LONDON, UK – Unless British hockey is going through one of its stormy cycles, the summer is a peaceful period of optimism for most hockey fans.
The squad on paper looks decent, the noises from the coaching staff are positive and the new jersey designs look aesthetically pleasing. Good times are just round the corner, or are they? Pro Hockey News takes a light hearted look at some examples of early warning signs that could make the season worse than anticipated.
Rubbish jerseys
You retweeted the designs on Twitter then followed it up with a “Take my money” GIF. This is the year you’ll add tension to the household and add to the vast collection of hockey jerseys sat unworn in your wardrobe – the space that your spouse tells you they desperately need and that your collection is depriving him/her of.
Cash in hand you get to the rink for the first game only to discover that the team are wearing the opposition’s alternative jerseys as the order hasn’t arrived in time. When the new jerseys finally arrive two games in the crushing disappointment follows. Rather than the NHL standard HD digital jersey you salivated over, the new kit would be more at home worn by District 9 in Mighty Ducks.
The name bars on the back are wrong – who the hell is Sm1th? Plus the numbers on the sleeve are different to those on the back. Perfect for fooling the officials, but not so appealing for those players who feel they have to look good to play good.
New player flounce
After the team underwhelmed last year a new star signing has got everyone excited, based on a 30 second YouTube clip and comparisons with stats of other players who played in the same league as they did nine years ago.
“He got similar stats in that league – 4+8 in 34 games, to Chad McZorro who runs the show over here, so ignore his numbers, he’s a match winner”. Alarm bells ring in warm up when a player emerges wearing a tinted visor and number 69 on his back. Did that guy win a raffle and get to skate with the team in warm up? No, that’s the new star signing. Season tickets are non-refundable so don’t ask.
Team spirit on the rocks
It started in the warm up when someone pinged a slap shot off the starting goalie’s helmet, after he just had a summer paint job. With ten minutes still to go he refuses to save any more shots and the back-up goes in to receive another cannon to the mask from the slot. It’s a minor dent to team spirit as the goalies simply head off together to plot how they can get revenge in juice boy in training next week. More worrying is the hip check a defenseman just threw on the likely top goal scorer on a 2 on 1, and the fact the coach has already smashed his first stick of the season before the game has even faced-off. The stick also happened to be the favourite of one of the team’s most superstitious players.
A midweek team building session of paintball is scheduled to try and rescue the situation, but half the team don’t show up and everyone soon realises the equipment guy can snipe a snail on a tree from 800m away. Where did he learn to shoot like that, does he own his own firearm, and does this mean everyone has to be nice to him for a change?
Not so nice ice
Hey Daddy, what’s that black patch down in the corner of the rink, is it a new painted advert or part of the new pre-game light display? No son, the ice is f*cked already, but at least one of the linesmen has skated out confidently with a fire extinguisher to sort it out.
Ten minutes later more people are on the ice, face off is delayed and the linesman is explaining that the fire extinguisher trick “worked a dream” last time and must be “out of date”. In the second period break the Zamboni runs out of gas, floods half the ice and then bores the already tired crowd with an extra dry cut.
The players emerge for the third period wondering what is going on and small children in the crowd are already set to be more irritable than a bee sting on the balls the next day at school due to the late night finish.
Trouble in the stands
You sit at your usual seat and notice some new faces from last year. Immediately you overhear one ask if there will be a fight tonight. Will there be blood? Is it really allowed? When will it happen? If UFC style brawling doesn’t break out at least twice there will be disappointment. Along the row a group three sheets to the wind are also enjoying their first game.
They start a Mexican wave, munch their way through £40 worth of Nachos from the café and shout shoot for two minutes solid on every powerplay. Unfortunately they just rejoiced when a player got flattened and their family are sat right next to them growling. Words are exchanged and the relaxed almost party like atmosphere now has more tension than Stansted Airport security lines during the summer holidays. The group were talking about season tickets ten minutes prior but have done a u-turn in seconds – maybe they’ll be back after Christmas.
New DJ bedding in
After playing the full Now 35 album during warm up, the DJ flicks the wrong switch and the home team skate out to Purple Rain by Prince, which at any other time is a classic but unlikely to get the blood flowing. Shortly afterwards Adele’s Set Fire to the Rain booms out instead of the national anthem and the whole rink is in shock. The players huddle round the net with the captain asking; “which of you clowns emailed the wrong play list to the DJ – we voted on Guns and Roses Welcome to the Jungle.” As the final buzzer sounds the crowd are reeling in pain from listening to 10 second snippets of Now 35 for over two hours.
“If I hear Flava by Peter Andre again, never mind the rain, I’m going to set fire to myself” remarks one punter as he leaves the rink. The DJ later tweets an apology that he had technology issues and would appreciate no one tagging him in for abuse.
Media and backroom problems
Fresh from misspelling the star player’s name on the 10ft vinyl outside the rink the media and marketing team are having a bad time. They’ve already been trolled for overplaying new signings with headlines like “Elite League/overseas star” for players who haven’t posted double figure points totals since juniors and now they’ve been hacked. The team twitter account has just proclaimed the owner’s wife had sex with the goalie and the Instagram feed is posting images of Mia Khalifa – the early years.
Things can only get better, but after the first game someone has called the new defenseman a sack of sh*t under the match report on Facebook and he’s logged on to tell them to sod off. The media and marketing team sit back and reminisce about the pre-social media age when the only feedback they would see would be in the letters page of the Ice Hockey News Review magazine.
Pro Hockey News would like to wish all teams in the National Ice Hockey League all the best for the 2019/20 season.
Contact the author davidcarr_2@hotmail.com
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