The brutality that hockey administers is often associated with the machismo that many males claim to possess. However, hockey can be loved by both men and women, but it isn’t as popular in America as such stereotypes suggest. I don’t understand why; hockey is a fast paced, gruesome, and significantly brutal and fierce sport, with elements of finesse, extreme difficulty, and excitement. Its continuous rate of play leaves its viewers on the edge of their seats for sixty minutes, awaiting the long anticipated goal horn.
When a goal is scored, I find it hard for other sports to match the raw energy and exhilaration that follows. A flick of the stick, an explosion from an unleashed slapshot, a tic-tac-toe tap in, or a redirected puck ricocheting into the unknown, the puck meets the back of the net causing the lamp to light, the horn to sound, and the crowd to erupt in a roar after seemingly endless moments of silence. There is no other moment in sports like a goal being scored in hockey: when a player readies his shot, everyone in the arena holds their breath in eager anticipation, praying for the puck to either strike the net or get steered away by the goaltender, resulting in either a sigh of relief or a roar so loud it tests your capacity to maintain the ability to hear.
The sounds of hockey are of a unique nature that is like no other in sports. The piercing ping produced from a shot striking the post, the receipt of a pass onto the blade of a stick, the pure sound of razor sharp ice skates cutting across the ice, and the rattling of the boards following the high intensity collision of two players are just a few sounds that capture the beauty of hockey, and trap its fans in a resounding love of the sport.
I believe that true hockey fans possess a love of a sport that other sports fans lack. Hockey is different; the elements of excitement, intensity, difficulty, and sound that it possesses create a unique beauty that isolates it from other sports. Many people don’t understand this because they have never witnessed a hockey game in real life. When you go to a professional hockey game, it is much different than what is viewed on television; the game is faster, more intense and exciting, and even more captivating to watch.
Witnessing a hockey game in person allows you to understand and appreciate exactly how difficult it is to play such a game at such a fast pace with such finesse, all while on a blade that is a quarter of an inch thick. The difficulty of hockey is what makes it so beautiful, and once you can appreciate the difficulty, you learn to love the sounds, and become enticed by the emotion the hockey exhibits. Only then will you fall in love with the sport and become a true hockey fan.
