Duncan, B.C.–There probably aren’t many places in Canada where one can include both a hockey game and a round of golf in a single winter holiday. Fortunately, my forefathers were prescient enough a century ago to settle in British Columbia’s Vancouver Island, which happens to be one such destination. Home with my family in Duncan for the holidays , I experienced two distinct sporting pleasures over three days in this mild-winter paradise.

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The Saturday before Christmas, I attended a hockey game in Victoria. My friend Derry, a season ticket holder for local squad the Victoria Salmon Kings, snagged tickets for 10 of us to attend the game against the Alaska Aces, the Salmon Kings’ biggest rival in the West division of the East Coast Hockey League.

Strangely enough, Victoria is the only Canadian franchise in the 25-team ECHL, a minor league two levels below the NHL that features clubs in such hockey hotbeds as Bakersfield, California; Augusta, Georgia; and Biloxi, Mississippi. I suppose Victoria’s franchise was relocated from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to lend the league legitimacy–something like David Cronenberg’s decision to cast one bona-fide Russian (a Prussian, actually) in his film Eastern Promises to compensate for the atrocious Russian accents attempted by an American, a Frenchman, a Canadian and a Pole in the other principal roles.

The game was the third in four nights between the Aces and the ‘Skings’ (which is the official shorthand used in all team cheers; awkward to pronounce at first, but it has its charms). Neither Alaska nor Victoria are particularly close to any other city in the league, and so to keep travel costs down they regularly make trips to play extended mini-series against other teams. Alaska won Wednesday’s contest 4-3 in a shootout, and Victoria replied with an 8-1 drubbing on Friday, so Saturday was the rubber match. I imagine that the familiarity and animosity that builds when you see the same opponent three times in one week would be great for ticket sales.

In front of 5,513 fans, the Aces led 1-0 after the first period and scored an atrocious goal halfway through the second–a 60-foot slapshot off the rush that the backup goalie–given a rare start in place of the Skings’ All-Star Julien Ellis–simply whiffed on. Down 2-0, and with fans wondering if the lacklustre home team had “scored itself out” the previous night, the Skings’ coach hooked the backup goalie and brought back the team’s top netminder to hearty cheers. So much for a night off.

The ECHL features a fast, exciting brand of hockey, with rosters jammed full of recent NHL draft picks looking to punch their ticket to the big show. There’s always a worry, as with any minor-league affiliate franchise, that watching an up-and-coming player will end in heartbreak if he actually has the skills to progress to the next level–if he’s good enough, eventually the big club will call him up. But the hockey at this level still feels like an NHL game, albeit with smaller crowds. Even the stadium music is the same: we had a long debate whether Def Leppard or AC/DC had produced the greatest oeuvre of jock-jammy arena anthems, leading to several imitations of one-armed drumming that resurfaced every time a Def Leppard song came over the PA.

The goalie switch must have inspired the home team. Shortly thereafter the Skings’ notorious sparkplug, diminutive Darryl Lloyd, started a fight in front of the Aces net with a huge defenseman who must have been Polish with all those C’s and Z’s and Y’s in a surname that barely fit his jersey. Lloyd got his clock rather cleaned by this oaf, but the home team and the fans woke from their lethargy and were now ready to play. Victoria put the Aces on their heels for the rest of the period, using its momentum to score three goals and take a 3-2 lead into the third.

The Skings maintained their pressure, outshooting the Aces 17-7 in the third. But the Aces netted an equalizer on a spectacular three-way passing play, and with Alaska stalling at every opportunity in order to stem the Skings’ pressure–at one point the Aces’ goon Peter Metcalf lay on the ice for five minutes after a big hit but returned miraculously to play the very next shift, to a chorus of boos–the game remained tied after regulation.

Neither team scored in the five-minute overtime period, so for the second time in three games, the teams settled their beef in a shootout.

