12-NHL 2013 Finals Commentary:

My Relationship to Hockey

As an athletic child, I grew up playing many sports. Hockey was not one, mostly because I didn't know anything about it, let alone a single person who played it. But somehow I became a fan. There were signs. As a kid, I attended two semipro games and loved Miracle on Ice (the original version with Gene Hackman). Then in my twenties, I watched a live Olympic game from Japan, went to bed, and had the first of an ongoing series of dreams were I excel at a sport I've never played. These occasional moments of virtual reality continue to feel as wonderful as watching the pros tell their story. Show me another sport where slow-motion is so often required to witness the scoring shot. The dream demanded the video game. I played it until I couldn't see straight. Still do. And now I'm in it for life. I love the speed, finesse, power, focus, agility, experience, timing, strategy, position… I could go.

There are other reasons I love hockey. My two favorite sports as a kid: soccer and football. Mix them, add a sheet of ice, toss in a puck, some sticks, some skates, and what do you have? Hockey. Soccer and hockey share one thing football lacks: a goalie. The closest thing to a goalie in football might be a hybrid of the quarterback and the kicker. Like goalies, generally quarterbacks play the whole game; only injury or poor performance prompts a substitution. Unlike quarterbacks, goalies don't win games. But like kickers, they can certainly lose them.

Kickers only technically win games. You see, on one hand, the offense and defense work together to win or lose outright; and on the other, these two dimensions struggle in concert to place their team in a position to win or lose based on the kicker's performance. Kickers and goalies are like a novel third dimension of acute skill that emerges only when it's close. And when it's out of the players' hands, they're the difference. Each player's true elation at the end of a game is beyond any amazing clutch kick or lightning-fast save; the tightest part of the celebratory embrace is the personal thanksgiving of absolution for not losing it at the margins, thereby calling into question each player's play. Close games are full of mistakes.

In a tight game, any error might mean everything. There is possibly a recent example. A certain goalie might've had a 1-2 clutch that suddenly became a 3-2 give-away over a few seconds in the last minute. Where's my game seven!

My relationship with hockey: I'm hooked.