We Enjoyed It But Have Some Questions
Hockey is to Canada what baseball and football are to the U.S. It’s a cultural touchstone and a massive revenue source for the sports industry.
On game days we see the subway chock-a-block with eager fans in their Canadiens jerseys making their way to the Bell Centre downtown to cheer on the home team. The presence of the Habs (as the Canadiens are called) is constant around town, sometimes as a center of political controversy.
So we needed to do that hockey, if for no other reason than to check it off our Canadian bingo card.
I found some cheap pre-season tix to watch team prospects from Toronto and Ottawa play–I didn’t want to blow a lot of budget on something untried that we might not like.
But even at this level of play, our first hockey experience was exciting, mystifying, LOUD, and exhausting. We didn’t know much about the rules and rituals; we figured some things out on our own, but other items will need explaining, so if you’re a hockey buff please offer your consulting services in the comments.
Honestly, there were many cool moments–literally, as we didn’t realize how chilly the arena would be. At least at this game we weren’t the only rookies in the house.
But rather than provide a blow-by-blow (and there were a lot of blows, we saw four fights in the first period alone), please see these highlights and visuals and curious hockey facts below.
–Our first live-performance “O Canada”! Literally no fanfare; simply done, but I had feels.
P.S. sorry for the potato video, my phone actually did a great job but I had to downsample the video because WordPress.
The first part of “O, Canada” was sung in French, but the big finish was in English.
–Though the NHL and the AFL have started letting a few women to officiate at off-season events, pro hockey has not yet allowed a woman to referee an “official” game. We were lucky to see one of these prospective female refs, Victoria Wells, officiating our match. Check out this article featuring Victoria from the New York Times to learn more.
Hockey officials need to be as fast and fit as the players; we watched refs duck, dodge, jump out of the way of pucks and players, and continuously speed-skate to the heart of the ever-shifting action. Here’s Victoria popping up onto a barrier to get out of the way of play:
–As with many other pro sports events, *extremely* loud music is played whenever gameplay ceases, presumably to keep the crowd’s energy up. We could feel it vibrating our ribs. I think this, along with the cold, was part of why we felt so hit-with-a-hockey-stick after the game. There’s also a massive digital scoreboard overhead that blasts pre-taped player interviews and live segments featuring fans at deafening volumes.
However, the instant the puck is dropped, the music stops so you can feast your ears on the iconic sounds of hockey sticks slapping, skates clattering on the ice, and players body-checking each other into the barriers.
–Some people got to ride on the Zambonis. I want to know whom you have to bribe to get ride on a Zamboni. If I buy a second car it will be a horse, but my third car will be a Zamboni.
–I also want to know what the guys with red shirts and dustpans who intermittently sweep up the “snow” are called.
They appear once or twice a period, skating around the rink to shovel up the shaved ice.
–FIGHTS! Why are they tolerated? I mean, it could be worse but srsly guys. It seems like the fan-favorite hockey-battle move is to wrestle your opponent down to the ice while the referees just wait for you to finish.
I mean, these fights weren’t brutal–no blood or broken teeth or anything–but still, not exactly encouraging good sportsmanship.
That said–fighting has been imbedded in the culture of the game for a long time. Since this was a game for team prospects, I wonder if their fighting chops were assessed as well as their scoring ability. It does seem to be a big part of the North American hockey spectacle.
–One of the prospects was named Hookey. He may also have been guilty of hooking (though we’re not sure what specific hockey crime that is). I hope he ends up a rookie, and one can buy rookie Hookey hockey jerseys someday.
–Caught up in the spirit of the event, we looked at jerseys in the numerous concession stands. You can get sweatshirts and chandails for $70-$150CAD, but the jerseys were upwards of $220CAD so we said naah.
However, the pricey jerseys have a spiritual advantage over mere logo-wear–inside the back collar there is an inscription in French: “Nos bras meurtris vous tendent le flambeau” (“to you from failing hands we throw the torch“), a line you may recognize from “In Flanders Fields,” the iconic war poem written by Canadian John McRae.
–Took me a while to figure out that “LNH” is actually “NHL” in French (Ligue nationale de hockey). This is Quebec, you know.
There’s so much more I want to know. Can you answer any of these questions?:
–If players tripping, hooking, and icing are penalized, how do they have any fun?
–Players just hop over the barriers mid-play to join the game. How do players know when to come off the ice? How does the coach signal them, or do they just decide themselves when they are knackered?
–When one goalie let the puck into the net, some of his team members skated slowly by afterwards and tapped him on the shinguards. Is this condolence, or a warning not to do it again?
–Which is better: a man-mountain goalie who blocks the majority of the net, or a smaller guy who is more flexible and can move faster? We saw both types, each seeming to have advantages and disadvantages. Any stats on the player-size/goals-blocked ratio?
(Also, that goalie knock-knee maneuver must really wreak havoc on the joints, I wonder how many end up on the DL with shredded ACLs.)
–Something we didn’t understand happened in the last few minutes of the game: one of the goalies left the ice and the other team took a shot at an unguarded net just before the horn sounded. What the heck was that about?
In summation: now that we’ve done that hockey, I don’t necessarily feel like I need to do more, but I think I’ll enjoy it if I do. We didn’t fare too badly at our first game, seeing as our sole knowledge of hockey comes from old episodes of Letterkenny and Shoresy (note: these shows are NSFW and not for everyone, but they do feature lots of Canadian cultural in-jokes about hockey et al).
We now know one must dress warmly, bring ear protection, and not plan anything else for the rest of the day. And remember: elbows up! (and knees together, if you’re a goalie).
