Ten minutes into my first beer league hockey game, I was convinced we were going to win the championship this season, because we were the absolute picture of the misfit rabble that bumbles around before the montage in every feel-good sports movie ever made.
About two-thirds of us were wearing practice jerseys with our numbers slapped on in Sharpie, because our jersey orders hadn't come in yet. Very few of us had any idea when to change lines, and very few of us knew each other's names or positions, resulting in constant chaos on the bench. One of my teammates asked, just before hitting the ice, what an offside was. My own first step onto the rink consisted of attempting to jump the boards, falling on my ass, and then slipping and falling again when I tried to get up. The opposing team--a comparatively well-oiled machine with matching snazzy jerseys on every body--had already scored on us twice.
Then we figured out that part of the reason the line changes were so messed up was that two different people were on the roster at two positions, one under their first name and one under their last. I was hastily reassigned to right wing to make up for the nonexistence of multiplicity. We settled on a system of line-changing that seemed to work. And I tossed off a no-look outlet pass that connected perfectly. You know when you have sex so great that you keep drifting off the next day remembering the best parts? Yeah, that pass felt good. Our band of misfits was hitting the montage ahead of schedule.
Alas, life is no movie. After 60 minutes (which actually is 60 minutes in beer league hockey; apparently ice time costs don't allow for intermissions or stopped clocks at stoppages in play), shots wound up being 37-17, and we lost 4-1. At one point we had three players in the box, and we were down 5-on-3 for eons. It was a pretty spectacular shellacking.
But I honestly did not care. I didn't take up hockey to win; I took it up because I love the game, I want to learn it better, and I'm never happier than when I'm on the ice. And I don't know if I can explain this to anyone who doesn't already get it, but when you tumble onto the bench all out of breath after giving your all on a shift, and your teammate whacks you in the shins with their stick and says, "Good job out there," it's... well, it's really something.
Afterwards, in the locker room, the captain read out all the penalties to tumultuous applause and the official bloody foam sword of honor was handed off to our MVP of the game (the hapless goalie). I ended up getting to bed around two in the morning, and woke up a few hours later itching to do it all over again.
Our solitary goal? Scored by #69. I don't know if I can summarize the experience any better than that.
Wednesday, October 7, 2015
Monday, October 5, 2015
Wednesday Night Pretense of Animosity
I’m absolutely fascinated by the cultural implications of this Wednesday Night Rivalry commercial.
It’s a series of slow-motion clips of NHL players winking, smiling, and throwing bedroom eyes at members of opposing teams–at first from a distance and then in the middle of checks and fights–while The Shirelles gently sing:
Tonight you’re mine completely
You give your love so sweetly
Tonight the light of love is in your eyes
Will you still love me tomorrow
Flirting with gay innuendo is nothing new for the NHL, but normally it comes in one of two flavors: no-homo and derogatory. Either it’s slightly uncomfortable teammates laughing a little bit too loudly about their bromances, or it’s used as an insult to put down the opposition.
This is tongue-firmly-in-cheek, but the punch line is not platonic male friendship, and it’s not the inherent undesirability of being perceived as gay. It’s the absolute ludicrous beauty of sports-based animosity. This ad points at the culture-wide shared fiction of rivalries and says, “Guys, this emperor is butt-nekkid. Y’all fuckin’ adore each other.” The implication of homosexuality codes for true affection here, not for weakness.
And it trusts the fans to get that. If the NHL thought a significant number of viewers would interpret this ad as saying “hockey is incredibly gay,” it would not have green-lit this commercial. It could be seen as a PR risk for a major sports league to joke about its stars lusting for one another mid-headlock, and I think just a few years ago this shit would not have seen the airwaves. But now hockey fans as a culture are ready for that joke. They’re ready to quit defaulting to douchery. That’s so great.
Sunday, January 11, 2015
Playing through injuries
NHL players skate injured a lot. It happens particularly often in the playoffs, for obvious reasons--but even during the regular season we're always hearing about guys playing with injuries and making them worse, and I'm sure there are way more that we don't ever hear about. A lot of hockey fans seem to think athletes who do this are admirably tough; I and most of the folks I hang out with think they're pretty dumb.
Well, I used to. Something happened today that shook up my perspective on this a bit. I was practicing eagle turns, a move Sidney Crosby uses during games a lot--I read this Justin Bourne article about it a while back and resolved to master it myself. Which, today, I did! I'd been able to execute the motion in a very slow and wobbly fashion for some time, but today something clicked and all of a sudden I could do it. Smooth and solid, every time.
