smokerblog

Every NHL Fan's Dream Job

I was outside tonight scraping snow off my driveway, carving graceful oval-shaped paths with my shovel, when suddenly I realized one of the tragedies of the all-but-irrecoverable 2004-2005 NHL season.

When kids go to watch an NHL team, what is the one lasting image that they take back home with them? I mean, aside from the flattened face of the left-winger pressed up against the boards whose smeary visage will haunt their dreams for the next week-and-a-half.

It's the Zamboni driver.

C'mon, tell me that you don't secretly want that job. As soon as the players shuffle their way into the locker room, out comes the Zamboni driver precariously perched atop the glorious machine. For that brief space of time between periods, that guy is the coolest cat in the world. You can just tell that if it weren't against regulations, the guy would be swigging a beer and maybe even have a cigarette dangling from his lip.

And that clear, shimmering sheet of ice he leaves behind. Tell me that you don't feel a pang of dismay when the players come back out on the ice at the beginning of the next period, their skates gouging at the glasslike surface.

So raise a glass and toast the Zamboni driver. The real victim of the NHL lockout.