What follows is the first entry in the "Behind Enemy Lines" portion of the "Embrace the Hate" competition. It comes to us via @concretefluff, and you can read the original post at her blog "WindaTurd." If you have a "Behind Enemy Lines" story you’d be interested in sharing with us, please e-mail me at [email protected] – you could win Canucks swag and a one hundred dollar donation in your name to the Canucks for Kids Fund. What follows is Victoria’s rather epic story of how she’s decided, not just to Embrace the Hate, but to commit to it for life!:

Embrace the Hate Entry by Victoria (@ConcreteFluff):

I often tell people I am in a “mixed marriage” because in my eyes I am. Of course when they see my husband – blonde hair, blue eyes, Caucasian – and they look at me (brown hair, green eyed, Caucasian) they think I’m a mental moron. But as far as I am concerned when one person loves one hockey franchise and the other person loves the other – THAT is a form of a mixed marriage.

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Simply put, my husband is a life-long Montreal Canadiens supporter. I am a die-hard Vancouver Canucks supporter. As if this wasn’t enough of a hurdle, my husband is also a hardcore, full-on Canucks HATER. He despises them. Need proof? This die-hard, life-long Canadiens supporter actually started cheering for the Boston Bruins during the Stanley Cup Final. Something he fully admits he would have never considered if they were playing anyone other than the Canucks. He hates my team THAT much.

So I have to embrace the Canucks hate every day. I live (and love) behind enemy lines. I know you’re probably already asking yourself why on earth I ever dated him, let alone married him. Well, for one thing he’s unbelievably cute. For another thing he is a snarky French Canadian (my weak spot) and well, he’s good to me. Despite fully and completely hating the Canucks, he bought me 1 ticket to Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals because he knew it would be a dream come true for me. And it was. Especially when my favorite Canuck, Maxim Lapierre (snarky French Canadian) scored the game winning goal! I proudly took the local newspaper’s full page picture of the goal celebration and hung it on our kitchen wall. Since that day my husband has hung a full page photo from the same local paper of Salo and Torres weeping after the Game 7 loss right next to my photo.

We’d decided – long before the Stanley Cup Finals – that we would be married in October 2011 in Maine. No not Mayne Island, BC. The U.S. State of Maine. Part of New England AKA Bruins Country. I spent my summers there growing up and it’s really rather quite lovely – well accept for all the yellow and gold. We were flying in and out of Boston Logan airport and having a mini honeymoon in Boston after the wedding. All of this would have been great if we’d won the Cup. But we didn’t.

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My photographer finished all his email correspondence with Go Bruins! The reception venue had a Bruins Championship hat in a Plexiglas case on the bar. It was shaping up to be hell for a Canucks fan. And as if that wasn’t enough, my husband, being the snarky French Canadian that he is, wore a Bruins Champions T-shirt to our wedding rehearsal. I had hoped to get dressed up for it, but in retaliation had to wear jeans and my Kevin Bieksa Canucks T.

The night before my wedding my future husband stayed at a hotel (can’t see the bride!) and I couldn’t sleep at all. Finally at 5am I got up and went for a walk on the beach. When I came back I noticed something sticking out from under my pillow. It was the Sports Section of the Boston Herald dated October 7, 2011 and it consisted of a 5-page picture spread of the entire Bruins team raising the Stanley Cup banner, showing off their rings, holding Lord Stanley, etc. Written across the front “Have a Great Wedding, Love Zdeno Chara” (forged of course). Yes that’s right. The night before my wedding I had accidentally slept with the entire Boston Bruins team – thanks to my future husband. Well at least that explains the nausea all night long.

But what my unsuspecting future husband didn’t know was that this bride had some very distinct pre-ceremony picture ideas. When the photographer came to shoot me at the house I put one of my Canucks T-shirts over my wedding dress and demanded he shoot me in it. The neighbors, or as they are called in Bruins Country “naybahs”, watching from their porches all shuddered as I walked out of the house. My photographer laughed (in that ‘you’re a nut job’ sort of way).

Luckily my husband didn’t see the photos until AFTER he said I do or he might have reconsidered. But he’d already said our vows which included “accepting each other’s differences, including hockey teams’ so there was no going back. He’s stuck with this proud, maybe a little crazy, Canucks fan. And I will gladly spend the rest of my life trying to change his mind about a team I feel has heart, integrity, spirit, determination… and also a little French Canadian snark (I’m looking at you Maxim Lapierre).

Side note: I also wore nothing but Canucks T shirts for the entire 3 days we were in Boston. Everyday someone made a comment. Here are the Top 5:

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On the plane SEA to BOS, girl in a Bruins shirt looked at me & turned to her boyfriend: “Did you see her? Barf.”

Hotel Concierge: “The Canucks? Interesting choice.”

A tour guide: “You know you lost right?”

Harvard bookstore employee when we asked for a map: “Let me find one. In the meantime, there’s Bruins merchandise you can buy over there.”

An Alaska Airlines employee at Boston Logan: “You guys deserved to win. I hate the Bruins.”

That’s great stuff. Big thanks to Victoria for sharing her unique experience and the photos of her Canucks wedding dress with us. You can follow her on twitter here.





