I have a special love for playoff hockey. It’s true, I’m not a die-hard fan most of the year, but I do love to jump on the bandwagon for the playoffs – and playoff hockey is inextricably intertwined with Simon in my heart.
Once again, our beloved Senators are thick in the hunt for the Cup, having easily stickhandled past Tampa Bay into round two of the playoffs. Should be a great weekend to catch a game, right?
Wrong. Scotiabank Place will be a busy mecca to fans of another kind this weekend. Hockey Night in Canada won’t be broadcasting playoff games from Ottawa this Saturday and Sunday because Dora the Explorer has the place booked solid for five sold-out shows. Did you catch that? Five. Sold. Out. Shows. The first four sold out almost immediately, so they added a fifth. They speculate they could have easily sold out a sixth show at this, Ottawa’s largest entertainment venue. Yikes!
My boys like Dora. Tristan won’t admit to it, and in fact actively states he doesn’t like her, but they tend to sit riveted in front of the TV for the entire 21 minutes she is on, yelling words in Spanish that I hope are not obscene. But personally, I can’t stand her. I can’t stand the video-game-esque flavour of the show with the arrow pointer and the clicking, and I find her grating at best. Yes, I happily forked over $200 to bring the family to see the Wiggles, and we’re spending another small fortune to go on another Day Out With Thomas adventure this summer, but you couldn’t pay me enough to sit through a Dora stage show. And I’m perfectly content with that hypocrisy, thanks.
Here’s some interesting Dora tidbits gleaned from the Ottawa Citizen this week:
* Dora was watched by 21.9 million people in November 2005, including 5.6 million kids between the ages of two and five.
* Dora licenced merchandise is the fourth Nickelodeon property to reach one billion dollars in sales, after Rugrats, Blues Clues and SpongeBob SquarePants. (What is it about Nickelodeon? I don’t mind Blue’s Clues, but why is it that these other shows that are both the most popular and the most unbearably annoying shows on TV? Why??)
* Dora is seen in more than 74 countries in 15 languages.
I dunno. Personally, I’d rather be watching playoff hockey. Oh, and my condolences to the Habs fans out there.
Go Sens Go!!
With the Caps not even in the playoff race, I must root for my favorite Canadian hockey team (and probably my 2nd favorite team): Go Sens!!!
(and I’m really glad the Leafs didn’t make it because I can’t STAND that team!)
With ya on Dora. XM Kids has a Dora-fied version of “La Bamba” on heavy rotation, which I’m fairly sure is one of the Biblical warning signs of the apocalypse. Worse, The Boy likes it.
Gotta disagree about SpongeBob, though. The Boy and I laugh out loud at that, and there aren’t many shows we both find funny. When one of us is in a bad mood, we’ll call the other a Crabby Patty, which has a way of forcing one to get over oneself.
Yesterday, The Wife confessed that she mostly likes minor league baseball because she likes to look at the players. Sigh. I feel so used…
Yes, Nancy, there were many cries of joy the day the Leafs dropped out of the race!
Dean Dad – I’m laughing out loud. Maybe you could get a summer job as an A ball player? I mean, you probably have your summers off anyway, right?
I have no more tears to cry over my sweet, beloved and dear departed Habs. They dried up 4 years ago. But like a bad boyfriend, I still go back every October.
Now Dora, she gets on my bloody nerves. Thankfully Amellia has no use for her. Of course she really has no use for TV. The only thing she will watch for a grand total of 4 minutes is CBC’ Dragon Tales. I admit that I turn it on to see what those crazy kids and dragons are up to today. When I dropped Amelia off at the caregiver’s today, the oldest boy (3.5 yrs) comes out singing “Amelia missed Dora…too bad, so sad”. Over and over and over again until the caregiver ever so gently reminded him that Amelia doesn’t really care.
GO SENS GO!
I’m not a dora fan and (bad mommy) have never taken my boy to anythinglike that. I took him to see Clifford once and he was not impressed.
OH well.
