Traditionally the second and third weeks of a seven week tournament can often be the hardest in which to muster the motivation to haul yourself from the warmth of your bed.
The first week excitement is over and the realization that you have to maintain this anti-social behaviour for longer than the Stanley Cup final series is a heavy weight around your eyelids.
Thanks to the aftermath of Hurricane Maria and a virginal case of gout (yep, I've managed to develop a chronic and heinously painful case of 'The Disease of Kings'), sleep this week has been a luxury so by the time kick-off came around at 3.30am, I was well awake.
Despite the gout, sleep was almost possible because of the wind. Thankfully our landlord Ken built his house as sturdy as a Cold War bunker so despite the creaking of plastic siding there was never any fear of the house falling down but that didn't stop the 100-plus km/h winds from trying their darn best to send us flying into St. Anthony Bight or further afloat into the Atlantic.
The added benefit of Maria's blustery rear end was the feeling that I was actually in Wellington, known as one of New Zealand's windiest cities.
Located on the southern nub of the north island, it is said most Wellingtonians love the wind perhaps in the same way that those living on the Northern Peninsula and Southern Labrador say they love the snow come wintertime. That is, they have learnt to accept that it will be a burden to their lives if they choose to complain about it so they don't (actually I know a lot of people up here who love the snow, I also know an equal number of people who hate it).
Apparently for Wellington, the cause for its flatulence comes from its "position on the edge of Cook Strait, the only major gap between the mountains running the length of the two main islands."
"As winds are funnelled through the passage they become faster and stronger," one website claims.
Wind on the Northern Peninsula is nothing new. Come fall, there is an expectation that the Atlantic will broil with white caps and….oh wait…….the game is about to start between Fiji and South Africa. I'll report back in after the game.
