Canada's birthday? What's that all aboot?

Well, what can I say? We have a reputation of being an
entire nation filled with incredibly polite people...

It was probably a little more than 20 years ago when I heard my first Canadian joke. Or at least the first one I remember. Oh sure, prior to that, I'm sure there were plenty of Canuck jokes but they all seemed regional, directed at specific cities or provinces with Toronto, Montreal and Newfoundland taking it on the chin, mostly.

Keep in mind this was a time before the internet and cell phones when people were forced to talk to each other like savages. I know for some of you younger readers this will be a foreign concept but believe me, I was there. It was as horrific as it sounds. You actually had to get off the desktop computer, which was the size of a Russian tank, if someone wanted to use the phone. It was a dark time for humanity. Humans were still in control. Machines wouldn't take over for a few years yet.

But back to the joke. I worked at a small west Toronto community newspaper back in the days and directly below us and one door over was a bar called Shakey's where we gathered.

You think Canadian chicks aren't tough? This young
lady in the Toronto Blue Jays tank-top shows us all the
proper method of pounding a Steam Whistle Pilsner!

(Shakey was the nickname of former NHL player and bar owner Mike Walton, who won Stanley Cups with both the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Boston Bruins but that's secondary to this story.) Our production manager, Diane, who was a fun-loving, party-hard pretty young lady, was the joke-teller in this case. And here we go...
Diane: How do you get 50 Canadians out of the pool?
Me: I dunno. How?
Diane (in her meekest voice): Can everyone get out of the pool, please?

Now the fact is I laughed like a fool because it's pretty funny but moreso because it's true. It's like being overly-polite and courteous is hardwired into Canadian DNA. I have no idea why. But keep in mind, this does not apply to Canadian hockey players, who are considered the fiercest, most competitive players of any country anywhere. To put it into terms other countries can understand, hockey is basically rugby on skates with a weapon in your hands. Yeah, sure, the guys wear padding (unlike rugby players) but you get to some pretty high speeds in an enclosed space encased by hard-wood boards when you're wearing ice skates. Plus that round black thing they pass around that looks like an oversized Oreo cookie and the weapons they are armed with could do a lot of physical damage without the padding.

Despite being a wee size, Wayne Gretzky is largely
considered to be the best hockey player to ever lace
up a pair of skates. You know who else is 5-foot-11,
170 pounds like Gretzky? Me. You know how long I
would last in the NHL? One shift. Then I'd be dead.

That said, the greatest player who ever laced up the skates was just 5-foot-11, weighing 170 pounds - a scrawny kid from Brantford named Wayne Gretzky. The Great One didn't bother to just rewrite the NHL record book. Nope, he lit it on fire, flushed it down the toilet at Timmy's and starting writing his own. That's why the NHL Record Book is now officially called The Great Big Hockey Book Of Good Luck Catching Gretzky, Suckers. (Legal disclaimer: this may or may not be true.) Now Gretzky's most famous advice to young players is "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." Brew-Ha-Ha would like to add, "You miss 100% of the beers you don't drink" while I would like to add on a personal note, "You miss 100% of the naps you don't take."

For those who live outside Canada, we have four seasons. Summer, then This Already Feels Like Winter, followed by My Snot's Frozen And The Car Won't Start and finally I Still Can't Feel My Toes before we're back to Summer. Canada Day is collectively believed by us all to be Summer. At roughly 6 pm today, all Canadians will look to the skies and say in a burly British accent, "Winter... is coming..." I have a student co-worker, Ethan Snow, who I greet every shift by growling out loudly, "Ethan Snow, bastard son of Eddard Stark!" (It's a Game of Thrones thing.)

Wolverine, who (according to Marvel Comics), was born in
Cold Lake, Alberta, shows us all in one simple panel how
Canadians deal with their personal and emotional issues

After a few times, Ethan asked, "Are you going to do this every time you see me?" I replied, "Yeah, pretty much." To which he shrugged, "Okay, cool." But young Ethan marveled to me, "It's weird because whenever someone hears my name for the first time, it's always, 'Hey, like Jon Snow?' And I'm thinking, hold on, didn't the word have some other meaning before Game of Thrones??? I mean, don't we live in Canada?"

Okay, since this is Canada Day, this is also the day that the Big Brewers get their nod in Brew-Ha-Ha! You may have noticed since I started this horse-and-pony show two years ago that it's all about the craft brewers. There's a good reason for that. If I need to tell you what a Molson Canadian, Coors Light, Budweiser, Bud Light or Labatt Blue tastes like, you shouldn't be reading a beer blog. Every Canadian has known those beers since the age of 15.

