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Meet your fellow Colorado Hockey Now subscriber: Ahmed Asif

Published

5 years ago

July 7, 2019

Adrian Dater

AHMED ASIF (@avsanik)

By Adrian Dater

When Ahmed Asif was 13 years old, his parents moved the family from his native Bangladesh to Calgary, Alberta. You want to talk about a culture shock…

Being a teenager is tough enough, but having to move to not only a new school, but a new country – well, that’s probably even tougher. Young Ahmed was a fan of cricket growing up – he was pretty good at it, too – but now he was in a country where hockey was king and cricket was something you only heard at night in the summertime.

Shortly after arrival in Calgary, Ahmed’s father gave him $50 and told him to go out and get something “to cheer you up.” Ahmed went to the mall and got a second-hand copy of NHL 2000 for $49.99 (plus tax, which dad covered, too, with a toonie). Ahmed takes it from here:

“So I go home, install the game and start tinkering with it. Turns out my best “on ice performance” was this team called Avalanche. And I liked the “A” of the logo as my name is Ahmed Asif Anik.

I tried and tried to play with Flames but could never win a game with them. I’d get routed by the PC every single damn time. But with the Avs I’d lose close games. So I kept playing with them over my Xmas break and I got really good with them. I also as a side note found it very funny that the announcer called Roy the goalie “Wa”

I still didn’t follow hockey on TV. Then come spring I found out about playoff hockey. I started following the playoffs and I understood most of it as I played NHL on PC almost non-stop. And lo and behold…we know who won the Cup in 2001. So from that point on it was divine intervention for me to be an Avs fan for life!”

Welcome, Ahmed, to the CHN family, and for the rest of you, don’t be shy to contact him on Twitter.

TAKE FIVE (QUESTIONS)

1. I’ve tried to figure out Cricket before, but can’t get it. How would you describe it to dummies like me? Two teams of 11 players take the field. The team that bats first (2 players in the middle of the field) scores runs facing up to 300 balls. Think of balls as pitching in baseball. Then the second team bats and tries to beat the first team’s score in runs. Runs can be scored in 1s by switching ends at the pitch or hitting the cricket ball over to the field perimeter. If the ball is hit like a home run, the batting team scores 6 runs. If the ball makes it to the field by touching the ground then the team scores 4 runs.

Has any Flames fan talked trash to you when you’ve had your Avs sweater on? Yes, not too many though. Most memorable one happened at the beginning of the game where Joe Sakic scored I think 6 points playing with Ryan Smyth. Needless to say, the fan was quiet for most of the game.

Last book you read?

Lost Symbol – Dan Brown

Do you believe in an afterlife? Umm, no!

If you could go back in time to witness one event as it happened, what would be it (keep in mind, you can’t do anything to alter that history? The moment Howard Carter entered the Tomb of King Tut. I truly think that reaction, if captured in a camera should be the face in every country’s currency.