PowerPlay Magazine

There are times in one's life when it probably has to be asked if one is perhaps taking an investment in a pastime a little too seriously. Take hockey for me. I live in Lao PDR. Don't feel bad if you don't know where that is, you're far from alone. Go ahead and Google it if you must. Now it probably won't surprise many that Laos is not exactly a hotbed of this greatest of games. Yes, it was once a close ally of the Soviet Union, and yes there are some areas high up in the hills that in the depths of January almost but not quite reach 0 degrees centigrade, but to my disappointment that hasn't been near enough to develop a native supply of dekes, dangles, and dropped gloves.

As far as Western sports go around here it's soccer country (or football, if you're one those types). Unlike many other developing countries there is a surprisingly large number of television channels to entertain oneself with, including several channels devoted to sports. Unfortunately at any given time half or more are broadcasting soccer. If you like basketball or American football or baseball you're basically covered by the local/Thai ESPN affiliate. But hockey? No. So what does a junkie such as myself do? He torrents. A lot.

I'd invite you to do the math (eh, Scott?), but a rough picture will probably suffice: Over the last 2.5 NHL seasons I've torrented about a game or so a week, or about 40 games a season. As previously mentioned I'm a Leafs fan so during the playoffs I will watch most of one playoff series with whatever other team I'm pulling for, and switch to my #2 if need be, then #3 and so on. I'll watch about 20 playoff games a year. So 60 games a season, 150 games the last 2.5 seasons, at an average of 2.5 gigabytes a file is roughly 375 gig of hockey downloaded while in Laos. My developing world internet speed for most of that time? If I'm lucky about 150kb/s. I don't think I have to break that down any further to spell out just how much time I've spent waiting around for uploads, and how much time I've left my computer on all day and night to get my fix.

And that's just watching hockey down here. As this classic video oh-so-subtly conveys of my particular affliction, I want to play hockey as well. I even brought with me a couple of sticks and with some forethought a couple orange plastic hockey balls from Canadian Tire (for you Europeans, I invite you to Google again). But to my ever-expanding appreciation of all things Scandinavian – from Ikea and Nokia to Lidstrom and Kurri - the Swedes and Finns were already on it here in Vientiane by organizing weekly floorball. Bless their herring-clogged hearts. As I age I have to admit I prefer this slightly more gentle but nevertheless entirely authentic version of hockey.

Now why do I bring this all to your attention? Because as some of you probably know with the NHL starting soon it's fantasy hockey season. As I registered my multiple teams I reflected on how I've been doing fantasy hockey for almost 20 years now, starting back in the days of paper and spreadsheets. I reflected on how I might be organizing one of the first, if not the first, Lao PDR fantasy hockey league in the history of this country. I reflected on how I've been in a keeper fantasy league with friends back home complete with a rookie entry draft, offline salary cap management and even an auction for free agents for 13 years.  And I reflected on how, even after all that, it had still become not enough for me as I approach my first year anniversary of participation in year-round PPM.

You know what the kicker is?

I can't even skate.