Hockey, anyone?

[peter cornbriar]

It's that time of year again, when people gather to try to keep an eye on an oversized rubber jack pad get pushed around at impossible speeds using long curved broom handles wielded by overdressed men wearing outfits 4 sizes larger than usual, enjoying the occasional brawl or two. with the opposing , overdressed team. Only sport known where players get publicly humiliated for grievous poor sportmanship by making them sit in a penalty box, likened to being told to sit in the corner classroom with dunce cap.
I'm an AHL fan, too poor to buy those NHL tickets where similar men do similar things.
I enjoy watching the Hershey Bears slog it out teams from such remote places as Buttsville, Missouri.
How about y'all?

 

[Zeno Marx]

I'm a big fan of hockey, but... I lost some interest when the league went from mailing out videos to all the teams when someone was caught flopping so they could use embarrassment as a motivator to not do it. I don't know when that was though. At that point, it was like the NBA adopting the star system and the various ways professional athletes fudge the system. Hockey was the last to still have integrity in that way, but then the last veil was dropped for m.

I grew up in a small town in middle America, so hockey was really at almost the same level of "exotic" as bicycling and rugby. We were lucky to catch a UofW-Madison game on the fuzzy Wisconsin PBS station from our rooftop antennae. I was a natural skater. I'm told when I was 5, they strapped on some skates, and while they were tying their own skates, they lost track of me. I'd started skating on the rink that was still not shoveled from the recent snow fall, so they thought I was just still walking on the grass. We had our own tiny bit of grass my dad had flooded for us to skate. I almost moved before high school so I could go play hockey...having never played hockey, so it was all a dream that I'd be any good at it. Really, it was a silly idea from people who knew nothing about the sport. Just to say I have a special connection to the game, even if it was all so ridiculous. Having played football, experiencing all the meatheadedness and caveman tendencies of that culture, I'm very, VERY glad I never actually did play hockey. Not having that direct experience with what I call ******* culture, I can still enjoy the game of hockey, and I really appreciate that. It's a fantastic game, but I know 100% for a fact that it is just like football culture, if not worse. Ignorance really can be blissful.