A far from sheepish sense of humour
Like a lot of Canadians he loves ice hockey. The long-suffering Vancouver Canucks are his team. They’ve lost three Stanley Cup finals in his lifetime, the last one in 2011, which have been occasions for great dismay. Every 15 years his people get to burn the city down, is how he puts it. He sees the similarities between ice hockey and hurling.
“I was actually in a cab in Dublin once,” he says, “and the big final was on (the All-Ireland) and I was talking to the cab driver about it and we were having a nice little back and forth. He was teasing me and I was teasing him, and I asked: ‘So what is hurling?’ and he said, ‘It’s kind of like your ice hockey, but we don’t wear any of the girlie pads,’ and I said, ‘We wouldn’t wear any pads either but we’re playing against North American men.’ You would have assumed that I had shot his dog from the look he gave me. ‘Come on. It’s the craic. What are you talking about?’ That was when I realised that the craic only is the craic when an Irish person says or does the funniest thing.”