If you've ever acquired a skill after eight months of trying, you know how awesome I felt. I was on top of the fucking world. I spent maybe twenty minutes just doing eagle turns in little figure-eights in the corner of the rink, quietly glowing with pride. I could do Sidney Crosby's thing! A thing Justin Bourne said he couldn't do! I could do it! I could probably do anything! Hell, maybe I could do a one-foot stop on my right foot now! I'd only been able to do it on my left foot last week, but pfft, last week my eagle turns had been awkward like a newborn deer. Last week was ancient history. I was a new woman.
As it turned out, I could not yet do a one-foot stop on my right foot, and in my excessive confidence I wound up wiping out pretty bad. My leg twisted inward and most of the impact hit the inside of my knee, and it hurt so much that for a few seconds I was worried I'd managed to really damage myself. But even while I was thinking that maybe something was sprained or broken, I was already hauling myself back upright.
In retrospect, that surprises me a lot. I'd have thought I would have the sense to give myself a moment to recover from the initial pain and determine how badly I was hurt before trying to stand up again, especially given that I wasn't in a high-traffic area. But no, in that moment my only priority was getting back up and finding out whether I could still skate. And in reflecting on that, I feel like I have a better understanding of NHL players who play through injuries.
I had been assuming that they did it for external reasons--because it's expected of them, because they're afraid of being judged as weak. And maybe that's true. I don't know what's going on in their heads, and a high-pressure televised professional game is a lot different from a tumble on a public rink. But I know that when I got up and took a stride on a knee I thought might be broken, I wasn't thinking about whether anyone was looking at me. That behavior was completely internally motivated. Mastering the eagle turn left me with a deep, adrenaline-fueled certainty that I can do this, that I am capable, that skating is a part of me; and the possibility of being hurt left me with an urgent need to ensure that all that was still true. I was riding a high of competence, and I had to cling to that.
I still don't think anyone should skate on an injury. I don't think I should have tried to skate on mine so quickly, though it turned out not to be too severe. Pushing through injuries doesn't make logical sense. But... well, I think maybe I get it.
Well, I used to. Something happened today that shook up my perspective on this a bit. I was practicing eagle turns, a move Sidney Crosby uses during games a lot--I read this Justin Bourne article about it a while back and resolved to master it myself. Which, today, I did! I'd been able to execute the motion in a very slow and wobbly fashion for some time, but today something clicked and all of a sudden I could do it. Smooth and solid, every time.
If you've ever acquired a skill after eight months of trying, you know how awesome I felt. I was on top of the fucking world. I spent maybe twenty minutes just doing eagle turns in little figure-eights in the corner of the rink, quietly glowing with pride. I could do Sidney Crosby's thing! A thing Justin Bourne said he couldn't do! I could do it! I could probably do anything! Hell, maybe I could do a one-foot stop on my right foot now! I'd only been able to do it on my left foot last week, but pfft, last week my eagle turns had been awkward like a newborn deer. Last week was ancient history. I was a new woman.
As it turned out, I could not yet do a one-foot stop on my right foot, and in my excessive confidence I wound up wiping out pretty bad. My leg twisted inward and most of the impact hit the inside of my knee, and it hurt so much that for a few seconds I was worried I'd managed to really damage myself. But even while I was thinking that maybe something was sprained or broken, I was already hauling myself back upright.
In retrospect, that surprises me a lot. I'd have thought I would have the sense to give myself a moment to recover from the initial pain and determine how badly I was hurt before trying to stand up again, especially given that I wasn't in a high-traffic area. But no, in that moment my only priority was getting back up and finding out whether I could still skate. And in reflecting on that, I feel like I have a better understanding of NHL players who play through injuries.
I had been assuming that they did it for external reasons--because it's expected of them, because they're afraid of being judged as weak. And maybe that's true. I don't know what's going on in their heads, and a high-pressure televised professional game is a lot different from a tumble on a public rink. But I know that when I got up and took a stride on a knee I thought might be broken, I wasn't thinking about whether anyone was looking at me. That behavior was completely internally motivated. Mastering the eagle turn left me with a deep, adrenaline-fueled certainty that I can do this, that I am capable, that skating is a part of me; and the possibility of being hurt left me with an urgent need to ensure that all that was still true. I was riding a high of competence, and I had to cling to that.
I still don't think anyone should skate on an injury. I don't think I should have tried to skate on mine so quickly, though it turned out not to be too severe. Pushing through injuries doesn't make logical sense. But... well, I think maybe I get it.
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