Shh-KINK! Blades...of Steel!

Remember what life was like at 6 years old? I lived in Palatine, IL. The address was 1350 Joyce and the phone number was 708-934-1407, back before the 847 area code existed. I can remember that but I can't remember what I had for dinner two nights ago. Sweet consistency, brain.

Anyway, I have two vivid memories from around that time: Tee Ball and rockin the cutting edge video games on the NES.

Tee Ball was glorious. In an effort to forget my infamous pants-pooping debacle in preschool just a year before, I dove headlong into sports and wound up pooping once again, this time all over the competition in the Palatine North Little League. We were the Detroit Tigers (not really) and won the championship that year over the Milwaukee Brewers (who might have been the actual Milwaukee Brewers, that part's a little hazy). I don't remember the exact events of the championship, but I remember a girl on the team and I remember bubble gum. I'm not sure how the two are related. Did she give me bubble gum? Did she take away my bubble gum? Did her parents own Bubble Yum? We'll never know.

But I digress. This blog post is actually about the old school classic Blades of Steel. Sure, it may be a drag to play now, and everyone knows Tecmo Super Bowl is the far superior NES sports title, but tell me that you don't hear the theme music during the pregame skate-around and get transported to a simpler time. I DARE you to tell me that. You can't. The instant that song hits, memories of 1989 suddenly pop up all over the place. Just look at the absurdly-long previous paragraph. Blades of Steel's music did that to me.

The Blackhawks faceoff against Edmonton tonight. Hearing that on the radio driving into work made me think of Blades, and I immediately started humming the skate-around tune in between Tourette's-fueled bursts of the following:

• FACE OFF!
• TAKE THE PASS!
• TAKETHETAKETHE TAKE THE PASS!
• FIGHT!
• AAAAAHHHHHH!!!

In honor of the frozen classic and Blackhawks/Oilers, here's a dynamite video of Blades of Steel in action. The real show happens in the first 30 seconds when you're hit with the soundtrack, but if you actually stick around for the gameplay you'll be able to hear the capslocked statements above from the badass announcer. Technically the video shows Chicago vs. New York and not Chicago vs. Edmonton, but it's just as well. Edmonton's jerseys in Blades of Steel have such an abundance of lemon and lime that they look like the gay Minnesota Northstars. (proof)

Enjoy.