"I went to a fight the other night, and a hockey game broke out."
-- Rodney Dangerfield
We visited family in Raleigh-Durham, N.C., during the holidays, and one evening, at the urging of my son-in-law, I found myself at an event that I had managed to avoid for 66 years: a hockey game. I went partly out of curiosity, partly out of the opportunity I would have to spend some quality time with my son-in-law and partly in the hope that the experience would give me some fodder for a column. I was not disappointed.
The first impression I got was that hockey was a very popular sport, even in that hotbed of basketball that is Raleigh-Durham. There were upwards of 20,000 fans in the arena, and it appeared that every one of them were there with a purposeful resolve to see their team -- the Carolina Hurricanes -- succeed in its athletic endeavor.
Pfft. That's putting it too mildly. Those people were downright rabid.
As we entered the arena, I noticed that many of the fans -- I would guess nearly half of them -- were wearing regulation Hurricanes jerseys with the names of players on the backs. Some were seemingly easy: Aho, Fast and Jarvis, for example. Others were more complex: Ponomarev, Lemieux and Noesen. Others were practically unpronounceable: Svechnikov and Kotkaniemi. (Full disclosure here: I spend a lot of time behind a mic at athletic events, and one of the cardinal rules of my profession is "pronounce the names correctly." I constantly catch myself trying to guess how an athlete's name sounds before I hear it on the public address system. And that night I messed up right at the start. "Fast" was pronounced "fahst.")
The hype started from the moment we sat down. There was the obligatory starting lineup video on a huge board over center ice. There were screen prompts encouraging the crowd to behave in certain ways. ("Make noise" was popular.) There were short hockey games featuring elementary kids between periods. Most of these were things I expected to happen during an NHL hockey game.
And then there were some things I didn't expect.
A very talented young man sang the Canadian and American national anthems. (The Hurricanes were playing Montreal that evening.) During the "Star Spangled Banner" he was gracefully singing when he came to this phrase: "... and the rocket's...RED!!!" Twenty thousand people screamed the word "RED" as loud as they could, and I nearly jumped out of my shoes. (I later learned that it has become a tradition in some places to yell out words from the National Anthem that are associated with the home team. In Raleigh it was "red", the primary color of the Hurricanes.)
Late in the contest, a Hurricane player scored his third goal of the contest -- an incredibly long shot that traveled nearly the entire length of the rink. (The opposing goalie was in the penalty box.) Immediately, hundreds of hats and caps were launched from the stands onto the ice. For a moment, I was confused by that behavior, until I realized that the Carolina player had just performed a "hat trick" -- three goals in one game. The game was halted for a few minutes until the rain of hats finally ceased. Those rabid fans were apparently knowledgeable about the game as well.
I had a great time that evening. But it didn't occur to me until after I left the arena that I had missed one of the most important historical components of hockey.
There were no fights.
-- Doug Chastain is a retired teacher and large-vehicle transportation specialist for the Siloam Springs School District. (OK, he drives a bus.) He is also a grass maintenance technician at Camp Siloam. (Yeah, he mows the lawn.) You can contact him at [email protected].