Which brings us to the...Bakersfield Condors?
The Condors are a ECHL (a tier below the American Hockey League) ice hockey team. It's been pointed out that Bakersfield didn't, technically, exist until after the Civil War (incorporated as a city in 1873). Tonight, the Condors will take to the ice, wearing team jerseys that commemorate the Gettysburg Address. The jerseys were originally meant as a fund raiser. The team-worn jerseys will be auctioned off tonight after the game and they also ran a promotion for discount admissions if you donated a coat to a coat drive. Veterans also can get into tonight's game free.
The jerseys are on reorder, and it isn't too late to order one. (Yours, for only $140.)
I don't quite know what to think, but this has made some sports news in our country in the last few days. I haven't followed major or minor league ice hockey in years, although was proud when Binghamton's team won the American Hockey League Calder Cup in 2011.
I think the jerseys are pretty good looking but I do groan at this ditty that will be published, supposedly, in tonight's game program: (to my foreign readers, I suggest you do a quick Internet search for the "real" Gettysburg address. It's just slightly more elegant.)
Four years and a dozen more ago, Jonathan Fleisig brought forth on this city, a new hockey team, conceived in family entertainment, and dedicated to the proposition that the greatest game on Earth could succeed in Kern County.What do you think? I think I'm...speechless.
Now, we are engaged in a great battle with rivals throughout the West, testing whether Condorstown or any Condorstown so awesome and so passionate, can long endure. We are met on the great sheet of ice of that battle.
We have come here today to dedicate the game today to those who have played here and reassure our commitment to this community by raising money for the Bakersfield ARC, coats for the Bakersfield Mission, and honoring our military with free tickets. It is altogether fitting and proper that we, as Condorstown, should do this.
And that hockey team, of Condorstown, by Condorstown, and for Condorstown, shall not perish from this Earth.
This is so inventive of the hockey team to twist words to their own ends. I love this about the Americans. Way to go. Let battle commence, and may the best team win. Glad they're not actually fighting to the death though.
ReplyDeleteAh I'll look forward to reading your next blog post Alana, to hear the full run down of the goings on!
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