The things no one told me about sports

I embarked on the journey of becoming a sports fan in a state of near-complete cultural ignorance. Well, I say "embarked"; really, it was more like waking up in a pitch-black moving vehicle with a pounding headache and no idea where I was being taken. When had I started spending every second of my free time watching crappy streams of a game I didn't fully understand? Where had I gotten this sudden urge to scream at referees who couldn't hear me? Why did I suddenly care what a 'Fenwick' was?

I had no context for this. None. I'd never watched a sporting event of any kind all the way through. My firsthand experience with live sports consisted of one college basketball game when I was ten (I'd spent the whole time with my nose in a notebook inventing a curriculum for my spy school) and a Kansas City Royals game with my girlfriend's family when I was fifteen (I'd spent the whole time making out with said girlfriend, to general disapproval). Having grown up in the '90s, I was familiar with the name Michael Jordan, but I didn't know what sport he played. For twenty-one years, I completely tuned out everything that registered to my brain as sports-related.

I've met a lot of people over the last few years who came to love hockey as adults, like me. Most of them cite a friend as the impetus for their interest, someone who introduced them to the game and got them excited and answered all their questions. I did have hockey-knowledgeable friends to answer my questions, but nobody sat me down and explained how this all worked. I learned the rules of hockey by listening to the announcers and googling the terms I wasn't familiar with, and then reading Wikipedia articles I could barely comprehend.

It wasn't just the rules, though. I didn't only have to learn this sport; I had to learn sports. I didn't understand what a minor-league affiliate was, or the differences between an owner and a general manager and a coach, or what a salary cap meant. When I found out what it cost to buy a jersey, I was stunned. I got yelled at the first time I went to a WHL game, because no one told me to wait for a break in play to go to my seat.

And no one told me how much I would care.

I knew in the abstract that there were people who cared about sports, but it always seemed kind of performative to me, like they cared about it for the sake of having something to get worked up about. Sports in general always seemed like they existed for the sake of something to talk about, as a point of common interest with which to connect to other people. And yes, that's one purpose they serve; one that by definition is more visible to non-fans than the bone-deep, overwhelming caring I never understood until I felt it.

No one told me how much it would suck. I'd heard sports fans complain about losing streaks, but I'd always assumed it was like when terrible things happened on TV shows I loved--they might hurt to watch, but they were still well-executed, enjoyable in a perversely satisfying way. But no. That is not what it's like. There is no perverse satisfaction when my hockey team loses. There is no enjoyment.

And no one told me I wouldn't be able to dial it down. I never anticipated sitting between two people I love at a show I'd been looking forward to for months, dressed up as a glowing cloud, sullenly stewing over the outcome of a hockey game. You can't shut this off. When you're in this deep, you can't get out.

I've developed new interests plenty of times in my life, but this is the only time I've ever shifted the gears of my reality in a way that helped me grasp a whole slice of the culture I live in that I had never really understood or respected. Becoming a sports fan as an adult has allowed me to be aware of myself and to examine my engagement with the game--not objectively, I am sufficiently self-aware to acknowledge that, but perhaps more mindfully than if I'd grown up with it. And so I'm glad it happened this way. Even if I was woefully unprepared.

You never forget your first

Yesterday I drove all the way to Vancouver to root against their hockey team by myself, because my devotion to the Phoenix Coyotes finally, at long last, beat out my totally reasonable phobia of Canucks fans.

It wasn't actually my first live NHL game. A friend and I got SRO tickets to a Hawks/Canucks game in Chicago last month. But I spent the first half of the game circling the top of the arena searching for a spot where I could see the ice, and the second half being pestered by an entertainingly drunk fellow attempting to involve me in his plot to steal some unsuspecting elderly dude's nachos. I had a blast, but I didn't have much of a chance to really focus on the game. This time, I had a lower-bowl seat and no distractions, and I actually deeply cared about the outcome of the game. It was not the same.

I once had the misfortune of rooting against the Canucks in a Seattle hockey bar during a playoff game, which--combined with that whole rioting thing--led me to expect all kinds of abuse at this game. In fact, the only people who interacted with me directly were a sweet old couple sitting behind me who wanted to chat about where I'd come from, two people who apologized to me for pedestrian near-collisions that were both actually my fault, and a child who saw me plodding out of the arena in my Coyotes gear after the game and apologized to me for his team winning. (God bless Canada.) Everyone was very respectful, far more so than the fans at Thunderbirds games, although that's not much of a bar to hop. Maybe the entire fanbase just Hulks out for the playoffs, I dunno. Anyway, clearly the ragged bloody tips I painted on my nails to warn off attackers were overkill.

