Most people that know me, know two things for sure. One, I am really into music. I have recorded several albums. Two, I don’t know much about sports. I felt when I was young, I had to choose one or the other and that’s how it went down.
So what the heck am I doing at a hockey game? This story tells it all.
I was just out of college with my first white collar job, Midwest Steel. It was a long commute for me, but I felt like I had finally made it. Don’t ask what they were paying me, I would probably lie. I blush easily.
Some of the guys at work were talking about a Chicago excursion to The Stadium. Yep, a hockey game. What did I know about hockey, for that matter even now? Very little is a generous assumption. There were 12 of us and we rented a bus to get there. On the way and after a couple of beers I learned that a hockey game contains three periods. There are six players on each team including the goalie. The man in the black and white striped shirt, according to my informed colleagues, is the villain and they don’t like him. So naturally, I planned to not like him either.
We arrived a little unruly and a bit loud. Apparently, this is the expected behavior for all hockey fans. I should mention the team we were supporting were the Chicago Blackhawks. That’s important to know too. What happened at that game surprised and shocked me.
There were very few women at the game. This was a MAN’S sport. And the men were mostly acting like boys, boys who should be punished for misbehaving, a lot. I didn’t fit in but I didn’t let anyone know. I can drink and spill beer and cuss like the best of them. I will admit, I was getting schooled on new vocabulary which included a fair amount of grunting and farting. This is acceptable at hockey games.
The Stadium is long gone now, but back then it was a sanctuary for the sport of hockey. And aside from me, every single other person inside had been there apparently hundreds of times, first with their fathers and uncles and then with their friends and some of them now with their children, keeping the culture alive. I had no idea it was appropriate, nay expected, that men would get up and pound war chants on the exit doors all around the stadium. It had a thunderous effect and I wondered what I had gotten myself into.
Beer flowed, and when I say that I mean, it was thrown. Thrown downward toward the rink from up above. If you had a cheap seat up high you got to throw beer on people. If you had an expensive rink side seat, you got to watch a great hockey game up close AND get beer thrown on you. I guess that’s the deal most dedicated hockey fans wanted.
Period one and two went by with a lot of beer throwing but very little scoring from the Blackhawks or the Calgary Flames. I heard a lot of talk about Wayne Gretzky. He was a big player in the 80’s. I got to see him play, so that was cool. But by the third period I had decided I didn’t really like the game so much. The players never seemed to score and the black and white villains on the ice were making it even harder.
Then it happened…
Amongst a stadium full of beer throwing and exit door pounding, the goalies on both teams went into something called a penalty box, at the same time. This is never supposed to happen and it never does, well except for my first visit to a hockey game. Pandemonium broke out and more beer was purchased for throwing. For five long minutes, without replacements, the five member hockey teams went at each other. It was ruthless. I got caught up in the mania. Goal after goal, some from the full length of the rink, flew into the nets. It didn’t stop. Sure madness took over and I got drawn into an icy game that I had never engaged in.
When the dust settled, though I doubt there is much dust on the ice rink, the score was a whopping 12 to 11. Blackhawks win!!!
I love hockey, well a little bit. I love this story though.
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Wish I could have been there. Mike and I won Hawk’s game tickets and tried to give them away, but couldn’t. We went and had the time of our lives in a sky box. What fun.
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