LOSS

 I'm processing a loss today, actually. 

Not a death, a loss. Specifically the Canadian women's hockey team lost the gold medal game 2-1 to the U.S. in overtime.

You laugh. A hockey game? That you didn't even play?

Well, yes, actually. 

Women's hockey has come a long, long way in the last twenty years. A certain breed of male hockey fan will never accept this, but in some ways the women's game is an improvement. Men's hockey emphasizes a heavy forecheck and board battles; women, with full contact banned, rely on lateral motion with a lot more open ice. The skill is easier to see. So is the puck, for beginning hockey fans. The women don't shoot or pass as hard, so it's easier to find your bearings on the ice.

And the women's game is a throwback to the Original Six (team) era of the NHL.

Nowadays, with some very vivid exceptions, there isn't much hate in the NHL. Fights are dramatically down. Players are often best of friends off the ice, even when they play for opposing teams. This is partly because trades are common: the asshole you can't stand today might be your valued teammate tomorrow. 

This wasn't always the case in the NHL and it isn't the case in the women's game today. 

Back in days of yore,  trades were rare, you often stayed with one team for all or most of your career, and opposing NHL players avoided each other if at all possible. And if not possible, words, or more than words, might have been exchanged.

The U.S. and Canadian women do not like each other one bit. They are the two dominant teams in the sport, so the gold always comes down to U.S.-Canada, and everyone knows it. There have been line brawls. There have been fights in exhibition games. 

That American team was a wagon this year. They gave up two goals all tournament. Their penalty kill was perfect. They creamed us 5-0 in the prelims. Our women did well to push that game to overtime before Megan Kellor delivered a filthy dangling dagger.

Sigh.

So long as the men win gold. There's always been a 'heated rivalry' between the U.S. and Canada but now that the U.S. government's stated goal is the elimination of Canada as a nation, there's a little extra zing in the games. It's not as if losing the men's gold medal hockey game presages the breakup of the country. But if they win, it'll feel a bit like that, and I don't want to lose my country.

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I used to be the sorest of losers. (Not a very gracious winner, either). Sore losers who are really good at losing don't tend to stay sore losers very long: the behaviour is self-correcting, usually by means of somebody punching your face. Plus the more you lose, the more you're a LOSER, the harder it is to feel anything at all about losing. Ho hum, lost again, just call me Beck...

I outgrew that crap (mostly) by high school and I have a much more mature view of life now. You win some, you lose some. Sometimes a loss is really a win. Sometimes you just pretend it is, as in losing your virginity. That's built up to be this huge milestone in a young man's life, you're supposed to STRUT, and taking stock after I'd painted the condom....I didn't feel like strutting. I mean, it was nice and all, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out why men, in particular, treat sex like a Holy (g)Rail. 

I've used my lance a lot since, and had my sword turned to stone. Sex with the right partner is worlds better. 

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Losing stuff. It happens to me daily, almost hourly. It usually doesn't stay lost. It's always in the last place I look for it, because I stop looking once I find it. I haven't lost anything terribly monetarily valuable, but for whatever reason, if something has sentimental value, it's sure to go missing at some point. 

Being lost: hasn't happened recently. Which is a shame. You never know what you'll find 'till you're lost.

Hopefully soon I'll  have a better idea how to end these things. I used to have an ending picked out before I even started, often, but for the past year or so the mental fields have been barren, scorched and salted. Every sentence is like pulling teeth and structure is beyond me. But that's why I'm doing this. Talk about loss: the world has lost its innocence. You say the world was never innocent, and of course you're right, but did you really think there was a cabal of billionaires raping, murdering and eating children? And at least at the epicentre, all semblance of a moral compass has been lost.

This stuff is so enraging it numbs me, paralyzes me, if I let it. And it's so easy to let it. I have to write my way out again, because otherwise I'll be lost myself.