A Sight for Sore Eyes

Yes, good patrons of the Lounge, I am here today, a survivor of 10 National Hockey League games at once, 11 in one night. I am a believer. I may not see as clearly as the night before, but what I have seen, I know, is only the beginning.

The experiment, with a few tweaks, worked. Four games on a iBook. Four games on an iMac G5. One game on an HD monitor. One game on a regular screen. A late game on an HD monitor.

It was so beautiful, it reminded me of a night, as a wee lad, growing up in Big Smell Country. Northern Colorado. Sugar beets stacked up like the Great Pyramids. Cattle feed lots as big as a city. Giant slaughterhouse and rendering plant.

Seen or read "Fast Food Nation"? That feed lot? That slaughterhouse? That's what was in the air in my town. Big Time Stank. Stink doesn't quite grab your nose and pull it like a schoolyard bully would. Stank does. Stank so thick you could find your way home with your eyes closed. Don't believe me? Here's Page 149. I lived it. I don't need to read it.

I knew of no way to get out of there. Couldn't drive my way out. Couldn't drink my way out. Too young. Couldn't even ride my bike out of town. Too far to get anywhere good. Radio, that's the answer. Spin the dial. Find the world.

KSTP-AM in St. Paul. KOMA-AM in Oklahoma City (Winnin's as eayy-sayy as KAYY-OH-UMM-AYY!). The Denver FM stations were good, but the ads reminded you they were as close as the scent of manure and rendering being cooked up five miles away. Fifty, five, what was the difference. I needed an escape. Help from the heavens above.

The far-out-of-town rock'n'roll stations took me away. And then I found XEROK-AM. The X. Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico.

Clear signal. Loud. Tunes so hot the stereo and headphones might burn up. Sitting in the blue glow of a SONY tuner, I worked that baby for music and sports. Games from Kansas City, St. Louis, the Twin Cities, Phoenix, the Bay Area and, on a good night, Southern California and Canada.

It's a good night now. I'm in New York, and I bring that youthful spirit to the Lounge now, trying to build a better way to watch hockey. I want it all. I want it now. I cannot travel there, but I need to be there. Now.

I could sign on twice to Game Center Live to watch live action, but once I put a fifth game into play, my screens timed out. Locked up. No games. Cannot live with that. I got my laptop going again with four games. But what about the rest?

Trying to stay calm and not smash a screen, I called a friend to see if he was going to use his subscription. No? Bingo! Four more games in play on the big iMac, added to the two on TV screens (Versus HD and Center Ice) and the four on my laptop. I was young again. I was in Atlanta to watch Buffalo's Ryan Miller get hung out to dry. Did you know that Colorado and St. Louis have some unfinished issues to settle?

The Flyers have a goaltending problem. The Sharks think they are good, but Evgeny Nabokov can be beaten high to the glove side. Dallas does Nabby. Again. Again. Again. Good night, sweet prince.

Rangers look frustrated. I feel that frustration. Washington is pounding Florida. I'm pounding seltzer. Pablo the Hockey Pug wants popcorn. I drop some on the floor. I watch the old man (the pug is 16, can you believe it?) charge into the corner like Stan Jonathan in the old Boston Garden, trying to find what he cannot see. I see a lot of me in him, or is it the other way around?

He comes out of the darkness with the popcorn. I turn darkness into light. Four screens. Eleven games. No waiting. All hockey. I wanted it. I went out and got it. You can too.

The Lounge thanks you for your patronage. Enjoy.