It was intense, after years of devotedly watching the Coyotes onscreen, to see them in person. I went down to the glass for warmups, which I didn't get a chance to do at the Hawks game, so even aside from it being my team, it was awesome to be that close to NHL-caliber players doing their thing. But knowing these guys, recognizing every number and face, right there in front of me... yeah, it was a lot. And watching Mike Smith deal out a series of gorgeous saucer passes six feet away from me? Not letting go of that image anytime soon.

Then he played the actual game, and, well. Okay, but here's the thing: I am invested in Mike Smith's success as a goaltender mostly because if he doesn't succeed, I won't get to see him play. I want him to play well, but that's really secondary to watching him play, and while he didn't do great in this game, he sure as hell did him. Puckhandling, pulling risky shit, getting into a puck battle along the boards at one point, and then that hilarious thing he does when the puck is flying way over the net and he leaps two feet into the air to try to snatch it. And he did make some killer saves. I would have liked to see more of them, of course, but honestly, all the rest of it is what I really wanted to see from him.

Some more thoughts from the experience, in approximate order:

• The customs guy at the border into Canada was very suspicious and asked a lot of questions testing the legitimacy of my interest in hockey. I know it's not a good idea to be snarky in that situation, which is the only reason I didn't say, "I don't think today's combinations have been reported yet, but I can rattle off our lineup from Friday's game against Edmonton if you want."
• Canadian cheap-ass beer is a lot tastier than American cheap-ass beer.
• Shane Doan, unsurprisingly, was the one who interacted with fans the most during warmups. He smiled at me, but he did it in the process of skating in between me and Smitty, so I dunno what weird hero-worshippy emotions may have accidentally caught him in the crossfire. Sorry, Doaner.
• Vancouver's ramp-up video was truly ludicrous. And I saw Chicago's ramp-up video.
• The anthems were sung by Ugandan kids. It's already pretty silly to involve patriotism in a sport where the composition of nationalities on a team has essentially nothing to do with the actual location of the team, but when you present the patriotism by way of people from another continent, the pointlessness is overwhelming. They were cute, though.
• Rogers Arena contains an unsettling number of white people. I don't think I saw a single non-white person in the crowd the entire time I was there.
• I think it is illogical and counterproductive to distract your team with noise mid-game, especially at key moments when focus is crucial. Yeah, guess who was screeching her fool head off when Kennedy and Halpern had a golden opportunity three minutes into the game. I screeched a lot, actually. Sigh. I'm giving myself a pass for first-time enthusiasm.
• I screeched accurately, though. I wasn't the person in my section yelling "Shoot!" when the puck was behind the net. I did at one point say "Nice keep!" right before the ref whistled it offside and got a few smug looks, but the ref was in fact wrong and Michalek did in fact keep the puck in. (I checked GameCenter just now to be sure I was right on that--yep--and was amused to hear McConnell also compliment the keep on the play-by-play in that same split second before the whistle sounded.)
• I thought this game would be low-scoring, since the Coyotes haven't been great offensively lately and the Canucks have been awful, and the last time these two teams played each other the score was 1-0. But no, Vancouver was so trigger-happy that they weren't satisfied with scoring on just one net; they were the perpetrators of two of the three goals credited to Vermette. Thanks, guys!
• It was cool to see the team interactions the cameras don't pick up. Like when Smitty slid his empty water bottle across the ice to the bench and somebody slid back a full one, and it broke open when it hit his stick. And the kinda douchey way they all skated around treating the ice crew like an obstacle course during commercial breaks.
• Our penalty kill continued to kick ass, as it's been doing lately. That said: Jesus Christ, guys, stop taking penalties. Especially right before the end of regulation. I wasn't screeching during the 4-on-3 in OT because you have to be able to inhale to screech.
• I wish Klinkhammer had been out there instead of Bissonnette. BizNasty can be fun on the interwebs, but he is not a reason to road-trip alone across international borders. The Colonel is a player whose on-ice success I'm actually invested in, and I was bummed that he got scratched.
• One thing it's hard to really get a good sense of on TV is speed. Brad Richardson, incidentally, can fucking book it.
• A Canucks fan behind me was confused about why everyone kept booing their goalie when he made saves. I think this should have been grounds for jersey confiscation.
• I am so fucking frustrated with our zone entries. Sometimes I turn off the sound when I'm watching the Phoenix feed on GameCenter because Tyson Nash is such an idiot about it. "Dump the puck! Don't get fancy!" No, we already dump the puck way too much. Please, get "fancy" and make an effort to actually maintain possession on the way into the zone.
• The game-winning goal was a rebound off a really nice save that I was already applauding when the puck went in. Urgh. But our possession was better, we came back from a two-goal deficit twice, we took it to OT, and Vermette got first star of the game, so. Not the worst Coyotes game I could have chosen for my first.

