You know how people always reckon that they are just one good idea away from life on Easy Street? Well, myself and my friend have just put down deposits and are wondering about planning permission for the extensions we are going to build for our houses on Easy Street. That's right. I'm worrying whether my extension will take away Bill Gates' natural light. Oooh yes. No more sweating over a hot keyboard. No more sweating even. No more winter league games where you put more effort into your first par than the two teams put into an hour's football. No more letters which finish with the words May You Rot in Hell (and those are just the ones from Human Resources). Yes, it's goodbye to all that and hello to the world of international ice hockey.
Here's the deal: an Irish Olympic ice hockey team. Future biographers will note that my friend and I had the idea while watching the Chicago Blackhawks lose to the Detroit Red Wings. We had purchased tickets off a scalper for below face value (capitalism ain't so bad once you try it) and found ourselves sitting amidst a thicket of Detroit fans. Detroit people are still bitter that recession shut Detroit down but permitted Chicago to keep trading, so we sat and rooted for Detroit.
Anyway, I was leading the section with chants of "Chicago Sucks, Chicago Sucks" when my mate leapt in the air, high fived my nose, did the mambo and then mooned the entire arena. Irish Olympic ice hockey had been born I'd told him about a Sports Illustrated article where Brendan Shanahan of the Detroit Red Wings had spoken about successfully spoofing reporters that he had been the reserve goalie for the Irish soccer team in the 1994 World Cup. The seed of my anecdote fertilised the egg of his idea and hey presto!
Think about it. The NHL teems with players with Irish names. Even applying the grandparent rule at it's strictest you've got to be looking at a good squad. Last eight in the Olympics standard.
Some people ask why. We ask why not (and just 25 per cent each off the gross)?
It must be done. Grants must be given to us, pronto. What myself and my friend are offering here is a unique chance for the best hockey players with Irish sounding names to be part of the Olympic Dream Team, or Foireann Haca Oighear na hEireann. It started with Brendan Shanahan and therefore it seems only right that he should be captain. Shanahan is a legend. Soon he shall be our legend. He is probably the only ice hockey player who can recite a decent poem (Yeats' When You Are Old is his favourite).
There is a snag in that he played for Team Canada in the Nagano Olympics and seemed to like it, but we think he'll go for it. His late father was Donal Shanahan from Bantry Bay, while his mother was Rosaleen and hailed from Belfast. He has spoken movingly of summers in Ireland and growing up in the shadow of his father, who would watch him skate on frozen ponds and wave him on excitedly with a rolled up copy of the Toronto Star in his fist. If times had been different there is little doubt Brendan Shanahan would be hurling for Cork now. Instead, myself and my mate are offering him this opportunity to be the credible face fronting our get rich quick scheme.
It's not as if we don't deserve the money. Besides the overdrafts, and the dazzling lightbulb of a brilliant idea over our heads, we have given the matter considerable thought.
Goalkeeping - or goaltending, as we now call it - will be a key. We know from watching the Irish soccer team that no matter how clever you are silly goals will be costly. Davy Fitzgerald of Clare is the obvious choice here for the tending and the fighting, but Sean Burke of Phoenix will deputise during Davy's stints in the sin bin (or penalty box, as purists would have it).
We have even come up with a preliminary roster. Kevin Dineen of the Ottawa Senators, you know this is what your heritage has led you to. Owen Nolan (San Jose), born in Belfast raised in Canada, come on down. Ditto to Larry Murphy (Detroit), Sean Brown, Jim Dowd (Edmonton), Marty McSorley, Don Sweeney, Joe Murphy (Boston), Sean Burke, Kevin Carney, Mike Sullivan (Phoenix), Sean O'Donnell, Steve McKenna (LA Kings), Tom Fitzgerald (Nashville), Bryan McCabe, Steve Sullivan (Chicago), Chris O'Sullivan (Vancouver), Paul Coffey (Calgary), Brendan Morrisson, John Madden (New Jersey), Matt Cullen (Anaheim), Mike Keane, Brendan Morrow (Dallas). Trials take place next Saturday at Dolphin's Barn, 11.0 a.m. Bring your own gear.
As for movie rights and other considerations. We all know that this will make Cool Runnings look like a lazy exercise in stereotyping and lame comedy. These Irish will do some real fighting. This will be the Saving Private Ryan of sports movies.
Take any violent video you want, even a Tyrone county final, and we'll guarantee more hits per frame. There will be action dolls, there will be Disney tie-ins. Irish ice hockey will be a lifestyle choice. My friend asks only that Tom Hanks play him and that he gets his 25 per cent of everything. I ask only 25 per cent.
Ah. Forty million Irish Americans buying those big green ice hockey jerseys. That's what we'll nickname the boys, by the way, Big Green. If they are losing they will be encouraged to fight. Go Mean, Big Green! There's the TV rights. The world tour. The hockey World Cup, the soap on a rope, the SuperMacs deal (puckburgers???), the Big Green video games. C'mon folks, we almost codded the world that we had a decent swimmer when we have no pools. No reason that they shouldn't buy into an Irish ice hockey team when we show them Dolphin's Barn and Crumlin.
The exhibitions when we lay down a dinky little rink in Croker. Now that the GAA is moving to the summer I think Croker can be Aras Oighear for the cold months. Yes, we are prepared to give the national games a slice of the action. Of course, Pat Hickey takes 20 per cent because he has the contacts with the Olympics mob and times are hard now that IOC members don't get pressies or air miles.
All we ask is our 50 per cent of the merchandising and 50 per cent of the tour take, the Tom Hanks thing, plus the chance to give team talks.
"It's slippery out there tonight boys. Don't fall over."