And may I say again
GO SENS GO!
go sens!
dora? what’s dora? all the blissful ignorance of the childless… 😉
The morning show on the Bear this morning had a wonderful idea to get Dora to play the pregame party Friday night. They had Boots drinking lots of Canadian and doing very bad things.
Our 5 year old daughter was once obsessed with Dora and I thought about taking her, but when I say the prices I nearly passed out!
Hey girlie, you’re stepping on some mighty big toes when you say that Spongebob is annoying. I can agree with the other shows mentioned, but Spongebob? Come on. One of my favourite lines, “My best friend is Patrick. He’s pink.” Danigirl, I think you need to spend a little more time in Bikini Bottom.
And you say *I* need to get out more, Batman???? < wink >
Also laughing at Chantal, and Jojo’s “like a bad boyfriend, I go back to them every October.”
You guys are cracking me up today!
We are going to see Dora on the 29th of June. A whopping 125.00 for 3 of us to go.
Northern Ontario is a split between The Leafs and The Habs. During the last playoffs (2004?) I had to dress Jo in a Leafs Jersey when the Sens lost out to the Leafs…
Go Sens Go
or as Jo would say “Go hockey Go”
Barb
21 minutes of Dora = 19 minutes of blogging and 2 minutes of guilt, which I spend re-filling my coffee.
As a former resident of Buffalo, we used to have a saying, which I will now apply to Toronto:
“Go Leafs Go! (and take the Raptors and the Jays witih you!)”
(Thank you, thank you. I’ll be here all week)
my boys loved Dora too (when they were younger) but wouldn’t admit it. I loved her because it was the only 21 minutes of peace that I got.
I . . uh . . really like Dora, her big brown eyes and all. Boots too.
(blush . . . )
Leafs fan here, still cheering for ANY Canadian teams still in the playoffs. JoJo and I are in similar relationships. I still keep going back.
What I want to know is who was the smartass who booked Dora at the Scotiabank Place on a week-end smack in the middle of hockey play-off seasons? Has this person now been fired?
We are in full hockey play-off mode here. It’s the only thing we are watching on TV anymore. We have the flag on our vehicle, the kids are sporting their jerseys and have some Sens tattoos (the non-permanent types of course). They even used chalk to write a huge Go Sens Go on the driveway!
With my oldest, we lived through sequential infatuations with Fred Penner, Marie Soleil, BLues Clues and Arthur. Thank God she never liked Barney 😉
Now with the twins we went from Baby Einstein videos to Dora and may I conquer with the others that the close to half hour spent with her leaves me with an equal amount of free time. Priceless. Now, as they are still refusing to watch TV during the day (sigh) their actual exposure to the visual Dora has greatly diminished. Dora books are more the norm now.
When we were in the States on holidays this past March they started watching on teh Disney channel Dora which was followed by Diego, that’s right Dora’s cousin who goes out to rescue animals followed by a new show that totally captivated them: Little Einstein. They keep singing the song and asking when we’ll get to see it here.
Now Dani, please don’t hate me, But I’m one of those going to see Dora on Saturday afternoon. Should have seen teh look on hubby’s face when I told him I got him a ticket too, not impressed. And btw, the tickets were 18.37$ each, much cheaper than a hockey game 🙂
We like Dora, and Diego too.
We like the Sens. A LOT.
We love the Habs in this house. We have all the garb, the driveway chalked with Go Habs Go. When my dad told B this morning that the Habs lost and were finished playing for a long time, he cried. Real tears. Like, for real!!
As much as we like Dora, I don’t figure the tears would be there. He would just ask “Can we watch Diego now?”
oops, forgot to add something last night:
“…the tickets were 18.37$ each, much cheaper that a hockey game…but I’m sure nowhere near as exciting for us all!!!”
so…back to Dora.
Am I the only one wondering what kind of parents allow their preschool age daughter to have only a monkey for a friend and to have to fight off crocodiles and other dangerous creatures as she journeys alone through the jungle?
There is an episode where she has to go to a soccer game and in order to get there, she has to careen down some river rapids and escape poisonous snakes! Couldn’t her parents have taken her and cared enough to stay for the game?