The Penalty Box

Despite living in a Canadian city home to plenty of amateur, professional and semi-professional hockey clubs, I find myself without a lot of hockey fan friends.  Many are aware of the existence of teams in the general vicinity, some hate the sport, others are indifferent and a few have the “yay we won!” crowd mentality.  I know a couple of people who enjoy watching the game and appreciate more than the general concept of “put the circular black disc in the net-like structure.”

Hockey fans are a peculiar lot, a broad mixture of irrational, crazy and general all-around fun loving sort.  If you know of a few (perhaps outside of myself, if you are reading this blog), you may not understand why hockey fans act the way they do.  I figured I would write a small series of posts, called “Better Know a Hockey Fan,” so you might get a glimpse into the psyche of a hockey fan (it’s weird and slightly insane, just to warn you).  There are several types of hockey fans from my point of view, each of which will be a subject of a post.  If you happen to have the good fortune to attend a hockey game or are watching the game with a few hockey nuts, you might be able to spot one of them listed here.  I’m not sure how long this series will last; that will depend on how lazy I get and if I get distracted by other things.
Let’s start with the Poolie.

The Poolie is not unlike a poolie in any other sport.  This guy is stats maniac, but probably less of a maniac than baseball fans.  Let’s face it, other than getting drunk and looking at stats, what else do you do as a baseball fan? Watch the game? Please.  The 7th Inning Stretch is there to wake you up so you can go buy more beer.  But I digress.

The Poolie knows the most up to date stats on any player in the game.  He knows who is on a hot streak, who is on a cold streak, line combinations to maximize points (of course better than the coaches) and knows more about the recovery schedule of an injured player than the player’s wife.  While others are celebrating the clutch goal that just gave their team the lead, the Poolie is waiting for the announcement to see if that third line fringe player he grabbed in the 14th round of the keeper pool run by that guy he knows on an Internet forum got the second assist.  He has memorized the standings in every pool he has entered (what, you didn’t think he would just enter ONE, did you?) and, depending on which pool he cares the most about, will adjust his cheering once he figures out how much closer he is to the third place guy.

When the announcers take a moment to mention a player that’s on a hot streak, the Poolie will either brag about how he picked up that player last week just before the hot streak began or complain incessantly that the only reason the player got hot was that the Poolie dropped him.  The Poolie generally isn’t a fun person to watch games with unless there’s another Poolie watching the game.  Instead of him talking to a room that doesn’t care about that bum who’s done jack all year, the Poolies can discuss benching strategies and injury reports while others can actually, you know, watch the game.

Usefulness: Unless you’ve got an office pool and you want to show up that Poolie that has won the last 3 years in a row, talking hockey with a Poolie is pretty boring and you won’t learn much outside of which players are particularly injury prone or could have bounce back years.

Next Up: The Gambler

Someone please blow up their R&D and marketing departments so they stop douching around with jerseys.

Jim Robson’s call at the end of Game 6 of the 1994 Stanley Cup Finals embodies what Linden was and is.  Every time I watch it, the pure joy of that Cup run comes back (along with the crushing feeling of defeat after Game 7).  Still, despite me being the biggest goalie fanboy growing up (my single most vivid hockey memory is still “The Save“), Linden was Canucks hockey.  His speech at his jersey retirement ceremony on Wednesday turned something that was supposed to be all about him into something that was a gift to all the fans.  Players like that don’t come along maybe once in a generation, and I often wonder who the next player will be who will capture every Canuck fan’s imagination like Trevor Linden did.

Well, technically, the season started over the weekend, but that was in Europe and I couldn’t watch it.  HOCKEY’S BACK BABY!

Why? Because they pull crap like this.  It means if you get spammed with text messages because your number ends up on some calling list, you’re footing the bill.  It’s like if Canada Post suddenly said, “Hey you know, this spam mail you’re getting, it’s costing us money to send to you.  Doesn’t matter that you can’t control it, we’re going to charge you for it anyways.”  When my Bell contract is up, I am GONE.  Of course, this assumes Rogers/Fido won’t be just as douchey.  It’s 160 bytes of data, if this causes problems you’re doing it wrong.  Ask Southeast Asia how they do it.  You can get a plan there that costs $40 a month for $5 a month, regular stuff like call display, voice mail included.  In Hong Kong, everyone has a cell phone, even the janitor making minimum wage because it’s really that cheap.  People are complaining to the CRTC, but considering the system access fee campaign has amounted to basically nothing, I have no hope that this new fee will get reversed.

On another note, I came across this new fangled hockey table.  This would be so much cooler than an air hockey table.

Previously, I mentioned how the CBC was showing how its managers are competing with cat turd on levels of intelligence.  Today, they cemented their place in turd smarts history by not only losing the rights to the HNIC theme song to CTV for perpetuity, but they also are launching a campaign to let any knucklehead with access to a synthesizer and a drum machine come up with the next theme for HNIC.  Oh yeah, and it’ll be decided by the fans.  Because we all know how well fan balloting works.
In the last 3 years, the CBC has lost or gotten rid of the following:

• Grey Cup final
• Curling
• Olympics
• Chris Cuthbert
• Theme to HNIC

In the last 3 years, CTV (and subsidiary TSN) has picked up the following:

• All of the above

The CBC. Your public tax dollars, hard at work.

Just when I thought the CBC couldn’t do anything dumber than firing Chris Cuthbert, backing out on the CFL, hiring PJ Stock and Greg Millen or thinking Shawn Majumder has talent, they do this.  Not bringing back the Hockey Night in Canada theme song? What kind of drugs do you have to be on to consider something like that? I could understand if the people who owned the rights were gouging, but they seem pretty reasonable for wanting to continue the contract and the terms they asked.  But the CBC is a government institution, so they obviously have to commit acts of sheer incompetence to maintain their public image.  I guess there’s still some hope; the public backlash has caused them to say they’re considering their options rather that flat out going elsewhere.
I swear, if they use that stupid Nickelback remix of Elton John I will burn down Studio 42.

1) I’m going to see Spamalot! It’s coming to Vancouver in July.

2) Freaking awesome Stanley Cup ad, in time for the finals:

Thanks for the memories, Trevor Linden.  I’d love to say “one more year” but it was pretty clear at the end of that game that he’d be calling it quits.  An NHL without Linden seems absolutely foreign to me, given he came into the league the year I started following hockey.  I was too young to understand it when the Steamer retired, or why he was revered enough to have his number raised to the rafters.  Linden is the Smyl of my generation of Canucks fans.  He was my first hero growing up.

His play for the Canucks has made him one of the most beloved figures in the city.  His work with Canuck Place shows what an awesome human being he is.  In the end, that’s what we should all strive to be.

The Canucks have been encouraging fan submissions to promote the passion (and rabid insanity) that comes with being a hockey fan. It’s part of their “We are all Canucks” campaign that started after the trade for Roberto Luongo. Last year one of the best submissions was Trapper’s Delight. From the same guys, this year we get Trap It Like It’s Hot. In a word: awesome.