You figure the arc of

May 09, 2003

You figure the arc of your team’s success and failure might mirror your own life. Since my head and heart are so securely attached to the Canuck wagon it stands to reason that my life might follow the same rhythm as the team. I don’t want to extend the metaphor too far but the stenciled letters , “so close you can taste it but...maybe next year” really can be laid over my year and have all the letters fit quite nicely. I don’t say this in a “woe is me” me way at all. There are a lot of people who never feel they even get to play in the big games. On the contrary I think I’m lucky to keep getting the chance to diddle around with the puck. Its hilarious if you look at the team’s record as a graph on a X,Y axis and lay the same graph of my musical life over top. Creepy. This is where my bad Russell Crowe acting should kick in and I whirl into a surreal “Beautiful Mind” schizophrenic double reality situation.
The coach Marc Crawford will come to my door in ten minutes and tell me they (the Canuck coaching staff) need me to practice scales more often and analyze the out takes from my old Odds video footage for the next two weeks. He will advise me to tell no one that the connection has been made and I am to put my demos and notes in a “drop box” out behind the old Coliseum. It will be marked “P.N.E.. sanitation, do not remove”. I am to find a way to never miss Monday night M.H.L.. hockey scrimmages and work on my backwards mobility -- If I ever need to play bass in the future this defensive work will come in handy. I am to scout other musicians who play hockey poorly and provide lists of what gear they bring to a surprise studio call. This will gauge their commitment and ability to perform in a playoff situation or gig where an A&R man is present. Marc Crawford will show up the next day and take me to the third dressing room of the Karen Magnussen arena (during school hours) in North Vancouver to have a radioactive chip put in my favourite guitar for tracking and security purposes. I will be given no number and no official jersey and I will complain a lot about this. Instead he will hand me a single unmarked puck and tell me it was the one that scored one of Greg Adam’s overtime winners in one of the games of the ‘94 Rangers final but he can’t be sure which game. I will believe him and carry it in the crotch of my pants for the next two months. My mate will discover the puck in our bed and I will wake up in a white room with very soft walls wearing very restrictive clothing. Eventually I will learn how to deal with my affliction but Stan Smyl and Orland Kurtenbach will always be at my gigs, winking at me from side stage. They will follow me to the dressing room saying, “this isn’t working Northey. You can’t just ignore us like this”.