Maple Leaf Outsider

How are you?

Excellent!

A little bit about me?

Sure, I'll share.

My name is Chris Hunt, and I've heard just about every single joke one could make with my name, so I wouldn't bother trying to be creative or funny about it were I you.



I'm a 29 year-old Caucasian male. I've lived in Ontario and Alberta. I've spent the majority of my life living in Whitby and Oshawa. I went to high school at Anderson Collegiate in Whitby. In 2003 I graduated from Centennial College with a diploma in Radio, Television and Film Production. I've worked for both Canwest and CTV. Earlier this year I was let go from my position at CTV while my department was restructured, and that's the most I'm ever going to talk about it.

I've lived in Oshawa for the past four or five years, and in this past November I married the girl I've been in love with since high school. She and I live in a post-WW2 bungalow that we bought a little over two years ago. My computer is on the main floor in a room that also houses a couch and a treadmill.

It's a small house.

We own a cat named Ninja, who I could talk about for hours – but I won't. I have a younger brother and sister, my parents are still married and I'm still not quite past the point in my life where I'm mad at the world for not being the way I think it should be.

I have been known to comment on a few Leafs blogs (mostly Pension Plan Puppets) under the alias "Pamplemousse". I'm probably not particularly well known, if I'm known at all, but I figure full disclose is necessary in order to be taken seriously. I learned that from my wife, who is an award-winning journalist.

I've never played competitive hockey at any level, and I don't think I've been on skates since I was about 13 or so. My first real memories of hockey lie somewhere in the mid-eighties, when my family lived in Calgary. I'm not ashamed to admit that my first ever hockey allegiance was to the Flames, and frankly, for a young boy in mid-eighties Calgary there wasn't much to not like about the Flames.

I don't have many specific memories of those very early years, but here are some of the ones I still retain. I remember watching Joe Nieuwendyk cartwheeling over a a hip-check delivered at somewhere in centre ice and landing on his head at a really awkward angle. I remember being as upset as a six year old can be when the Flames lost to the Montreal Canadiens in the '85-86 finals. I remember only owning an Oilers sweater when I was young and wearing it to a Flames game (I got away with it because I was a pretty cute kid). I remember thinking it was the coolest thing in the world that my dad got to golf with Mike Vernon at a charity event. I remember being bitterly disappointed when my dad carried me out of a Oilers-Flames game that ended in a bench-clearing brawl, but to be fair to my dad the game was a blow-out with about five minutes left (I think).

I remember thinking Haken Loob was one of the best names I've ever heard.

But most of all, I remember moving to Ontario in the fall of 1988 and missing most of the Flames season, but being ecstatic when they made it back to the finals.  To be honest, I don't remember much of the series, but I'll remember the end of it for the rest of my life.

On the evening of Game Six I was attending a karate lesson, and fully aware that I'd be missing Game Six. Try as I might I couldn't get convince my dad to get out of the lesson so I could watch the game.  After the lesson and on the way home my dad put the game on the radio. I hoped and prayed we'd get home it time for me to at least see them win, but it wasn't meant to be. As my dad pulled the car onto our street the announcer on the radio proclaimed the Calgary Flames to be the Stanley Cup Champions. Ten seconds later we were in the driveway, and ten seconds after that I was watching as the camera cut to the some of the Montreal players leaning on their sticks, hands folded across the butt-ends and chins resting on hands, as the Flames celebrated down the other end of the rink. I can still hear my Mom, born in Quebec, saying she felt sorry for them.

And you know what's nice? I went to see if YouTube had any of that last memory, and when I saw they did I was really happy to see it was just like I remembered it.

Anyhow, after that my Flames fandom kind of melted away, and I left hockey for a few years to try on other interests.

As for my very first Leafs memory, you'd think it would have something to do with a Leafs-Flames game or some such. But it wasn't. Instead, when I was ten, Harold Ballard died, and that's when the Leafs first hit my radar – of course, they weren't very good, and I didn't start watching, but it did give my dad a reason to talk about the Leafs, as he lived and grew up in Toronto during the 50's and 60's. I learned about 1967, Frank Mahovlich (his all-time favourite), Davey Keon, Tim Horton, Darryl Sittler and Lanny McDonald (Lanny'd been a Leaf?!), the Hotstove and Harold Ballard.

From there it was just three short years until we were into the glories of the early and late nineties (not so much the mid-nineties though), where my love for the team, and hockey, really took root.

So, that's all you need to know about me for now. With that out of the way we'll be able to talk about the Leafs next time.

Speaking of next time, I'm going to go with a once a week schedule for now - so please come back next (and every) Wednesday for something new.

Later Skaters,
Pamplemousse