The Titans had their first preseason game last night. It was hot, Vince Young didn't play, and there was a drunken hussy next to me that kept grabbing my thigh and screaming in my ear every time something happened. (I know, usually that's a good thing, but not when your girlfriend is sitting on the other side.) Half way through the second quarter, I realized that I missed hockey. With six weeks to go before the NHL cranks up and the Predators make their run at the cup, I feel pretty deprived. The more I thought about it, the more perplexed I became. I love hockey, but I was definitely not raised in a hockey climate. I knew who Wayne Gretzky was, but that was the limit of my hockey acumen. That all changed about three years ago when I attended my first professional game. After that I was completely hooked.
Since hockey is a distant fourth among American sports fans, I am making it my mission to introduce more people to the joys of the greatest game out there. The best way to make converts is to get people to attend a game. That's all I ask. Go to one game. Watching it on TV doesn't count. It's way to hard to follow on the tube and you completely miss out on the atmosphere. How do I convince you? Let me break it down in a sport by sport comparison.
FOOTBALL
What is it that you like about football? The physicality? The hitting? The virtual armour that the players wear in what is nearly a simulation of hand to hand combat? Perhaps you like the team aspect. Football has been called the ultimate team sport. Success depends upon everybody taking care of their assignment. If one person fails, the whole thing breaks down. Hockey is every bit as physical as football. These guys slam into each other, ram people into the boards that line the rink. I have see some fantastic collisions in hockey that leave both players out cold on the ice. Like football, hockey is also a team sport. Every player is a cog in the machine. If one person misses their assignment, the other team scores. Hockey has everything that football has and more. When you go to a hockey game, you are often close enough to hear the collisions, feel the glass rattle, see the nuances of the game. With football, unless you are made of money, you are usually so far removed from the game that you would really be better off watching it on TV.
BASKETBALL
I often hear people discuss how the action is non stop in basketball. Things constantly move. Welcome to hockey. Like basketball, hockey players spend most of the time moving from one point to another. Hockey players rarely spend more than two or three minutes on the ice at a time, that is how intense the game is. You miss it on TV, but the players are constantly swapping out to avoid exhaustion. Do you like the skill it takes putting the ball in the hoop? Imagine trying to shoot a round piece of rubber into a net that is not much wider than the player camped out in front of it. Now that's skill. All of this is also done not in rubber soled shoes, but while standing on a thin pair of metal blades that rest on an almost frictionless surface. Have you ever tried to ice skate? Now think about playing basketball on ice skates. That's hockey.
BASEBALL
I love baseball. It's a fantastic spectator sport. However, or many the pace is too slow. Hockey certainly doesn't have that problem. Most of the skill in baseball revolves around either hitting a fist sized ball hurled almost one hundred miles an hour in your direction with a thin piece of wood or catching said ball while running at full speed. Holy smokes hockey has that in spades. A hockey stick is a fraction of the size of a baseball bat. With that small piece of wood, the player has to catch a frozen hunk of rubber passed through the legs, sticks and bodies of the other team. He then will hurl that hunk of rubber at great speeds at the poor sod sitting in goal. If he's good, he gets a goal. Baseball is mostly hand-eye co-ordination. Hockey is all hand-eye co-ordination.
Give hockey a chance. One game. If you don't like it after going to one game, then at least you won't dislike the sport out of ignorance.
See you at the game.
