Monday, April 10, 2006

HOCKEY GONE WILD: The Calgary Streaker!







You are a streaker. There's a problem right there, because just about every single streaker who has ever shucked their clothes shouldn't have. Yeah, there's always something exciting and cool about being a pasty, white, overweight, jiggling body running about. To make things worse, you are going to streak on ice at a Calgary Flames hockey game. You decide to wear red socks. Is that not like wearing socks to streak on a just-polished hardwood floor?

On Thursday Oct. 17, 2002 21-year-old Tim Hurlbut jumped the boards at Calgary's Pengrowth Saddledome late in the third period during an NHL game between the Calgary Flames and the Boston Bruins, falling from the top of the plexiglass only to slip on the ice and hit his head, briefly knocking himself out cold.

Paramedics covered the 20-year-old man with a blanket and after a 6-minute delay, carted him away on a stretcher to a loud ovation. Having regained consciousness, he pumped his hands in the air.
"Streakers aren't necessarily all that uncommon, but people who knock themselves out on the ice in front of thousands of people at a hockey game, yeah, that's a little rare," Emergency Medical Services spokesman Mike Plato said."I felt bad for him, the poor guy. I thought he'd broken his neck," said Flames netminder Jamie McLennan, "(but) once he started acting like a jackass on the way off, you really didn't feel that bad for him."The mother of the streaker was embarrassed by her son's actions. At first, she said she didn't even realize it was her son even after seeing the TV highlights and newspaper photos. But when Jackie Hurlbut's 20-year-old son, Tim, phoned her to explain, she said she was furious.
''I'm embarrassed for all mothers all over the world. I can't believe this is happening,'' she said from her home in Provost. ''He has really embarrassed his mother and that's not right.
''It's not comical. I'd like to be proud of my son and I'm not right now.''
Tim Hurlbut said he needed to buy new textbooks and, when two strangers offered him $200 to jump over the boards wearing only his red socks, it seemed like the perfect solution. But the plan went awry. Three weeks later, the 21-year-old Lethbridge Community College student had yet to see the money, owed $400 in ambulance bills and was facing mischief-related charges of interfering with public property.
The charges were withdrawn and he instead pleaded guilty to being drunk in public and was ordered to donate $2,500 to two charities, to perform 35 hours of community service, and take alcohol counseling. "I was going to be up 200 bucks, but it kind of backfired on me," Hurlbut said. "Now I really can't afford those books."

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