Happy Canada Day !

**Motor City Sonics** · 07-01-2012, 04:11 PM

Today marks Canada Day. This day has its roots going all the way back to the winter of 1867 when Canada battled for and won their independence from Portugal. That winter was a harsh, brutal one and the Canadians (just known as "natives") were well prepared to deal with the sub zero temperatures, but the Portuguese fighters had a will that was hard to shake. General Daniel Canaday has prepared his troops well, emphasizing cardio and strength training to outlast any opponent in a long battle. They battled in a man-to-man style combat then know as "Hockning" - where the combatants would take long wooden sticks or shafts with metal blades on the end and try to slice each other to pieces.

The fierce battles of January 1867 were going in the Natives favors, but the Portuguese would not go away. Then surprise forces from the western outposts came into support the battle, but in a surprising fashion. The Albert Brothers, Calvin, Gary and Edmond has assembled a rag-tag group of fighters and had improvised a new technique by taking the the blades of their hockning sticks and securing them to the bottom of their boots and using their superior skating skills and speed, they surprised the Portuguese forces by beating them with their hockning sticks, the stunned Portuguese did not have the time to properly surrender before General Canaday's forces hacked them to pieces. The war was over quickly and the celebrations began, but first the clean up had to start - these new patriots, who named themselves after their beloved General Canaday were soon known as Canadayans....made a new game of the clean up by securing nets to collect the shredded body parts of the Portuguese by using the hockning sticks to try to, in one motion, flip those parts into the nets. Even gravely injured Canadayans with teeth missing and broken limbs insisted taking part of this new macabre game that was shortened from hockning to "hockey". The clean up took so long and by the time the beauty was restored to the countryside, the ice was melting and summer approached. It was decided that the celebration could only come after all of the "hockey" clean up games were completed (ice didn't melt until late June back then - before Global Warming). The armed forces division that cleaned the most body parts was given a silver bowl (created by a young wounded solider named Stanley) and each member of the winning division was passed this bowl to take a drink of their opponents blood to signify total victory. I told you it was macabre.

Meanwhile The Albert Brothers and their forces decided to return to the Western outposts, determined to be included in this new nation of General Canaday's. It had been rumored for the last two years that the United States was looking to expand northward and The Alberts and many others wanted no part of a country that would kill its own leaders as had been done two years previous with Lincoln - so they were more than happy to be known as Western Canadayans.......General Canaday (the inventor of Canada) was so grateful to the Alberts he named an entire province after them, but there was a split in the family over who was better at "hockning" or "hockey" as it was known by then. Calvin and Gary claimed credit for the idea of blades on boots, but it was brother Edmond who claimed it was his troops' superior skating skills and superior training ice that saved the day. The new "Alberta" was split in two with the Cal/Gary outpost in the South and Edmond's Town in the north. This rivalry between the two outposts continues to this day!