Tucker, but that is my specific reason. No one can say I don’t hold a grudge. Chris Pronger and Steve Downie, take note: I will likely violently hate both of you forever, too.

28. I actually met Radek Bonk once when I went to the Sens’ Charity Carnival one year. I got my picture taken with him! I’ve also got a great picture of me and my friend with Janne Laukkanen, and I met Alexei Yashin too. I didn’t think he was very nice (surprise, surprise). At the same event, they had Wade Redden in a dunk tank, dressed in a wetsuit. Nice. I met Wade three times during his career in Ottawa. The first time was at the Ex: he was there signing autographs just before he started his first season with the Sens. Now that he’s gone, there’s no one I’ve met on the team except Nick Foligno.

29. I took Latin in high school and one of our assignments was to write our own will in Latin and make three bequests. In my will, I appointed my gladiator, Radecus Boncus, to be my executor, and willed my 67’s season ticket (section 25, row A, seat 4) to one of my friends.

30. Brian Campbell was my favourite 67’s player. I still think he’s one of the most exciting players I’ve ever seen. I once ran into him in the hallway at the Civic Centre and I told him “I love watching you play!” He said, “Thank you.”

(100 Things About Me - Episode II: Things I Love (Besides Hockey) coming soon to this space!)