www.andrewmackay.net:

I’m kind of at a loss here, folks. I mean, hockey talk is reserved for Saturdays… but yesterday, a Friday, we had a hockey post. We certainly can’t take two days in one week to talk about a sport — even if it is my favorite sport. But, I’m so programmed to give you hockey on Saturday, that I’m struggling for alternatives.

I know! How about 5 good reasons to have a hockey stick around the house:

1. A hockey stick is an incredibly useful tool for icicle removal from your eaves. Particularly if your eaves are overflowing with ice. (How’d that happen? I think it probably started with the end of the eaves being frozen in snow, then what little run-off there was just froze on top of it. That’s my theory, anyway.)

2. A hockey stick is great for reaching toys that have managed to find their way all the way underneath the couch or the bed. Can’t reach it with your arm? Don’t grab for the broom… get a hockey stick! Brooms are for guys who play curling.

3. A hockey stick gives you the aura of a hockey player. Particularly in areas of the world where they don’t play a lot of hockey… like, say, West Virginia. My neighbors probably think I was a superstar in another life!

4. A hockey stick is useful for getting rid of crab apples in your yard. Particularly if your neighbor isn’t home. Enough said.

5. Last, but certainly not least, it’s a good idea to keep a hockey stick around the house in case… a hockey game breaks out. It hasn’t happened to me yet, but… any day now, someone will knock at my door and say “Wanna play some hockey?” After all, Kevin Costner’s baseball players walked out of a corn field. C’mon. If that can happen, random people could show up at my door wanting to play hockey. I eagerly await the day.

Okay, here’s a confession: My favorite team in the National Hockey League (if you have to ask… well, it’s the Maple Leafs… and you haven’t been here long, have you? Allow me to introduce myself… I’m Andrew Mackay. I write things here. Welcome. Glad to have you.) has undergone some changes in the off-season.

In particular, we’ve loaded up on scrappers. That means that every game that I watch this year featuring my favorite team is likely to feature more fighting than any three games in previous years.

I think I alluded to this last week, but let me say it full out: I do not see the point of fights in hockey. I understand all the various arguments — particularly the one that says that if the other team pulls a dirty play on your star player, you need a scrapper to go remind him not to do it again.

But, as far as I can tell, if we got serious about dirty plays, we wouldn’t have any need for fighting. And, we have rules against dirty play already on the books… so why not get serious?

Now, I’ll admit, I’ve watched a hockey game turn on a fight. It definitely causes a momentum shift. But, it’s kind of like a horse going down in a horse race. Does it shift the momentum? Sure. Is it a good thing? Probably not.

So, Brian Burke, if you could, can we get rid of some of the scrappers and bring in some guys with talent moving the puck? We could start a revolution right here.

Nah, he doesn’t care what I think. Well… bring on the fights.

Have you ever noticed how one person being completely, totally enthusiastic about something can infect a whole group of people? I mean, one person… one person who’s really into it, who throws themselves behind an idea, who believes in it with their whole heart, and who loves it… that person can change the way a whole city of people feels about it.

Well, it’s up to me to do that, but for the whole internet. You heard me. The whole internet. Why? What could be so important?

12 days until preseason hockey begins.

28 days until the season begins… Toronto and Montreal.

I’m practically hyperventilating with excitement already.

The Pens have just taken the ice… it’s game seven in the Stanley Cup finals. After months of hockey, it all comes down to one game for the championship. You couldn’t ask for more pressure than the situation that these two teams have played themselves into.

And me? I love it. This will be a hard fought game. Unless it’s not. It’s entirely possible that one team could get the best of the other early and keep it that way. If that happens, I’m not naive, I know it’ll likely be the other team winning. I won’t even mention that team’s name. I detest them fairly strongly.

Either way, I’m in for a solid three hours. When you’re reading this, it’s already settled. I either went to sleep disappointed or elated. Either way, I got to watch some great hockey.

And that… that’s hockey.

Due to their appreciation for the recent two posts about hockey on this blog, the NHL has decided to do me the honour of starting the Stanley Cup Finals today. I know, I know, what an epic honour! I’m pretty impressed too. When they first called* to tell me, I nearly fell of my chair.

So, why am I bothering you with it? Well, it’s only likely to be the best matchup all year. Let me give you some background.

At the end of the 07/08 season, these two teams met in the finals. Pittsburgh was the younger team — their two biggest stars hadn’t been to the finals before. Detroit was the veteran squad. And you could tell. Detroit won in six games. Pittsburgh acquitted itself nicely, though… to go six games of a possible seven is impressive, especially when your two biggest stars are not only experiencing the pressure of the final for the first time, but also both injured or recovering from injuries.

