Hockey …. hockey … hockey … hockey

June 4th, 2008 | Posted by PostmanE

Confession: I don’t watch hockey. I know, right? Shocking. That said, I feel like there is a large contingent of people who don’t watch hockey who actively dislike hockey, as if the notion of this sport they don’t watch, played in arenas they don’t attend, is somehow reason to get worked up. Hockey sucks! Ugh! I don’t watch it, but it still sucks! Theoretically! (I find most of these people also hate soccer. So I empathize.)

Anyway. It’s that not I don’t like hockey, it’s just that my time is thinly spread enough as it is, and adding another three-hour-a-night sports obsession is not in the cards. Not to mention, after years of apathy, the sport feels awkward to me. Hockey is foreign enough to me that at a friend’s hockey game in high school, all of my friends — who were attending both to root on our friend and to ironically advance the notion that there was nothing better to do in our hometown in high school than go to a hockey game — started simply chanting “hockey.” Just … “hockey … hockey … hockey.” Etc. To this day, I find it hilarious: how often do you see people, even dumbass high school kids, chanting the very name of the sport they’re observing? It was either a celebration of the fun we were having, or a slap at the sport. I remain convinced it was the former.

Tonight, after just watching the fifth or sixth period of hockey I’ve watched all year, I kinda felt like that again. You probably couldn’t force me to watch a non-live regular-season hockey game any time in the near future, but anyone who saw any of this year’s Stanley Cup would struggle to deny the sport’s entertainment potential. Hockey is back. It just needs is for people like me to realize it.

(Oh, and in case you were wondering, the Red Wings won. I haven’t watched the sport since the mid-90’s, and it’s like I haven’t missed anything!)