Like good Canadians do

As good Canadians do, the Duke and I decided to show our wholehearted dedication to all things hockey by hosting a Hockey Day in Canada party.

For those of you not familiar with said tradition, one Saturday a year, all six Canadian teams play each other at times staggered throughout the day. It is an epic opportunity to revive old rivalries, drink before 5pm and engage in some serious trash talk.

A few things observed on this occasion:

Even when you give people a six hour window to show up, and trying for an open house format, the hosts will be sitting around for the first three hours surrounded by untouched serving plates full of appetizers. Then, as if by magic, your apartment buzzer will nearly short circuit itself by everyone showing up at the exact same time (1st intermission of the second game).

Everyone will bring chips to such a party. Everyone. 

Now my fridge has been emptied of veggies, dip, pitas, and other such foods, but my cupboard is full of twist-tied bags of chips.

A lot of people do not come to a hockey party to watch hockey. It is a dangerous thing when the hockey and anti-hockey people collide during overtime.

Flavoured vodka makes me happy.

I look cute in my hockey jersey.

It is awesome when your team wins. It is more awesome when there are opposing team fans trash talking you when their team was winning. It is infinitely more awesome when, due to his team's defeat, your six foot tall guy friend squeezes into your 5 foot 3 self's hockey jersey for punishment and ridicule.

It is awkward when one of your good friend's and her boyfriend finally have that knock-down argument about his lack of a Valentine's Day gift for her two years in a row in your entrance. It is more awkward when it moves to the only apartment bathroom for 45 minutes. It is infinitely more awkward when, after he leaves the bathroom, you try to go comfort your friend who is still in there, and a guy yells across the entire party "Princess, why are you harassing the poor person trying to pee?"

It is also awkward when a drunk lesbian tells my boyfriend she is going to go kiss me, and then just ends up getting a mouthful of my hair as I unknowingly am chatting away with someone else. (I didn't have any idea what her intentions were until later... I was just like "Uh, why did you just bite my hair?") It wasn't exactly the girl-on-girl scene anyone was looking for.

Cleaning up after "adult" parties is infinitely better than cleaning up after teenage and college parties. You just collect the bottles, which most people have kindly gathered in one or two locations, rinse of the plates, put the leftovers away, and you are off to bed. The messiest thing was a pile of damp cloths from when people cleaned up their spill themselves. It is a far cry from the cleaning up of mysteriously sticky liquids and garbage of the parties of my youth.