Blood Sport

The other weekend, Michael expressed a desire to go and see the Oil Barons (our local ice hockey team) play a game. Certainly an indication that he’s starting to enjoy playing more than he had been previously (something to do with his first goal perhaps?). I had remarked to a couple of people previously that in the couple of games that I’d managed to get to, there hadn’t been a single fight.

So despite the fact that it was an unbelievable 6 degrees on the right side of zero, he and I went to watch a game in the middle of the afternoon (better than getting home past 10pm on a school night). Now the night before we went, there was apparently a full line brawl as the Barons went down 3-2 to the visiting team. A full line brawl apparently means that both benches are cleared and the keepers are involved in the fight as well.

We were watching the follow up game the next day. The game started well with the Barons scoring in the first 17 seconds of the game, but they quickly gave up their lead and all of 2 minutes into the game it was 1 each. And then it became very clear that there were a couple of scores that were going to be settled for the night before. Now the hockey that we were watching certainly wasn’t the NHL and the kids that play are all in the 18-22 sort of age group, but this sure wasn’t going to be a game for the faint hearted. With scores to settle, if you found yourself anywhere near the boards you were a target for someone and about to become intimately acquainted with the Perspex.

It wasn’t long before the first fight broke out. The gloves were thrown to the ice and of course after a couple of swings, the first thing they do is go for the other guy’s helmet, because if you can drag that off, you get to have a good swing at his face.

This pretty much set the scene for the first 20 minute period. We’d get a couple of minutes hockey, a bad referee’s call and another fight. They were being very liberal with the penalties too. For the unacquainted, in hockey, if you foul someone, you get a 2 minute penalty, sitting in the sin-bin whilst your team plays a man down. If you’re involved in a fight, you get at least that, possibly more, but the team is allowed to replace you on the ice (unless you’ve received a penalty for a foul as well).

I think that it’s supposed to discourage the practice with people missing out on time on the ice as both parties involved in the fight get binned, but it did very little on this occasion.

The penalties did eventually get a little more severe. I recall the call going up for one guy having been sent to the bin as being something like, “2 minutes for hooking (the foul), 2 minutes for initiating, 4 minutes for fighting and 10 minutes for poor conduct (or something like that). That’s a hell of a lot of game time to miss! Of course the team is only short for the first 2 minutes or so.

But the biggest indicator of the way in which the game was played came in 2 ways. One, the fact that in a game where there’s usually 6 people on the ice (including the keeper) there was at one point in the time 6 big burly hockey players crammed into a small penalty box with a further 2 already having been sent off the ice entirely because they’d not be back for the rest of the first period! The second was the fact that the first 20 minute period took 60 minutes to complete.

Not to mention that the coach was ejected from the game.

Things settled down somewhat in the second period and there was actually some hockey played, though its notable that most of the game for the Barons was played under strength due to the number of penalties that they gave up.

Things took a down turn in the third period though. The Barons got to 5-2 behind with only about 8 minutes left in the game. The puck was brought back to the middle of the ice and the two centres faced off. The puck was thrown to the ice, the opposition player swept it away with the stick and the Barons guy, without a moment’s hesitation, threw his gloves to the ground and threw a punch! There was absolutely zero attempt to play the puck and in a clearly pre-meditated arrangement, the other two forwards grabbed their opposite numbers and threw them to the ice as well.

The assistant coach was ejected and things didn’t improve. One guy simply swung his hockey stick baseball style across another’s stomach and then the crowed decided to get involved and plastic bottles were hurled to the ice. The game essentially ended 2 minutes before it was due.

What an initiation into ‘the national game’. It was certainly a spectacle, but as Michael said to me, it would have been nice to have seen a bit more hockey.