"Just talked with my coach. Your mother."

"Presumably via telephone since I think my mother is still safely in Calgary with my father." On Griff’s mind, perhaps keyed by Phoebe’s presence at his table, were the years when after he left home to play for the Huskies, his mother left his mathematician father for a Montreal Canadiens Assistant Coach. If his father hadn’t practically lived with the computer he was building in the basement of ther family home; if his father hadn’t thought that bringing a young woman skater -- whom he met while attending a conference in Montreal -- home to his lair in the California Central Valley was a good idea -- it was a predictable story. What was not predicable was that years later his father would take a visiting professor job at Calgary, acquire a cabin in the Bow River Valley, and purchase an assortment of clothes from the LL Bean catalog.

"In just a few days, the LA Kings open their season at home against the NY Islanders. I wanted to tell Genevieve that on that day Casey-Marcel St Pierre will be on the roster."

"Good news". Griff was aware that the perennial Canada West champion Calgary Dinos were one of the few Canadian University hockey teams who were noted for sending players to the NHL -- in a system where skaters were usually drafted much earlier. "What did my mother say?"