Glenn Kubish

From the vortex, here’s a weekly collection of three things that left behind marks of happiness and gratitude.  Three Things, episode 146:                               1. Open house   The Grim Reaper has been to our door. It was not unexpected. It was that time. It was Halloween. Halloween is still a thing for me. I haven’t dressed up since going as Elliot, the kid in ET, eight years ago now. I wore a red hoodie. My friend Aminah gifted me an ET doll that I rigged up at the front of my bike for the ride into work. It was fun.  Shelagh always has the better costume ideas, though. This year she went as U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Shelagh considers these things, and makes rulings. Unable to sleep one night before Halloween, she started making lists in the middle of the night. In addition to Notorious RBG, she considered going as: candy corn, Maria from Sound of Music, the guy who ...

It’s the end of week as we knew it, amicis.    Here are three things that left behind tracks of happiness and gratitude.   Listen to the Three Things podcast, episode 119:                                1. The Stoics   “But, you ask, if a wise man receives a blow, what shall he do?” the Stoic philosopher Seneca asked in an essay written almost 2,000 years ago. He answered himself: “What Cato did when he was struck in the face. He did not flare up, he did not avenge the wrong, he did not even forgive it, but he said that no wrong had been done.”* The “struck in the face” part feels very 2023. It’s a big part of the first round of the NHL playoffs, striking in the face is. I’m picturing the padded punches to the kisser in scrums after the whistle that the cameras love, the face washes as they are euphemistically called. This is where Stoicism has something to teach the players—and to teach ...

Russia has tugged at me for a long time. As a boy in a house with a Bible and an Edmonton Journal subscription, I followed the acts of a small number of characters in the bigger world: the Apostles, the NHL stars, and Russian and American politicians. My young imagination was peopled by, basically, St. Paul, Phil Esposito, Bobby Orr and Ken Dryden, with room for Nixon, Ford, Brehznev, Gromyko, Chernenko, and, later, Reagan, Andropov, and Gorby. Kharlamov The Canada-Russia hockey series in 1972 captivated us. We watched games in assembly in the school gym on giant TVs that sat on wheeled legs. After school, when a friend in net made a great save during a road hockey game on 67 St, someone would invariably yell "Tretiak!" It was the highest compliment. Indoors, we spent hours and hours playing Coleco table hockey. My friend across the lane, Brucey Straka, spray-painted red a squad of plastic players. We replayed the 1972 series until some time in late 1979. Valer...

Here's an email I got this evening from my mother. I am not making this up. Hi, Glenn. How did the media hockey tournament in Calgary go? Bad luck for David Mitchell. Is he out of hospital? Love, Mom Mitch lays it out The body of David Mitchell, better known as Mitchy, the former sports director and now videographer at CTV Edmonton, lasted approximately 60 seconds into the first game of the tournament. And that's rounding up generously to the nearest minute mark. Mitchy's spirit was ready to play, his legs were ready to skate, his heart and lungs were willing to supply the oxygenated blood necessary to fuel the effort. But a disc in his back waved the away-white flag. It seems Mitchy's 45-year-old spine is the Maginot Line of his hockey-playing body. "I'm out," he said to us on the bench. His eyes were question marks. "Like out out?" "I'm out." Periods. And with that verdict, punctuated as the play crashed on...

In the parlance of big-time hockey, "getting the call" is a rich term. A player gets the call up to the big team. It is the public reward for years of hard, quiet work. It's the call up to the big league, the big time. A player can "get the call" to represent his or her country in international play. Or a player "gets the call" to the hall of fame. Invariably, a young player or a rehabilitated player or an unorthodox talent is pictured "still waiting for the call." Getting the call means a player goes from the many on the outside to the few on the inside.  Mitch and James rinkside today But getting the call can happen for the rest of us hockey players, too. "Guys, thanks for thinking of me and giving me a call," said Rick, as we sat over lunch today at Campus Earl's, the Oilers-Wings game on the monitors above us, Saturday's first of three games in the University of Alberta's pond hockey tournament b...

An oldtimers hockey dressing room is a smell, a nostalgia, a nickname, a tavern, a crypt, a secret, a reminder, a forgotten place, a glory, a bright light, a longing. Northern arena light  Oldtimers dressing room I laced them up Thursday night in Legal with some friends from the old days. Kobes, JM, Klipper, Hogey, 630 Chad, Briganti-Nugent-Hopkins, Joshy, Hoop, Mitchy, Brian The Switcher. Hogey's buddy "Blame It On" Theo joined us, and so did Mikey, who, at 18, was the youngest oldtimer, and is too young to remember Blame It On Rio. Like any oldtimer dressing room, and adjusted for local customs, it was a bunch of guys at different income levels, with different tolerance for rye and lime Pepsi, at different stages of moral and bodily decay. And it's a pharmacy, too. Mikey was struck by the time taken before puck drop not just in tying skates, coaxing equipment on and taping sticks, but in applying Voltaren, wrapping ankles and popping ibuprofen. Entire e...