I'm Just a Kid

The many anachronisms that follow are completely intentional. You want accuracy go to Discovery, or the Smithsonian, or Wikipedia, or Weird Al Yankovic’s site.

What can you expect from a 20-year old? How much pressure can you put on a kid's shoulders, in the heartland of hockey, as this mad city rode shotgun with a young goalie who had barely obtained a license to drive?

Carey Price. 2o years old. Pause. Think of that for a moment.

He's done so much already, what more can we expect of this young phenom. Graduation from minors to juniors, World Junior Gold and MVP honors, Calder Cup Championship along with another MVP title, followed by a move up to the NHL and an anointment as the Canadiens' starting goaltender. He then defeats the Bruins in his first taste of NHL playoff hockey, shutting Boston out twice in the series the last one coming, incredibly, in the seventh and deciding game of the series.

It took him 18 months to accomplish all of this. He's tired now.

Montreal wanted a Stanley Cup but in the end it would be too much to ask from an overwhelmed Price.

It can’t be done at this speed. You have to mature into a certain mold before certain results may be expected from you.

Voice: BULLSHIT!

Me: What?

Carey: Huh?

Voice: I say bullshit! That’s what I said BULL-SHIT.

Me: who the hell are you?

Voice: Who the hell am I? That's some crazy talk right there. Who do you think I am?

Me: I wouldn’t have asked had I known.

Carey: This guy’s a weird one.

Voice: Requiem, The Little Music of the Night. I’m Mozart goddammit.

Me: Mozart, shit, I thought that was you! What are you doing here?

Mozart: You know, HF4, I’m getting a bit peeved at this Price was too young thing going around. What the hell?

Carey: What do you mean?

Mozart: You’re 20 Carey. You know what life expectancy was when I was around? 40-45 years tops. By the time we were 25, we would be flashing our gold cards at the movies, people would be giving up their seats on the horse carriages for us, doctors were plunging their fingers in our asses by the time we were 13. I kind of liked that.

Carey: Wolfie, I’m barely…

Mozart: Don’t call me Wolfie, it sounds gay. Where’s my pocket mirror...

Carey: Amadeus, I’m like, barely an adult. This is HOCKEY WORLD.

Me: Seriouly Zart, this is the Mecca of hockey. Like people will stop whatever they’re doing 5 times a day, turn to their welfare cheques, kneel and pray to the ghosts.

Mozart: What’s your point?

Me: My point is that you can’t expect a kid to rise to these expectations.

Carey: Yeah Wolfgang, you can’t.

Mozart: Are you guys for real? Do you know what I was up to at the age of 4? Do you have any idea? I was writing full minuets and concertos for the emperor of Austria, that’s what. I would play that shit faultlessly. And my Dad was of no help either. He made David Archuleta’s father look like Kathy Lee Gifford. Go ahead and give the Williams' father a "Dad of the Year" t-shirt! My father's name was Leopold. LEOPOLD! Is that badass or what? The man was on my ass CONSTANTLY. “Finish the sonnet or no new skirt for you!” or “write that opera before you go to bed or you can forget about seeing that movie you like – ‘I’ll be Bach’, what a stupid line”. I loved Austrian actors...

Carey: Sounds rough.

Mozart: You have no idea.

Me: Times have changed Mozart, 20 is the new 3.

Mozart: That’s my point! At 3 years old I had already completed my first full opera, which today is widely regarded as one of the best pieces in musical history. 20? At 20 I was writing life altering music that has changed the face of the world. You hear me? The face of the world. Pressure? I had an empire threaten to cut my balls if one note sounded off-key, I had to deal with the threat of exile to Cyprus. Goddamn exile.

Carey: My hand wasn’t right.

Mozart: You have to be joking. I was composing notes of genius while juggling typhoid, syphilis, the plague and a fever that would make the sun stop for a glass of lemonade.

Carey: I don’t know, Ganger, try painting something with a sore hand. It doesn’t work. Those are my tools you know, my hands.

Mozart: Don’t get me started on the painting kid. Want to talk paint? You wanna see a drawing Picasso sent me when he was 4? You wanna see genius? Look at this:

Mozart: Now that’s child prodigy material right there. Look at the lines, they're so elegant, so subtle.

Carey: What are those bugs in the sky?

Me: You don’t know the media here Mozart, they’ll hang you out to dry if…

Mozart: Oh give it a break! Try writing music that changes History while a maniac named Salieri is conspiring to have you killed, stealing your money and your compositions and shagging your wife behind your back. I thought he was my friend. “Let me help you Mozart", "You’re a genius Mozart.” Asswipe, should have seen him coming. Fucker worked me to death.

Carey: You know I didn’t totally choke. I’m proud of some of my performances.

Mozart: Price, read my lips: I was THREE YEARS OLD and stroking the ivory blindfolded, upside down, under the piano, with my hands crossed and my back turned to the keys. That’s fucking art kid. That’s child freaking genius. Try playing upside down UNDER the damn piano. Your pits are pressed up against your face and you haven’t bathed in weeks, and you’re supposed to play music that reminds people of perched canaries. What do you think of those conditions kiddo? You’re playing to the gallery, to a king, an emperor, to the entire council. They don’t like it, you’re gonzo.

Carey: I guess I don’t know what real pressure is. I guess 20 years old isn’t that young.

Mozart: Pfff! 20! At 20, we had insurance companies batting down our doors pushing life insurance policies down our throats! You hit 22, 23, nobody wants to insure you anymore.

Carey: It told them I was tired, nobody listened to me. They just listened whenever they felt like it.

Mozart: Nobody listened to you? Trying having your best buddy not HEARING A SINGLE WORD YOU SAY! I would be like, “Yo, Beethoven, how does this sound?” And he’d be all oblivious and shit. For years I thought it was just his silent, tacit approval. Talk about misleading someone.

Carey: Those pads I ordered just before the playoffs. I hadn’t even broken them in. They felt so stiff.

Mozart: Carey, I’m directing 100 musicians for 4 hours in a 103 degree opera house with no AC, the occasional paper fan to cool me off, and I’m wearing the most constricting tights you’ve ever worn, a silk blouse that breathes as much as an old firefighter with emphysema and the biggest wig you’ve ever seen, like 40 pounds of hair collapsing over my head. That’s not exactly spa-treatment like conditions bud. Pads?!! I had tights going up to my tits and socks over them that ran up to my knees. Paint them in red and white stripes and I look like a character from a Dr. Seuss book. Green eggs and symphonies. I was like baroque Matisyahu.

Me: We gotta lay off the young guy excuse, Carey. Amadeus has a point.

Mozart: Fuck yeah, I have a point.

Carey: He’s got a point.

Me: What now? What will we say? How do you explain having gone down in 5?

Carey: I don't say a thing. I can't. I’ll say that next year, no excuses. I’m going Wolfgangbusters on your asses.

Mozart: That’s it Carey.

Carey: Rock me Amadeus.

Mozart: Now you’re talking.

Me: Ok, I’ll leave you two alone.

Amadeus is right. No excuses. It’s been done before. Roy, Dryden, Ward, Tiger Woods at Augusta, Sampras at the US Open at 17. I even hear Falco was, like, 5 when he wrote that epic song.