Opening night

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 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.