They call it the battle for Ontario. The Ottawa Senators against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

One of the publishers I deal with at work schmoozed me, along with Joel and Louise. We’ve given them a fair amount of business over the last little while, each of us involved in a different part of the process, so he treated us to a Sens game. Even though my team (the Leafs) got pounced 7–2, it was still an exciting game; lots of end-to-end action, close penalty kills, and Heatly scored a hat-trick. The Leafs were simply out-finessed. Great seats too. Coincidentally, we ran into Rockstar Jeff at the game.

Eva Avila, this year’s winner of Canadian Idol, lead the national anthem. To my surprise, I was able to follow with the French, but it was all phonetic. Something I learned in grade school, but never actually understood.

It was a little disheartening to see how everything is so commercialized. Scotiabank place, VIA Rail goals (complete with train horn when someone scores), Jubilee Timex time. Even Pizza Pizza sponsors a free slice if the Sens win and score six goals or more.

There were probably an even number of Sens fans and than Leafs fans, but the latter were definitely more vocal. Any Sens chants were drowned out. It’s easy to tell how galvanized fans get in such a rivalry from comments I received on a previous post.

The best part was before the game even started. Master Corporal Paul Franklin from Edmonton, who lost both his legs in a suicide attack in Afghanistan, came to drop the ceremonial first puck. They rolled out the red carpet to centre ice, and he hobbled along with metal legs. Both sides of the rivalry cheered and clapped as one, louder than any other point in the night, proud of their surviving soldier.

It was quite a poignant, misty-eyed moment.

On days like this, it’s better to wear light clothing, and throw on a hooded windbreaker. The rain outside is just a drizzle, so it’s comfortably cool. Pay no attention to the hydraulic hiss of the windshield wipers, or you won’t be able to help hearing them through the quiet parts of every song. Window seats are prime. There are fewer distractions from people walking down the aisle.

The 95 goes from one end of the city to the other, straight through the heart of Ottawa. Every stop is a memory. Old haunts. Past lives.

Here was your first apartment. Sometimes you’d find Christie waiting for you here on the benches between classes. How long ago those days seem, how immature and relatively innocent. The next two stops are on the edge of the university campus, four years of scattered truancy. Two stops later is where you use to buy a medium caramel corretto every morning after an exhausting night with Louise. Your old government office is another two on. The concrete building looks so foreign now, and you wonder if the same people are still inside. Another few stops is your last apartment, before buying the house, the end of bus rides home every day.

Music never meant so much.

You pass by construction sites, finished buildings, see the evolution of the city.

Six years of experience, six years of shifting, ever-changing anima.

Six years passed.

Six years lived.

Six years grown.

A shot of the rear entrance of Social, a restaurant I’ve only dined in once, but have passed by, wishing I was inside, many times. I like how the mood in the shot is warm, against the implied cold from the Christmas lights. One could sit here at any time of year and soak up the serenity, where a song by Sigur Rós (at night, when it’s comfortably crowded) is as relevant as a song by Edith Piaff (particularly in the fall, when the skies are grey) is as relevant as a song by Iron And Wine (during the early days of summer, when it’s still cool in the evening).

One of the more interesting local landmarks is a panhandler who has his practice set up on the Mackenzie King Bridge. I started noticing him ever since I came to this city, every time I walked up the bridge to the Rideau Centre. I’ve seen him in stills in the university newspaper, or in passing while taking the bus along the transitway. Ever since winter started though, he’s been wearing a very blue, very “Toronto Maple Leafs” toque. I wonder if someone gave it to him, or whether he procured it himself, using the change given to him by his fellow citizens and Sens fans.

It’s a dangerous thing to be wearing such a high profile hat in this city. Especially when one is so easy to find.