Friday February 13th, 1987

Watched Rendez-Vous 87 Game 2: Russia won 5-2. Fortunately nobody could tell that deep down I was actually rooting for Russia.

Just as an aside, I think the reason I wanted Russia to win was threefold: 1. They played a more skilled style of hockey. 2. As a kid of recent Russian immigrants, I was different from my mostly born in Canada friends. With all the embarrasing negative stereotypes about Russia during the Cold War, it was nice to be able to point to something positive about the country my parents were from (even though they were from the south, and consider themselves Jewish and not Russian). 3. I felt bad for the underdog. Not in a hockey sense, but the people. They were standing in lines for bread and suffered so much, I figured at least they would be able to maintain some kind of pride. They were clearly falling way behind the West in just about everything else. So it's not that I didn't love Canada, but a piece of me did secretly want the Russians to win.

Later that night I went over to Hart's. Slept over at his house. We made it a theme night and rented Friday The 13th.