True Tales of Toronto

My brother's been trying to start a monthly table hockey social at the Imperial Pub on Dundas. The hard part has been getting enough games, since according to him they're awfully hard to buy new for something that's still being manufactured; so he's mostly been scouring thrift stores , ebay, etc. Anyway, the first event was Feb 3 - he called a taxi to take him and the games downtown, and the driver looked at one of the older boards an dcommented that he'd had one like it as a kid. My brother asked where he was from.

"Ethiopia." He explained some American soldiers had left the game behind. Also, he added, he never actually *saw* ice hockey played until he moved here. But, he continued, his family still had the game and now his nephew played with it - only thanks to satelite tv he could also watch hockey games and had a favourite team. The family had asked him, a while back, to buy the kid a jersey, but when he got to the store he hadn't been able to recall which team his nephew liked, so he just got him a Leafs jersey. The family called later to tell him his nephew had cried with disappointment.

"Wow," said my brother, that's just like Roch Carrier 's The Hockey Sweater, only in Ethiopia." The driver looked confused and said he'd never heard of that story.