Saturday Night is Hockey Night!

Last night I experienced a slice of Canadiana; my first live hockey [ice hockey that is] game. A few of my students were playing for the Nakusp Falcons and they were playing a team from the southern town of Grand Forks.

Now to try to describe Ice Hockey and the way in which it is viewed here in Canada is a little difficult.

Let’s begin with how the game is viewed here. To say that ice hockey is similar to a religion here is not an overstatement. Canadians worship this sport. It unites them as sure as a maple leaf on a backpack. True sporting worship in Australia is difficult to relate to outside of Melbourne. Melbournians would get Canada and hockey. [I once picked up a Geelong supporter hitchhiking from Uluru back to the Yulara accommodation area who claimed he had just climbed the rock. Did he enjoy it I enquired? “Yes I spelled out, “Go the Cats!” in rocks on the top of the rock”, he said, smiling in proud memory.]  Hockey is never too far away from any individual Canadian’s consciousness.

One reason Canadians watch hockey carefully...

Let’s now move to the game itself - I describe it as people moving fast on ice, hitting a hard rubber puck fast, hitting each other quickly, smashing heavily into boards that encircle the ice. There is violence, speed and violence in equal parts. Oh, and they keep score when the puck enters the small net.

Here’s a description from Wikipedia;

“Ice hockey is a full contact sport and carries a high risk of injury. Not only are the players moving at around 20–30 miles an hour (around 30 – 45 km/h), quite a bit of the game revolves around the physical contact between the players. Skate blades, hockey sticks, shoulders, hips, and hockey pucks all contribute. The number of injuries is quite high and includes lacerations, concussions, contusions, ligament tears, broken bones, hyperextensions, and muscle strains.”

“According to the Hughston Health Alert, "Lacerations to the head, scalp, and face are the most frequent types of injury [in hockey].  Even a shallow cut to the head results in a loss of a large amount of blood. Most concussions occur during player to player contact (49%) rather than when a player is checked into the boards (35%). Not only are lacerations common, “it is estimated that direct trauma accounts for 80% of all [hockey] injuries. Most of these injuries are caused by player contact, falls and contact with a puck, high stick and occasionally, a skate blade.” One of the causes of head injury is checking from behind. Due to the danger of delivering a check from behind, many leagues, including the NHL have made this a major and gross misconduct penalty(Boarding). Another type of check that accounts for many of the player to player contact concussions is a check to the head. A check to the head can be defined as delivering a hit while the receiving player’s head is down and their waist is bent and the aggressor is targeting the receiving player's head. Checks to head have accounted for nearly 50% of concussions that players in the National Hockey League have suffered. Concussions that players suffer may go unreported because there are no obvious physical signs if a player is not knocked unconscious.”

So hopefully you will get knocked unconscious?

Anyway, like many sports in North America the combatants were well padded and armed. I use the term combatants advisedly as this quote from Wikipedia suggests;

“Although fighting is officially prohibited in the rules, it is both a source of criticism and a considerable draw for the sport. [snip] Enforcers and other players fight to demoralize the opposing players while exciting their own, as well as settling personal scores. A fight will also break out if one of the team's skilled players gets hit hard or someone gets hit by what the team perceives as a dirty hit. [snip]Crowds seem to like fighting in ice hockey and cheer when fighting erupts.”

And so it was at the local Nakusp stadium. In fact my right ear may never function properly again as I was positioned centrally in the stadium for maximum crowd effect and excited whistles and yells of, “C’mon Boys!” were never far away.

It was, for the most part, an exciting game. The dirty Forks, as many Nakuspians would call them and indeed many well remembering Monty Python fans, quickly got out to a two nothing lead. This was neither what the fans were expecting nor perhaps the players as earlier in the week several school boy players insisted that that Grand Forks were crap and that they would win by about ten goals.

That was not the script for the night’s contest. Grand Forks were leading 3 -1 at the unofficial half time. It was then the fairy tale began. Nakusp coming back. First a goal. Then another, and another. Soon the Forks were trailing and then trailing badly. By the end of the game the Falcons had soared to 8 or 9 to 3 – I’m afraid my interest started to fade as the result blew out to a beyond-doubt victory for the home side.

Needless to say there were high fives, hugs and various attempts at whooping… both from the players and the sizeable crowd that had assembled.  I, myself, smiled.

Earlier that night I also tried my first hot dog within North America. It was good. You have got to love cultural experiences….

Speaking of American culture perhaps Dr Seuss would describe the hockey game thus:

First Fighting Falcons with sticks come.

Then Fighting Forks with sticks come.

Hard puck come.

Fighting falcons fight Forks with sticks.

Fighting Forks fight Falcons with sticks.

Fighting Falcons hit Forks with sticks.

Fighting Forks hit Falcons with sticks.

Sticks hits hard puck.

Forks hit hard puck and hard boards on ice now.

Falcons hit hard puck and hard boards on ice now.

Hard Puck hit boards and Falcons and Forks and ice now.

Now and then puck hits nets gets point. How?

 Well great mates fast skate, sticks hit, don’t wait, puck hits no new sticks, into net it slips.   

And a Merlin was sighted on way home earlier in the day. [Nakusp spp number 53]