The Breadman’s Quest for the Stanley Cup

I usually stop following hockey once the Vancouver Canucks miss or exit the Stanley Cup playoffs. Not this year, though. I’m over the 10-year hockey malaise that overcame me after the Canucks lost the Stanley Cup to the Boston Bruins in 2011. I’ve had low moments in my life, but that loss and the grim riots that followed were a hard pill to swallow. I went into a hockey tailspin.

The Canucks have had mixed success since those days, and they just about made the playoffs this year. The new coach and the emergence of several promising players seemed to build exciting chemistry. They ended with a heroic run over the last half-season and barely missed the cut this time.

Next year, things are looking good for the Canucks, with new management and a desire to build on their success in the last half of this year. I’ve found my hockey mojo!

Hockey’s exciting again!

I’ve even paid close attention to the other teams in this year’s playoffs. This past weekend, the poor old Toronto Maple Leafs were eliminated in the playoffs’ first round. And there is excellent drama upcoming as the two Alberta teams, the Edmonton Oilers and the Calgary Flames, face each other in the second round.

I don’t follow the Eastern teams much, but the fun thing about the year-end playoffs is that all the teams face each other. You learn these strange names like Zibanejad, Stamkos and the like.

Being a bread baker, I’ve chosen my favourite team to win in the East: The New York Rangers.

Enter The Breadman!

Why? You might well ask. One of their stars, a Russian player named Artemi Panarin, scored the overtime goal last Sunday against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Yup! Panarin’s overtime tally eliminated Sidney Crosby and the Penguins!

His nickname: The Breadman!

Panarin was affectionately nicknamed The Breadman by his teammates and fans because his name resembles the popular U.S. restaurant chain, Panera Bread. He’s a reasonably prolific goal-scorer. The sport badly needed a representative from the baking world. Our man Artemi is a worthy owner of the title.

So I’m backing him and his team, the New York Rangers!

A Putin critic and a gentleman

I’ll overlook the fact that the Rangers beat the Canucks in the 1994 Stanley Cup final. And that loss by the Canucks precipitated the first Vancouver hockey riot. I’m backing The Bread Man!

Panarin has been playing in the NHL since 2015 when he was with the Chicago Blackhawks. His goal Sunday was his biggest yet.

A year ago, he landed in some trouble after posting on social media that he supported Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader. A few days later, a former Russian coach accused Panarin of striking a woman when he was a 20-year-old junior player.

Panarin denied the charge. He took a short leave of absence from the Rangers to address the charge, which his agent said was a reprisal for his anti-Putin post.

Panera Bread vs. real bread

Panera Bread, it should be said, has little to do with real bread. It’s a fast-food operation with over 2,000 locations in the U.S. and Canada, mainly Eastern Canada. There are no locations in B.C.

It began in 1987 as the St. Louis Bread Company in St. Louis, Missouri. Through a series of corporate acquisitions and rebranding, it proliferated to become one of the most profitable restaurant chains in the states. It is now owned by the JAB Holding Company, which is in turn owned by a German conglomerate.

It offers a range of bakery products but is more widely known for its soups, pasta, pastries and coffee drinks.

What does “artisan” mean, really?

Panera uses “artisan baked goods” in its marketing materials and online promotions. The company says all products are baked onsite at each location. Still, doughs are mixed at a large central facility in enormous mixers, then distributed to store locations for the final bake “on-premises.”

My image of “artisan” baking has to do with baked goods made by an individual using traditional methods; in other words, handmade. I think of the “The Honest Baker,” the fellow at the shaping bench, loading dough into baskets or pulling beautiful burnished loaves from the oven with a baker’s peel.

Here’s the definition:

Artisan
French artisan, Italian artigiano: -late Latin artitianus,
artitus, pa. pple. OF arti-re to instruct in arts.

1: a worker who practices a trade or handicraft: craftsperson a skilled artisan.

2: a person or company that produces something (such as cheese or wine) in limited quantities, often using traditional methods — often used before another noun artisan breads.

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This definition implies that bread made in a factory is not, in essence, artisan. Strictly speaking, Panera’s claim of artisan-made is wrong. Or wrong in spirit.

No one owns English

But no one owns the English language any more than they own the word “artisan.” Corporations can use it in any way they want, even though they’re intentionally inaccurate.

Let’s face it. Most people know the difference between factory bread and artisan bread — especially bread devotees and those reading this blog.

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Long live the Breadman

Artemi Panarin is the real deal. An artisan hockey player, if ever there was one. The Breadman is a catchy nickname, especially for the player who dispatched Sidney Crosby and the Penguins from the Stanley Cup playoffs.

If you search Artemi Panarin’s name online, you’ll find pictures of the youthful-looking fellow standing in front of the bakery display cases of loaves and pastries. Many of the locations are specifically Panera Bread stores.

Yes, he’s shilling for Panera Breads. But he’s proven himself on the ice, and that’s where I embrace the guy and wish him all the luck in his quest to have his name inscribed on the Stanley Cup: The Breadman!

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