I can't afford to visit Vancouver every time my team plays there, but man, after this I wish I could. Or that expansion would come through for Seattle. Come on, Bettman, I would make such terrible financial decisions for you if you'd just give me the chance.

Let's celebrate; it's all right

And that is all I have to say about Nail Yakupov and his goal-scoring-related joy.

A haiku exchange on the subject of goalies

Me:
Crawford worries me
but with Keith in net with him
like that, he'll be fine.

Mike S:
The Hawks have spent lots
Of money on goalies with
Erratic results. 

Me:
If you think that that's
what "erratic" and "lots" mean
watch more Philly games.

Mike S:
I am a man of
Sturdy constitution, but
I have my limits.

Another girl's guide to watching hockey

Hey, women who are unfamiliar with hockey! Intrigued by the game and want to check it out but don't know where to start? As a woman who used to be unfamiliar with hockey myself, I'm here to help! Just follow these simple guidelines:

1. Develop an interest in hockey, despite the myriad assurances flying at you from all directions that it's too violent, too complicated, and not meant for you.

2. Find someone who knows hockey to watch some games with you and help you learn the basic rules. Based on my personal experiences with hockey fans outside the internet, there's about a 40% chance that this person will be female.

3. Tell your friends who are into hockey that you're getting into it too. Try to gracefully handle the men who joke about your desire to "get into" whatever player you name as your favorite. (Or handle them ungracefully. Depends how much you value the relationship. You're probably used to making that kind of call in your everyday life.)

4. Find some good hockey writers to follow. These will be more like 15-20% female. (Katie Baker is completely fabulous and should definitely be on your list. And even though she knows her shit cold, she gets the same crap you'll get.)

5. Watch a whole shitload of games. Google terms as you come across them. Pay attention to where the players are on the ice in relation to the puck. Learn the names of the best players, the GMs and coaches, and the different announcers. (None of these people will be female. None. 0%.)

6. Never, ever, ever click on anything from hockey PR or mainstream media that says it's written for women.

How the NHL is like the word "fuck"

There's something special about "fuck." It draws four-figure fines if you say it in the wrong place; it increases pain tolerance; it can even provoke human reaction from a crowd dead-eyed and paralyzed by Nickelback. (I will never get tired of that clip.) It's nothing inherent in the noise itself, of course. "Fuck" has power because we give it power. English-speaking society has agreed that this word means something important, and that's the only reason it does.

The particular group of 30 independently-owned teams that currently comprises the NHL doesn't make the league special any more than the particular group of phonemes that comprises the word "fuck" makes it special. Talent is part of it, but that isn't the cause of the NHL's appeal; it's an effect, as the league's reputation draws the best players. The actual root of the appeal is in the shared experience of the people who have agreed, as a society, that the NHL is the pro hockey organization that matters. Team allegiances shift, individual players come and go, but we stick with the league as a whole--through thick, thin, and lockouts aplenty--because it's the one we all know. Being a sports fan is a very social activity; we need that shared experience.

I was going to watch some KHL games during the lockout. I looked up the schedules for the days when Dynamo Moscow went up against Metallurg Magnitogorsk, so I could see Malkin face off against Ovi. I never got around to it. I did attend a WHL game with some friends--and we spent it talking about Shea Theodore's future and explaining the NHL draft to the hockey-oblivious British friend I dragged along. We have plans to go to another WHL game soon, to see Seth Jones play; I'll probably spend a good amount of that evening checking score updates on my phone for the Canucks/Blackhawks game I'll be missing. I watched World Juniors religiously, and I like to think I would have done so for the quality hockey even if the players weren't NHL-bound, but I can't honestly be sure.

It's not that non-NHL hockey can't be perfectly worthwhile. It's not as good in technical terms, usually, but that's not the reason we stick with the NHL. It's that this league--its teams, its players, its narratives--is the one we all know. I love the game of hockey, and I will happily watch it for its own sake, but sitting curled up on my couch at six in the morning watching a KHL game by myself isn't nearly as satisfying as sitting curled up on my couch at six in the morning watching World Juniors and using the commercial breaks to chat on IM and Twitter with friends watching the same game. And no KHL game, no matter how beautiful the plays, can beat out the experience of watching NHL games with people who know and care about the teams involved, who trade commiserating glares at the mention of Bettman's name and grins at the mention of Luongo's.