The season ended. One of Pittsburgh’s other top players (a gentleman named Hossa), decided to jump ship and go to a team with a better chance of winning a cup. Where’d he go? Detroit. Blech. Pittsburgh’s brightest star did an advertisement in which he stated that he never wanted to experience losing the Stanley Cup finals again.

So, now, at the end of the 08/09 season, it comes down to these two teams again. Pittsburgh, more experienced, healthier, and featuring a great, big chip on their shoulders. Detroit, most experienced, a juggernaut really, looking to hoist the cup again.

This is going to be great hockey. While I would absolutely love for the Penguins to win four games in a row and sweep the Red Wings out of the final, I know it’s unlikely. This is going to be a battle. I hope the Pens come out on top. Either way, it’ll be the best hockey to watch all year.

*they didn’t actually call. I made it up. But it was really convenient timing.

Continuing the theme of a totally irrelevant topic, I’m going to pick up on another topic from the wide, cold world of hockey.

(Aside: did you know that in a large part of the world, if you said “hockey,” you’d have them thinking field hockey? Apparently the more specific term “ice hockey” is appropriate when one is in climates featuring average temperatures of “ridiculously hot” all the way up to “no, seriously, you could die out here just from standing still.” Suffice it to say, I’m talking about the ice version. Beauty, eh?)

I remember the first time I watched a hockey game with someone new to the sport. The referee whistled the puck dead, and I muttered “Offside,” not thinking anything of it.

“Why’d they stop the play there?”

“Oh, he was offside.”

“Well, what does that mean?”

It was then I realized that there was a whole world of hockey mystery waiting to be unfolded for the uninitiated. (I later came to realize the reason for this: most of the unititiated don’t care.)

Adding to the confusion is the popularity of soccer (football to the rest of the world, you know, where smashing into each other in a large suit of pads doesn’t seem like sport). In soccer, the player on offence is offside if he doesn’t keep a defensive player from the opposing team between himself and the net until he takes control of the ball. It gets downright confusing, trying to sort it out.

Hockey’s version is a lot simpler (in my mind, anyway). There’s a blue line that distinguishes each team’s zone. When you are entering the zone on offence, the puck must enter before any member of your team. If it does not, you’re offside.

Why? Well, it keeps you from parking a guy by the opposing team’s goalie, getting the puck and passing it all the way down to him so that he can dump it into the net without any defensive presence (known in street hockey as “cherrypicking.” I was really good at this in my younger years). It makes teams work harder for odd-man rushes (Two on one, three on two, etc.). I guess, in general, it sort of keeps the game a little more balanced.

If they ever remove the rule, I’ll be a lock for a pro spot as a cherrypicker. But, since it seems unlikely, I’ll keep on submitting you, dear reader, to the literary experience of a body check every chance I get.

And I don’t even know what that means.

On Saturdays, I’m aiming for a bit of a change of pace. Something not writing/art related, something that I’m interested in, something that I feel like I might be able to explain.

So today, this is hockey:

Hockey is basically this: two nets on either end of an ice surface that is 200 feet long and 85 feet wide. A guy in a ridiculously large amount of padding in front of each net. 10 guys in less padding (though still a lot), five on each team, who attempt to put a little, round, black, rubber disc, three inches in diameter, into each others’ net. (Hence the padding on the guy standing in front. He’s called a goalie, just like in soccer.) All of this while balancing on skates.

It is beautiful. Seriously. It is an incredibly fast game with tons of momentum and plenty of momentum shifts. It’s intricate — there are set plays that make the best diagrammed football play look like chump change. There’s improvisation in spades, thanks to the difficult nature of controlling a piece of hard rubber on a sheet of ice. There are times when, thanks to the bounce of the puck, two forwards (the term used for players who typically play on the offense side of the puck) get alone with the other team’s goalie. The goalie sometimes wins, even.

People are drawn to hockey for many different reasons — some like the fighting, some like the checking, some like the atmosphere. As for me, I like the speed and grace that a good game of hockey brings to the fore. There’s nothing quite like watching Sidney Crosby or Mario Lemieux confuse defencemen, sneak by them with the puck, deke the goalie out of his shorts, and put the puck soundly in the back of the net. When you see that siren light up at the end of a seemingly impossible play… there’s just nothing quite like it.

This is hockey.