I remem­ber, when I first came to Canada, still inno­cent… I then didn’t know that :

1) Hockey play­ers had weird names:
- “Brindamour” (which trans­lates as “a piece of love”…)
- “Laten­dresse” (“ten­der­ness”… how ironic for a hockey player !)
- “Le Cav­a­lier” (“horserider”… ditto)

2) Fight­ing is expected, blood cheered and miss­ing teeth manda­tory (teeth­less smile after a game a bonus) :

3) Canada stops breath­ing for the play­offs. If you’re not a big hockey fan, just keep quiet and don’t cheer or express any sym­pa­thetic feel­ing for Toronto :

Four hockey fans were climb­ing a moun­tain one day. Each was a fan of a dif­fer­ent team, and each pro­claimed to be the most loyal of all fans of their hockey team. As they climbed higher, they argued as to which one of them was the most loyal of all. They con­tin­ued to argue all the way up the moun­tain, and finally as they reached the top, the Cana­di­ens fan hurled him­self off the moun­tain, shout­ing, “This is for the Great Mon­treal Cana­di­ens!” as he fell to his doom. Not want­ing to be out done, the Edmon­ton Oil­ers fan threw him­self off the moun­tain shout­ing “This is for the Oil­ers!“
See­ing this, the Ottawa Sen­a­tors fan walked over and shouted, “This is for every­one!” and pushed the Toronto Maple Leafs fan off the side of the moun­tain.

Go Sens Go !!!

Related arti­cles:

1. Hockey Night
2. Pic­ture of the Week: On The Rink
3. Hockey Day In Canada
4. Des deux côtés de l’Atlantique
5. How To Under­stand Cana­dian Jokes (9÷10)