In the attention economy of a social hobby like sports fandom, the league that people pay attention to is the best one by dint of attention paid. No one cares about non-NHL leagues because no one else does. It's a frustrating catch-22 for some, perhaps, but on a large scale it makes sense.

You Can Play (to your audience)

Patrick Burke recently published a piece on Deadspin called "What Would Jesus Do About A Gay Teammate? A Christian Response To Torii Hunter’s Comments". It addresses the question of how Christian athletes should treat gay teammates based on biblical doctrine, given the premise that gay people are in fact sinners.

I was iffy on this when I first read it. I don't like the premise that gay people are sinners, and I don't like people who accept it. I don't like arguing with those people on their terms, or giving them the impression that I find their views regarding the hellfiery fates of sodomites legitimate enough to use as a platform for debate, even as a thought experiment.

But here's the thing: I'm not supposed to like it. I'm nothing vaguely resembling the target audience of this article. I spent hours grinning the day I found out that You Can Play even existed; they do not need to waste their energy on material designed to make people like me happy. It would be pretty damn tough for them to knock me off board with the project. The people they need to reach are the ones who don't already agree with them, and with that taken into account, this Burke piece is really smart.

I wrote a post on my personal blog a while back about how to change minds. I did my undergrad thesis on dual-process decision-making, and picked up a few things about the psychology of persuasion along the way. That post was an attempt to organize my knowledge and integrate my academic understanding of the topic into my own habits. Here are the guidelines I came up with:

1. Don't focus on getting your audience to agree with you right now. If they end up expressing agreement during just one conversation, either they were already on the fence or they're saying it to shut you up. Think of your goal as getting them to continue considering the topic on their own time.
2. Start by getting them to want to agree with you. Think of ways things would be better for them if they were on your side.
3. Present your facts in I-statements--this is why I believe this, it's my understanding that, etc. Don't make it about them. If you used to agree with them, tell them that, and try to establish commonalities. The more they can see you as a peer and not an obstacle, the more likely you are to get through to them.
4. Don't shove evidence in their face and demand a response. When you ask people to consider facts that counter their beliefs, their beliefs actually grow stronger. This probably has something to do with defensiveness. So try to avoid getting confrontational. Give them things to think about, not things to react to.
5. Wait. This can be hard, but really, these things need time to percolate.

Patrick Burke is mostly running YCP like he's read this list. (Aside from the occasional lost temper with trolls on Twitter. But that's understandable, given the shit people throw at him, and hopefully time and experience will help him learn when to disengage.) I'm not Christian or homophobic, so I can't say for sure that the Deadspin piece is effective, but with all this in mind, it looks solid to me. Burke establishes common ground and presents himself as a peer to his audience by outlining his history with religion and addressing the LGBT community in an aside, thereby characterizing them as other (though I'm not sure that was intentional). Then he reaches out emotionally, using the kind of language his audience associates with church and morality, and scatters some specific references to scripture to engage the reader's rational desire for evidence and back up their instinct to agree.

After a lot of thought, I've decided that I like it. But my opinion is, of course, completely irrelevant. That's the point.

How Maria von Trapp would deal with the lockout

Christmas song parodies sung by tonedeaf guys [*]
YMCA danced by goalies of small size [*]
Ovi's head winning a fight with the glass [*]
These are a few reasons hockey kicks ass

When in the playoffs Mike Smith takes a long shot [*]
When Captain Toews bodychecks a poor wee tot [*]
That time your guy made that fucking sweet pass [*]
These are a few reasons hockey kicks ass

The sweet little kid Tortorella's the pal of [*]
The train-wreck career arc of Ilya Bryzgalov [*]
Failure by censors when Lundqvist gets crass [*]
These are a few reasons hockey kicks ass

When the league snipes
When the Fehrs sass
When I'm feeling mad
I simply remember that hockey kicks ass
And then I don't feel so bad

NHLPA Director of Operations talk at Queen's University

Last Thursday I got an e-mail from my friend L, who attends Queen's University in Ontario. She'd just spotted a poster advertising a talk the next day titled "Inside the NHL Negotiations: A View from the NHLPA," given by NHLPA Director of Operations Alexandra Dagg. I begged L to take notes for me, and she came through like a champ. Here's a rundown of the highlights, most of it paraphrased because I don't want to misinterpret L's notes and accidentally attribute an incorrect quote.

