LeftLion WEB ed. #2 - The hockey edition
2007-01-17

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am now writing for a Nottingham culture newspaper called LeftLion. The column below won't be posted until February, but CILL readers can have a sneak peek. It is geared toward an English (specifically Nottingham) audience so there may be a few references the North Americans that read this blog may not get.

Let me help you out with the first one, Dawn French (one of Britain's funniest comedians) happens to be really, really fat.

Enjoy!

The article as it appeared on LeftLion

A Canadian in New Basford - The Hockey edition

To say the English like sport is like saying Dawn French likes pie. It is probably more apt to say the English live sport. Some Englishmen are so into sport, they wear football shirts even when they’re not at a match. Some football fans shave their heads and beat people up to show their support. Canadians are hockey fans; we leave that sort of thing up to the players.

Obviously, the high powered suits at LeftLion (tongue firmly placed in cheek) want the Canadian guy to talk hockey so I will. But before I do, I must clear one thing up.

There is no such thing as “ice hockey”.

I know what you’re thinking, ‘How can a Canadian guy say something so blasphemous?!’ let me explain. There are two types of hockey, my limey friends. There’s “hockey”, the most beautifully complete sport ever invented, the only sport that combines speed, strength, grace and brutality all into one; and there’s “field hockey” which is played by little girls in skirts. Field hockey finishes a close second to solo synchronised swimming as “Lamest Sport in the Olympics, ever.” Giving field hockey the “hockey” moniker is a sin.

I was happy to discover how popular hockey was in this city. Before I came over, I expected it to be football, rugby and cricket but it seems that hockey is second only to footie. Sure, Trent Bridge was packed during the ashes, but that only happens once every two years (or one year when England wins it, apparently) and I have yet to see a rugby shirt in this town. Like it or not, Nottingham (by English standards anyway) is a hockey town.

I am ashamed to admit that I have only been to one hockey game in the year I have lived here, but as Ed Whalen (Google him) would say, “It was a ring-a-ding-dong dandy!”

It was last season when the Panthers played the Basingstoke Bison. The Panthers had just come off a long road trip and were tired. Tired hockey players are “chippy” players, as we would say. There was a lot of stick work throughout the game, and I don’t mean with the puck.

The Panthers were outplayed from the start by the fresher legs of the Bison, but they valiantly kept themselves in it until the floodgates opened in the second and third periods where Basingstoke scored a number of times. Mercifully, I am not going to get into how many goals the Bison scored, but let me just say that, like one of Dawn French’s many daily pies, the Panthers goalie was getting peppered.

In hockey, you can just feel it when something is going to kick off. The fans tried to remain positive, but even “Paws”, that weird mascot with the head that is WAY too big for its body had given up hope. If this was an NHL game, the fans would’ve been making their way to the exits, but English fans are a hearty lot and stayed right to the bitter end. Boy, were they rewarded.

I’d like to say the Panthers came back miraculously and won it, but it was not to be. They decided instead to beat the piss out of the Bisons. My Liverpudlian mate (I’m allowed to like scouses, I’m not English) said to me “Hey, do you think there is going to be a big fight?” to which I replied, “Nah, there might be a couple small scraps, but these guys are pros, they have to worry about penalties that may carry over to the next game.”

Not two seconds after I said that, a scrap broke out and the mythical “Bench Clearing Brawl” happened right before my eyes. In an instant, every player was on the ice, gloves asunder, pounding each others faces in; even the goalies were going at it. I had heard of the Bench Clearing Brawl before and I had even seen one or two on TV, but I had to come to England to see one live.

The fans may not have liked the score, but not one went home unhappy. Adrift in the world of pretty boy Russians and dainty Swedes of the NHL, Canadians have been begging for proper “old-time” hockey for years. All they have to do is come to Nottingham to get it.