Our pseudo-relatives live in Canada. This was when they lived in a different part of Canada, but that doesn't really matter. What matters is that they are old and had no kids my age so I went out to play hockey on the tennis slash basketball courts with the neighbor boy.
There being only two of us, we played one-on-one hockey, which is sort of difficult. There's a lot of space and only two boys to fill it. There's a lot of skating around chasing after bouncing tennis balls. In lieu of a face off, we thumb wrestled.1 Makes sense, right? Anyway, being in his home country, I thought I'd let him do the honors. I expect something like "One two three four I declare a thumb war." Instead it was "N-H-L." Three syllables. It caught me a little off guard and the outcome of that thumb wrestling match escapes me, but he whipped my ass in hockey, because it is, after all, his national game.
1 When I was in 5th or 6th grade, hockey kind of caught on here and all of the boys shot like they were playing golf or baseball - right-handed [or standing to the left of the puck]. But in hockey, shooting with your dominant side doesn't matter much - there's no real power advantage [I shoot left and swing baseball bats and golf clubs right], so kids in Canada are encouraged to do what is more comfortable at a really young age. Consequently, Canada has a lot of lefty shooters and these lefty shooters become left-handed golfers [3% of golfers in the US compared to 15% in Canada].