The talk was focused on unions and labor relations, since it was put on by the Industrial Relations program in the School of Policy Studies. Apparently they tried to get an NHL player for the talk, but that wasn't viable. So it was just Dagg, who's worked with the NHLPA for a year and various other unions (specifically garment and hotel unions) for decades before that. If you've been paying attention to media coverage of the lockout, you might recognize her as the person who wrote that letter to Canadian Parliament about how this lockout is all the owners' fault. She's also been quoted in various articles about the NHLPA's attempts to get the Canadian government involved in ending the lockout.

Dagg said that in her previous work, the biggest media challenge was drawing attention to the disputes, whereas the NHLPA is surrounded by media. (You can tell she's based in Canada, not the United States.) When asked how the media scrutiny affects communication channels between the union and the players, she said they try not to put things on paper and expect anything written to be leaked. They have a password-protected mobile app for communication with the players, which I hadn't heard about, but they try to communicate confidentially by phone. NHLPA conference calls can have 100 players on them, out of 730 players in the league. (That number sounds low; that must be because only players who are currently under contract are union members. Huh--that must mean free agents like PK Subban and Michael Del Zotto don't get any input into negotiations. I hadn't thought of that.)

Most of the discussion of CBA negotiations was what you'd expect--it's about respect, the players are at a disadvantage, the owners are the ones who started the lockout and they're the ones letting it continue. Dagg said that the league's initial offer was insulting, and she called their organization a "cartel" in her explanation of the reasoning behind the decertification option. There's no real industry competition to draw customers elsewhere, so the NHL can basically do whatever the hell it wants without fear of recrimination. She said there's this assumption that the players have bargaining power because they're the product, but the issue with that is career length--the average NHL career is four years, and 70% of the current NHL wasn't around for the last lockout. They want to get back on the ice while they can, and the owners know it. Also, you have to be pretty rich to acquire an NHL franchise in the first place, so none of the owners are losing their entire income from this.

Dagg cracked the Bettman's-hat-trick-of-lockouts joke (which got a laugh because apparently not everyone spends as much time reading about the lockout on Twitter as I do) and then said, "Bettman doesn't think that's funny." She called Bettman a lightning rod, which I think is a pretty accurate metaphor for the abuse people pile on him that should be directed at the owners. When someone asked a question about the signing frenzies in the summer, Dagg said that the owners need the union to save them from themselves.

In response to a question about mediation (this was last Friday, before the federal mediators were brought in) she said that the NHLPA isn't entitled to it and there's no reason for the owners to agree to it. I know she wasn't going to just come out and say, "oh yeah, mediation is happening next week, keep an ear out for the announcement on Monday," but this answer strikes me as less of an avoiding-the-question type answer and more of an implication that she actually wasn't aware of the imminent development, which kind of intrigues me. Not that it matters, what with the clusterfuck the mediation attempt turned out to be. I still say they should give Arthur Boylan a shot, both because he actually seems to understand the concept of battling depersonalization and because the idea of Don Fehr and Gary Bettman going out for cocktails after work together cracks me up. But I digress.

Dagg talked about the players' charity efforts, mostly in "look how kind and generous the players are, not like those Scroogey owners" terms, but one bit of info stood out: apparently the players have to pay their own insurance to play in charity games. I hadn't realized that, and am now more sincerely impressed by those who played in Operation Hat Trick.

According to Dagg, the NHLPA will pay for the airfare and hotel costs of any player who wants to attend negotiations. This is another reason it's ridiculous for the NHL to try to claim that Fehr isn't being honest with players. Almost 100 players have taken the NHLPA up on this offer at some point; if they can't keep confidential memos from leaking to the press, there's no way those hundred players aren't telling the rest what's going on in the meetings.

In response to a question about Roman Hamrlik, Dagg said that it was her first time dealing with an NHLPA member publicly criticizing the union, and that they try to keep difficult conversations internal, but all players are allowed to have their opinions. She contrasted that with the NHL's quarter-million fines for speaking out. Then she pointed out that Hamrlik hasn't been on any of the conference calls or showed up to any of the meetings, and said that he should come. If I were a player, I sure as hell would.

(Many thanks to L for the detailed notes!)

My Halloween costume: The God Damn Bettman

 

My favorite reaction of the night: "The commissioner of... what? Oh. Sorry, I don't follow football."

(I know the NHL logo is off-center, but the tie was kind of a last-minute idea, and I drew the logo on freehand in about eight minutes. Not sure what I'll do with it now, but it's bound to come in handy at some point.)