Have you ever been to a hockey game? Until this past weekend, I hadn't either. This isn't the most popular sport in the South. In some circles around here there are only two sports; NASCAR and football. I've probably invested no more than an hour of my life to paying attention to hockey, so I wasn't sure how exciting this would be. What follows are some quick observations and thoughts about a game I know nothing about.
As the crowd started coming in, I noticed people wearing hockey jerseys and realized that there are people that really like this game. Then I saw this guy.
With his special cow bell and helmet / beard costume, I knew he had been to at least one game before.
What are the rules of hockey? Well, here's what I figured out.
The object is to make as many goals as possible in three 20 minute periods. How we ended up with an odd number like three is beyond me. Ask a Canadian. Off-sides and high sticking were two rules that I heard about but had a hard time observing on my own.
The action is quick and substitutions seem to happen on the fly. Seemingly at random guys would dive into the little door at their bench and a few other guys would jump over and start skating. The refs seem to be trying to avoid getting beat up as often as they are enforcing the rules. The game feels a little chaotic at times. Once in a while someone would break an unknown rule and get tossed into the penalty box for a specified amount of time.
When I started writing about hockey you expected me to mention violence, didn't you? Uh, yeah. There were plenty of guys getting slammed into the glass / plastic walls surrounding the ring. A lot of times a player would get slammed into the wall and then pinned there for a moment, taking him out of the play, until the puck was slapped toward the other end. Pretty much anytime two guys got near each other you could guarantee one was going to push or hit the other.
When I fight broke out, a rip-your-helmet-off throw down, the refs stood nearby and watched as the crowd cheered them on. I was confused. These guys were holding each others' jerseys in one hand and punching each other with the other. Shouldn't the refs be stopping this? Not until one guy was on the ground and the dominating player was beating him did the refs step in to pull them apart. They were both immediately put into the penalty box for fighting. Right. Put them in the same box after they were trying to rip each other apart.
By the end of the night I was starting to understand some of the basic rules and I knew that hooking had nothing to do with prostitution.
Would I go again? For sure. In one night I more than doubled the amount of time I've ever spent thinking about hockey and had a lot of fun.
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