Last Summer, Budweiser put these speakers, which
look like guitar amps, into their cases. I still have one
and use it with my laptop because the sound is great

But I won't be talking about Labatt's and Molson's beers exactly because they are already 90% of the Canadian market-place and won't see a sales spike if discussed here. No, today, we will be talking about the sweet trinkets the Big Brewers toss into their cases to lure mainstream drinkers to their side. For all of the talk about Molson's and Labatt being an oligopoly (a market structure in which a few firms dominate - Molson's and Labatt jointly own 98% of The Beer Store in Ontario), trust me when I say competition between the two Beer Behemoths is fierce on the street level. Their sales reps come into my Beer Store on a regular basis and are constantly jockeying for better position over the other. To sweeten the pot and lure drinkers to their side, the Big Boys are constantly putting cooler and cooler swag into their cases. (Craft brewers save their swag for what's inside the bottle.) And to paraphrase Jack Nicholson as The Joker in the first Batman movie, "Where do they get all these cool toys?"

Molson Canadian hit the jack-pot of giveaways when
they started including actual Stanley Cup rings into
their two-fours right at the beginning of the NHL
playoffs. The cases literally flew out of the Beer
Store once customers realized they were actual rings

Coor's Light is constantly holding contests whereby if you find a winning cap or can, they will whisk you off to a huge party somewhere in Canada with a top-notch Canadian band playing. Bud Light 28-packs had a big winner last Summer (and again this year) with their portable phone chargers. A young couple asked me how they could be sure if the charger had the right adapter connection for their phone, so I said, "I dunno, let's see." I ripped open a case and we all looked at it. There was an adapter for Samsung and Blackberries, as well as the latest three iPhones. You just plug the charger in at home and take it with you and apparently, it will get your phone right back up to 100%. The couple happily walked out with his and her Bud Light 28-packs. Molson Canadian put some headphones in last year's two-fours and according to my regulars, the sound on them was phenomenal. Budweiser went a similar route with speakers that looked like mini-amplifiers last Summer and could be hooked into either your laptop or iPod. I got one and still use it.

The Jewel Of The Nile! Toronto Maple Leaf and
Montreal Canadien Stanley Cup rings are fetching
upwards of $100 on sites like Kijiji and Craigslist!

But Molson's topped everyone this Spring when just prior to the NHL playoffs when they included 20 different rings, one per case, each representing a team that had won a Stanley Cup in the past. When the Molson driver was delivering the second batch of these cases to us, I asked him, "So what are these rings? Like plastic and 'collect all 20' kind of things?" Having never seen one himself, he wasn't certain so we opened a damaged case that was going back to the brewer to check for ourselves. Inside was a little ring box (see left) and when we opened it, we were stunned to see they were real rings. Like really nice rings! How nice? These things are still popping up on buy-and-sell sites like Kajiji and Craigslist from anywhere from $20 (for a lesser team) to over $100 for a big team like the Toronto Maple Leafs or Montreal Canadiens. This prize was so sought after by beer drinkers that Beer Stores were continually being asked if there were any damaged cases in the back that could be purchased.

Courtesy of our good friends at Molson's, I am next
to my patriotic I Am Canadian full-sized flag that is
presently inside Canadian 28-packs. The patio at
Donny's Bar & Grill is ready for Canada Day now!

Normally if a case has a torn handle, we stick it in the back to be sent back to be repackaged by the brewer. With the ring-bearing cases, we didn't bother. While we won't sell a case with a broken bottle (potential for injury), a case with a torn handle? Guys would haul out those to their cars on a buggy if it meant getting one of these rings. Best promotion ever - a raised frosty mug to you, Molson's. Well done!

So that's it for the 2015 Canada Day version of Brew-Ha-Ha! I'll be back in three days for my annual nod to our friends and neighbours to the south when they celebrate Independence Day south of the 49th Parallel on July 4th. But if you're ever abroad and are curious to see if someone is, in fact, Canadian, simply step on their foot. If they apologize to you, they are indeed Canadian. We are also the ones who thank the ATM machines when the cash comes out. As for me, well, I have to celebrate Canada Day the only way I know how. I am breaking out favourite drinking vessel - my big-ass 32-ounce Molson Canadian skate/boot mug out and filling it with some delicious Muskoka Brewing Twice as Mad Tom IPA. Last night, I noticed stamped on the bottle in bright red ink was "Enjoy before Sept 10, 2015." I may be a bit dyslexic because what I read was, "Enjoy before... you must drink this immediately!!" I do not argue with best-before stamps although clearly, that's not an issue at Donny's Bar and Grill. I've had milk go bad, cream go bad but beer? Yeah, right. Okay guys and dolls, that's it, that's all and I am outta here!!! Until next time, I remain as always...