Hey! You hoser ...

I admit it ... growing up, hockey wasn't my first love. Nope. When sports first piqued my interest -- and I couldn't have been more than 6 or 7 at the time -- I fell for baseball. In a big way. I couldn't get enough of the game, playing every chance I got. And when it rained, or it was late at night, or there weren't any other kids around (a rarity in my northern New Jersey town), I would bury myself in books about the game. Which led my mom to bark one of her most memorable lines (for me, anyway), when I was struggling with math in grade school: "I don't understand how you can remember Carl Yastremski's batting average for the past 10 years, but you can't figure out a simple math problem."

It helped that my Grandpere -- my maternal grandfather, and a native of Quebec -- was a big baseball fan too. He was the primary reason that my brothers and I, growing up in Yankees country, became diehard Red Sox fans. For that alone, I'm forever grateful.

But Grandpere was no mere spectator. He loved playing, and some of my fondest memories of my childhood are going out back, when my grandparents were visiting from New Hampshire, and playing catch with Granpere until I felt like my arm would fall off. And he was no young man at that time. Today, in my 50s, I have a much greater appreciation for how tough some of those patch and catch sessions must have been on him (especially when he played catcher, as I was perfecting my Juan Marichal high leg kick delivery).

A little bit later, maybe 4th grade or so, Grandpere introduced my siblings and I to another grand sport: hockey. About the same time, we started playing soccer too, spurred on by Grandpere's oldest son, my Uncle Art (who was quite a baseball player in his day). Slowly, baseball's special place in my heart got crowded out, as I became enamored with these new sports.

Still, I've always maintained a fondness for the Grand Old Game. Not necessarily the professional version (I was one of the fans who never forgave baseball for the 1994 players' strike that resulted in the World Series being cancelled. I always thought the game was greater than petty squabbling, even if those squabbles involved millions of dollars). Today's Major League game -- even my beloved Sox -- holds little  for me, with overpaid players bouncing from one team to the next, often mailing it in after hitting their big pay day (Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia being one of the shining exceptions). Even the regular-season games last forever, and the World Series games start so late, I'm typically sound asleep by the fourth inning.

But I still love the sport. And that's one of the reasons this hilarious video -- "Clark the Canadian Goalie" -- never gets old for me. In one short, sweet video clip, it captures so much about what I still love, about both sports. "Bo, Dieon, Clark ... He really could be one of the great two-way players!" Too funny ... Check it out.

FINIS