Reasons We Love Hockey Part 33

The 33rd in our 118-part series.

The stupid nicknames we make up that make no sense anywhere but inside our heads

We remember one time when an athlete for a pro team that we kind of liked, in a sport we kind of liked (read: not hockey), showed up for training camp one year announcing that he was ready to make up for his putrid previous season. He explained that he was leaner, in better shape than ever, and was mentally focused in a way he hadn’t been in the last year because, as it turns out, he’d been terribly distracted by personal issues. And those issues? Knocking up a Hooters waitress and the ensuing messy divorce from his socialite wife. In honor of that hilarious disclosure, we came up with the idea of “The Hooters Baby”. That when a player is slumping, and the TV announcers are tiptoeing around talking about it in really ominous, weighted tones, and the guy’s teammates are all making much more loaded “He’ll come around and break out of this” comments than the standard-issue “He’ll come around and break out of this” fare, and with each passing game the player looks more and more like he’s being eaten from the inside… we declare he’s having a Hooters Baby. Sure, he might be struggling with his parakeet dying. Or his home renovations getting on his nerves. Or he’s disappointed at how crappy the last Harry Potter book was. Or any number of serious, legitimate real-life tribulations that are distracting him. But whatever the reason — and it very well may be just a regular old slump — it feels like more than just a slump to the casual observer, and at stately IPB Manor, the blanket statement is applied: he is having a Hooters Baby.

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Reasons We Love Hockey Part 32

The 32nd in our 118-part series.

Roll Out The Barrel

Devils fans are among the lucky ones in the NHL who are treated to a real live organ at games. While some organists play pretty standard-fare “rah rah” stuff for the fans, and others hammer out peppy renditions of current pop songs, our organists offer up such doozies as “Rubber Ducky”, the Springsteen cannon, and our favorite, “Roll Out The Barrel”. Now, “Roll Out The Barrel” would normally just be a ditty we fondly think of sometimes when hockey’s on our minds, but our season ticket buddy Morgan once revealed something that managed to elevate it to meteoric heights: he knows all the words. So there we were one boring evening in the last row of 227, and as the organ kicked in, Morgan suddenly started singing:

Roll out the barrel, We’ll have a barrel of fun
Roll out the barrel, we’ve got the blues on the run
Zing Boom Terrara
Join in a glass of good cheer
Now it’s time to roll the barrel
For the gang’s all here!

That, Gentle Reader, is an undeniable reason to love hockey.

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Reasons We Love Hockey Part 31

The 31st of our 118-part series.

Involuntarily Cheering for Goals

Have you ever been watching a game and felt like you really wanted to play it cool? Maybe you’re at the game to see your team play in an opponent’s barn. Maybe you’re on the sofa watching two teams you could care less about. Maybe you’re watching with people less invested than you, and you want to fit in. Regardless, you promise yourself you’ll take it easy, maybe breaking out in the politest of polite applause if you’re going to make any noise at all. But then, suddenly, you realize without thinking, you’ve gotten to your feet and are whooping and hollering like a banshee. Sometimes you just can’t help it. Your love for your team is so strong, you’ll risk getting beat up by your seat-neighbors by being one of 10 people in the building standing and cheering. Your love for hockey is so strong even the most boring of teams can’t keep you from appreciating an exciting goal. And your love of sporting glory out-weighs any social pressures. Most of the time, of course, there’s no inclination to play it cool; most games require sitting on the edge of your seat with the promise of cheering your heart out. But it’s those random, unexpected, uncontrollable celebrations that make us love hockey.

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Reasons You Love Hockey Part 7

Today’s Reason You Love Hockey is brought to us by Katebits, author of the fantastic (non-hockey… for now) blog Oh For Fun. She’s new to our fine sport, but what she might lack in experience with hockey, she more than makes up for in passion and intuition. We’re honored that she’s chosen IPB as one of the places to learn about hockey and hope that we don’t let her down when the season finally starts up again. It will start up again right? Right now it feels so far away… Anyway, there is still plenty of time to submit your reason you love hockey. Just email us at interchangeablepartsblog [at] gmail [dot] com.

Momentum

As many of you know, I am a very new hockey fan. In my entire life I would estimate that I have watched less than twenty-five hockey games total, but from the very first game I ever watched, I’ve been mesmerized by the momentum. At the risk of sounding unforgivably cheesy, sometimes watching hockey feels like watching a gathering storm. The momentum towards a goal can build gradually, or it can strike suddenly, but always there is a sense of flow. The momentum can shift dramatically and quickly during a game, but always there is a palpable turning point. Even without knowing any of the rules, I find the flow of hockey engaging and easy to follow. I still don’t always see the puck, but I can always feel who is controlling the momentum.

I know the exact moment that my interest in hockey went from “enthusiastic” to “rabid”. It was Game 5 against the Rangers in the second round of the this year’s playoffs. Drury had already scored the miracle tying goal to send the game into overtime, and the Sabres undeniably had the momentum. As the team flew down the rink during the game’s last moments, I actually whispered aloud under my breath “He’s about to score” a split second before Maxium Afinogenov slapped in the game winner. I have no idea what subtle clues of the game I was picking up on in that last minute of overtime, but I could taste that goal coming.

Hockey has a pulse and a rhythm that even the most unseasoned fan can feel.

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IPB Manor Quality-Of-Life Update!

For those of you who’ve been with us every step of the way in the exciting saga of our unbelievably unreliable fridge, you can see what we hope is the conclusion of this epic tale here, on IPB Eats (our newest sister blog). While you’re there you can also check out pictures of IPB Manor’s first potato harvest. Because we know that’s what you wish would fill the lonely, hockey-less hours of your life, Gentle Reader. Maybe our next harvest of the potato crop will yield a spud that looks like Wayne Gretzky.

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Reasons We Love Hockey Part 30

The 30th in our 118-part series.

Making new friends

We are not terribly sociable people. Gentle Reader, you have probably already established that, based on the fact that we obviously spend every evening, every day, sitting in front of our TV watching hockey. There is not a lot of time in there for gallivanting about meeting new people and forging new social connections. But something very unusual has happened for us recently, and we have only hockey to thank for it — we’ve left the stately confines of IPB Manor to mingle with people we have never met before.

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Reasons We Love Hockey Part 29

The 29th in our 118-part series.

Goals scored in the first 30 seconds of a game.

Maybe it’s just the Devils fans in us, but when we turn on a hockey game we feel like we’re settling in for the long haul. We expect to see 60 hard-fought minutes where goals are hard to come by. So it’s always a somewhat hilarious delight when a goal is scored before the first minute of the match is half over. We love those goals that catch everyone by surprise — the announcers, the still-trickling-into-the-arena fans, the goaltender; it’s so refreshingly unexpected to have to scamper in from the kitchen to watch the replay while grousing, “What the hell happened? I wasn’t even sitting down yet!”

The best part about goals scored in the opening 30 seconds, though, is that they’re like the October hockey of goals. If your team gives one up, it sucks at first, but what the hell — you’ve still got 59:30 to get it back. And if your team scored it, it’s a ton of fun at first, but then you realize you’ve still got 59:30 left to defend it. That scored-in-the-first-minute goal never feels like it’s got quite as much significance or weight as one scored later in the game; it’s only if the clock’s ticking down on a 1-0 score late in the third that it ever seems a goal like that is tremendously important. And if the other team should manage a quick even-up, by midway through the first period, as the game has settled into its real cadences, that early goal seems like a distant memory.

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