Rose's Cantina

There was a funny meme going round on the CBC Community page yesterday. "It could be worse," the post suggested over the symbol for Hockey Night in Canada. "We could have this guy." The guy they were talking about was Ben Mulroney, our sad Canadian version of Ryan Seacrest,, the belittled son of disgraced Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, who has become the host of everything from CTV's coverage of the Oscars to our country's failed attempt to launch a homegrown version of Canadian Idol. I have never gotten what the appeal of Bennie was. He has nice teeth, I suppose, though his hair resembles that of Count Chocula and his smarmy nature harkens back to the days of "ya dance with the girl who brung ya." It would have been disturbing to have Vlad the Impaler as the replacement for Ron and Don, the muppet pair who look down from the balcony each weekend on HNIC and reminisce about Bobby Orr. But George Stromboulopoulos?(heretofore referred to as S...

Oprah's coming to Ottawa next week! In honor of her visit, I am reposting this blog I wrote back in August 1, 2011. At that time, Oprah was looking for the "quintessential Canadian". Enjoy! Note to readers: This is an actual form you can fill out on oprah.com. I am not making this up. If you want to participate in this contest, please follow the link, here. Otherwise read on. Live in Montreal? We Want to Hear From You! We want to know what life is like in Montreal for a typical Canadian family and how it’s different from those of us in the United States. How is your daily routine different from a typical Americans? Are there customs or traditions you follow that are unique to your family, Montreal or Canada? Does your family speak French at the dinner table? Are you a hockey fanatic? How is Montreal different from say life in Cleveland, Ohio? If you or someone you know is the quintessential Canadian, we want to hear from you! Tell us your story. If we were t...

There's something psychologically disturbing about the Canadian character. Perhaps it's the lack of vitamin D. In the nice weather months, we slather ourselves with enough oil to make a bean salad. We do burpies and watch our diets. We get nice new bouncy hairstyles. We work out like fiends. By the end of each summer, many of us are fit as fiddles, looking fine. But something happens when the sun disappears to the other side of world. Something happens as we enter the heart of winter darkness. We press the pause button on life. The yoga pants -- once hilariously called "sweat" pants -- come out. The carefully prepared veggie concoctions rot in the back of fridge as we dive into mounds of mashed potatoes, vats of beer and bottomless bags of Doritos. The insides of running shoes begin to stiffen and the gym rarely sees its door darkened. Winter is for tablets and televisions, PS3s and laptops which become the...

On Monday night, the cars will be streaming to Scotiabank Place as the Ottawa Senators finally begin their season. It's a well known scene, a highway parking lot of sorts, almost comical with grown men in cars with painted faces battling sad public servants on their way home to their bedrooms in Kanata. It will be a scene reminiscent of Field of Dreams, only in the snow and ice. A Bill Kinsella moment. If you drop the puck, they will come. All is forgiven with a little help from free beer, popcorn for a buck and discounted jerseys. How it must irk the soothsayers who predicted that fans would shun the Boys of Winter, turn their backs on them, make them pay for their greed and self-centredness. Yeah, right. The NHL could play its season in the dog days of summer and people would still show up. Fans would still hoist a glass at various taverns and compare statistics. Because Canadians love hockey and nothing -- not even a bunch of millionaires and billionaires haggling ...

Like most Canadians, I'm laying in my bed crying today over billionaires refusing to let millionaires play with pucks and sticks. I simply do not know how I will cope this winter if hockey takes a holiday. Wait. I have it. Let's ask Madonna, Rosie O'Donnell and Geena Davis to put down their baseball gloves and pick up hockey sticks. They can wear short skirts and long underwear and pointy bras. We'll ask Nia Vardalos to talk to Tom Hanks about coaching. We'll call our team something inappropriately aboriginal like The Canadian Squaws. They can spit tabacky through their front teeth and do commercials about their sisters, all of whom have a mental illness. You know who you are. Seriously. Who gives a shit? Not me. I only watch hockey during the playoffs like most Canadian wives. Mostly, I drink beer and watch for Don Cherry whom I find hilarious. Seriously, he could give Carson Kressley a run for his money in the fashion business, in the blatantly hetero...

Yesterday, Mayor Jim Watson met with his counterpart -- that's a laugh -- Mayor Bloomberg in the Big Apple to settle a bet. Millhouse brought Bloomberg some Beavertails to settle a hockey bet. The Sens lost, so Millhouse had to fly to NYC to personally meet with the mayor. Isn't that rich? I certainly hope the Ottawa Senators are paying for this trip. I'm sure Millhouse appreciated a little vacay from his problems: LRT, Lansdowne Dead, his fight with the good people at the Lord Elgin Hotel. Maybe he took a tour of New York to see how they handle their transit issues. Maybe he got a rub down at the Four Seasons. Perhaps he took in a play. Does anybody else find this whole thing offensive? We don't pay our Mayor to go to New York City to play tummysticks with their politicians. We pay him to stay home and sit through boring meetings and cut ribbons. I certainly hope that Millhouse takes yesterday as a vacation day. Who's with me? Update: Accordi...

Before another guy in this town drops from a heart attack playing hockey, something should be done about this problem. Four times in the last week, amateur players have had to be brought back to life with defibrillators. Often times, the players aren't that lucky. Just last year, the news business lost CP photographer Tom Hanson to this senseless activity. He was only 41. A lot of members of the defib club are guys with young families who leave them in the lurch in a vain attempt to relive their youths. Every amateur team -- even pick up teams -- should insist the guys get their hearts checked out, along with a full physical, before they step on the ice. This is always what the management at gyms tell you to do and most people don't do it. But working on your pilates or walking on a treadmill doesn't come close to hockey in terms of the physical demands placed on the heart. Hockey is all about going from stop to sprint, a very dangerous activity even fo...