What are some hockey touchstones?

What makes you think of hockey, or puts you in a hockey frame of mind? What are some things unique to hockey?

The sliding-grinding sound of skates biting into the ice for a hockey stop.
Shaking hands at the end of the game.
Banging sticks on the boards after a good play.
The smell at the rink.
Wider use of the phrase "hat trick."
"ZAMBONI"!!!
Missing teeth?
Mullets??

Just thinking about the things hockey has given or promoted into the larger culture, beyond our sport. We play hockey, we live it, we're in the middle of it. So, I wonder what people OUTSIDE the sport come up with when they think about hockey.

I love the smell of the arena when you get to a game really early and no one is on the ice and its quiet and cold and just smells like hockey. So does my goalie gear, but that's a different hockey sent. Or when you're driving through a rural area and see a giant pole shed in the middle of nowhere and you just KNOW its a hockey arena.

This is sort of related - a humorous retelling of a man's first personal attendance at a hockey game, ever. The following is an excerpt taken from a blog, The West Virginia Surf Report (thewvsr.com). It normally has nothing to do with hockey, but I recommend it none the less. Jeff Kay is a brilliantly funny guy. Here are his impressions of the AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins.

For the full piece, go here: http://thewvsr.com/index.php/hockey-and ... ese-sauce/


The Wachovia Arena was just a few hundred yards from the restaurant, and the parking lot was already starting to fill-up when we got there. A team of morbidly obese coal-crackers in fluorescent vests dictated where we could park our car. I did as I was told, and we went in search of the will-call window.

The tickets were waiting for us (thanks again, Brian!), and we zig-zagged our way through the crowd, eventually finding our seats. They were located halfway up the lower section, near one of the goals. Very nice.

Once we were settled, I asked Toney if she wanted a beer. Absolutely was her reply, and I told the woman at the adult beverage trailer I’d take two Yuengling drafts. “Eleven dollars,” she said. “HOLY SHIT!” I shouted, involuntarily.

I realized, at that moment, Toney and I would only be having one beer each. At least until we got home…

The game itself was fun. I don’t know much about hockey, and was amazed at the number of sticks shattered during play. I wasn’t aware that happened so often. In fact, it never occurred to me that it ever happens.

But every ten minutes or so we’d hear a loud crack, and one of the players would drop their ruined hockey stick to the ice. They’d just get rid of it, wherever they happened to be, and someone would have to skate out and retrieve the thing.

One of the Penguins players has a last name of Satan (pronounced suh-tan). And clearly, he’s the most popular member of the team; every time the announcer mentioned his name, the crowd went wild. Those people just couldn’t get enough of ol’ Satan. Personally, I’m partial to Hitler (with a silent T).

There were plenty of fights, small skirmishes really, which never failed to bring the crowd to its feet. At one point there was a splattering of blood across the ice, and the Penguins’ goalie used his blades to create bloody slush, then dragged it to the edge of the ice. And he did this like it was no big deal, just something that needs to be done from time to time.

The shit is brutal.

The action was fast and physical, and fun to watch. When the Penguins scored a goal, however, I was almost jolted into cardiac arrest. A full-blown locomotive horn went off, just impossibly loud, and I’m sincerely amazed my rectal seal didn’t blow. Sweet Maria.

Following the incredible blast of noise the crowd stood, as one, and started in on some kind of freaky ritualistic response. There was chanting, hand signals, and glazed looks in everyone’s eyes. It was all choreographed, and automatic, and slightly disturbing.

But overall, it was a good time. It certainly wasn’t boring, and even though there’s an insane length of time between periods, the time went by quickly. Not once did I look at my wrist, where a watch should be.

So, that was our night on the town. And now that we have one game under our belts, I have no doubt we’ll return. It’s a good way to spend an evening with the family.

Things unique to hockey .......

- The loud, kind of dull, "Ping" of a hard slapshot off the post - can't think of any other sound quite like it.
- Also the loud "Crack" of a high slapshot that missed the net and hit the glass behind.
- When a goal is scored at a critical point of the game (sometimes even at a non-critical point) - everyone on one of the benches, or in the arena of a public home game, instantly jumping up all at EXACTLY the same time.
- "Playoff beards"
- The starting line being the only ones from a team out on the playing surface when a national anthem is played ?? (not sure about that, but haven't noticed it in any other sport)

One thing uniquely hockey, at the higher levels, is the insanely loud horn sounded when a goal is scored. Be it a train horn as metioned in the blog, a fog horn at the X, or the huge ball of flame in Calgary, hockey is the only sport to celebrate a score in that fashion. Lacrosse is similar but they play music throughout the game.

What other sporting event do people attend in hopes of seeing a fight break out (or go to a fight and a hockey games breaks out). No other sport condones or allows that kind of conflict between players. Heck, is 'fisticuffs' even part of the lexicon of any other sport or actually in the rule book.

A foundation that every hockey player knows about and most love is the smell of the rink once you enter the rink itself. There is no other smell like that of fresh ice or the propane powered zamboni any where other than at an ice rink. Many parents I deal with that are new to hockey typically make at least a passing comment about those two smells the first couple times they are exposed to them.

One thing I hear quite often, especially in the summer, is "why do you want to play a sport which requires freezing your a$$ off the whole time?" I've froze more than once on the ice as a coach while inside a nice building like BIG, not to mention some of the cold areans. People not involved with hockey cannot understand why players subject themselves to that kind of environment, but players get it.