Last night I went to John’s to watch the Colts-Pats game. Because both teams were undefeated and, by a large margin, the best teams in either conference, it was billed as the Match of the Century, a Clash of the Titans, a Spectacle the Likes of Which We’ve Never Seen. (Well, not since red robot took out blue robot with one punch to the jaw in a Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots World Title bout in my backyard in 1972, anyway).

Five of us watched the game together. John and his wife Elisa, Nick and his wife Laura, and me. Two white couples and a white guy.

Sometime during the game there was a commercial for an SUV. The family in the commercial was black. Two adults (heterosexual, of course), two boys and two girls, as I recall. They all piled into the SUV for a drive and the camera angle changed to a shot from the back of the SUV - ostensibly to show this happy family of six in their roomy SUV and how the SUV promoted togetherness and happiness, family bonding and joy.

The SUV sported two flip-down TVs - one each for the front and rear benches. The two younger kids sat on the front bench watching a cartoon. The older kids sat in the rear watching hockey.

At this point Nick said, “Black people. Watching hockey.”

“I say it’s not happening,” I said. Nick nodded his head. John did too.

“You need to check with Bernard on this, Michael,” said John. “Get a ruling.”

I called Bernard this morning and told him about the commercial. He laughed.

“Hockey?” he said. “Hockey? Nooooooooo…”

“That’s what we thought, too, Bernard.”

“Well, we have had a couple, you know,” he added.

“Grant Fuhr, yes, but that’s it that I know of.”

“I tried ice skating once,” said Bernard after a pause. “It didn’t go well. My body went one way, my glasses another…” and while he’s speaking I’m picturing Bernard, a very sharp GQ-style dresser, doing the splits in fine twill pants, his arms waving wildly from inside his cashmere black turtleneck, with brightly polished skates covered in snow, bending his ankles at impossible angles while his rakishly-angled driving cap sails across the ice like so many octopi at a Red Wings game.

I’m reminded of a slow Saturday back when I was in college. It was my first year at UC Davis and I was at a friend’s house killing the day in front of the tube. A commercial came on showing a bunch of redneck white guys jammed into midget go-karts, steering wheels up between their knees, racing around a bumpy dirt track. Margo, a black woman, looked at me and then back at the TV, her face expressing utter incomprehension.

“I just don’t get you folks,” she said as she watched the ridiculous-looking midget go-karts zoom around the track. “White people will race anything.”