The goalies in this shootout really had the shooters’ numbers, as each of the first three shooters were stopped, then three sudden-death rounds followed without a goal. After the Alaska goalie stopped his seventh breakaway–13 consecutive failed penalty shots at this point–the Aces coach sent out the goon, Metcalf. The booing began quickly and earnestly, and it all seemed to rattle the big man, who circled around a couple times before beginning his shot. But then it became clear: Metcalf was soaking it up, eventually raising his arms to encourage the noise and twirling his hand to his ear � la Hulk Hogan. After 30 seconds of this, the crowd was in a frenzy, and Metcalf finally brought the puck down the ice, clumsily, teeing up a slapshot from between the face-off dots. And if you watch bad sports movies, you could guess how this one ended: with Metcalf firing a rolling puck between Ellis’s legs and then grinning and posing for the crowd, as the now deathly quiet arena emptied quicker than I’ve ever seen.

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Three days later, my younger brother Michael, his friend Greg and I continued with our own Christmas Day tradition: nine holes of golf at the Cowichan Golf and Country Club. Our hometown of Duncan has the highest annual average temperature in all of Canada, and summers aren’t that hot, so this lofty statistic must be the result of the ultra-mild winters. Sure, the course can be a little swampy, but we always remember our waterproof boots.

I grew up playing Cowichan’s 18 holes almost every day in the summer from age 10 to 16. Needless to say, I know the course better than the back of my hand. So it’s been embarrassing that Michael, who’s six years younger but six inches taller than I am, now beats me fairly often. (Though having worked on the course maintenance crew last summer, his course knowledge is now rivaling mine.)

We played a three-man, ultra-high-stakes “skins game” to spice things up, with each of us fronting 50 cents on each of the first five holes, and a dollar on each of the final four. High rollers on course, please make room! (Actually, we were the only people on the course, and the only car in the parking lot–apparently, the course is officially closed on Christmas Day. Luckily, high winds had knocked down the “Course Closed” sign, allowing us to play without breaking any posted rules.)

Here’s how a skins game works: each hole is worth a set dollar value, with values normally increasing every six holes in a typical 18-hole match (we modified this slightly for our nine-hole contest). If one player scores lower than all the others, he wins the dollar value of that hole, or a “skin.” If two or more players tie for the lowest score, the money on that hole is carried over to the next hole. If you tie several holes in a row, every subsequent hole increases in value, so that if you play poorly for an extended stretch while other players match pars or birdies, you can still steal a big pot with one good shot.

The golf was far from spectacular, as none of us had picked up a club since at least summer or, in my case, since last Christmas. The soggy conditions didn’t help, and were especially hard on me, since I was the shortest hitter in our group and without any roll on drives had a hard time reaching the greens in regulation. Michael won the first skin on the third hole for a whopping $4.50, and I won the short par-4 fourth with a beautiful second shot that landed six feet from the cup. Of course, since there hadn’t been any carry-over, I was stuck with a paltry $1.50. Such are the breaks in a skins game.

The round continued up and down. I hit a beautiful approach on the front nine’s toughest hole, overcoming my length disadvantage. Greg took a couple skins and hit a monster drive up the middle of the fairway into the fading daylight on our final hole, the ninth. Unfortunately, as sometimes happens on soggy Vancouver Island, he never found his ball, which must have plugged into the soft ground and disappeared, never to be seen again despite all three of us searching. Michael won the final hole, and I ended up owing money to both my rivals, even though each of us had won two skins. Next year, I’ll save my best shots for the big ‘carried-over’ holes and not waste them right after someone else has won a skin. But I really can’t complain about playing golf in December. Residents of Flin Flon, Manitoba: eat your hearts out!

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NB–Having enjoyed this important report of grown men whacking pucks and balls with sticks, please read “Exclusive Photos: Kenya on the Brink,” a report of Kenya’s post-election strife by my Walrus blog colleague (blolleague?) Arno Kopecky. Arno’s on the ground in Nairobi, doing real reporting at great personal risk while the less adventurous of us write about playing golf and laze on the couch watching the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl on FOX. His incredible photos and observations deserve to be seen and read by you. Now.

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Posted on Sunday, January 6th, 2008 at 5:17 pm. Follow comments through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.