Sticks Out

Jess Briggs1 Comment

Welcome to the last ever installment of Slapshot Stories!  This week, while there are many stories that I could be writing about this time of year, especially with the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs having started Wednesday night.  There really is no better time of year. #BecauseItsTheCup  (For transparency’s sake, I have defaulted to a Pittsburgh Penguins fan.  I see it as a responsibility to western PA.)

Players celebrating with "Believe in our team" written out.

However, in the past week, an event occurred that shook the entire hockey world, and one that I feel too attached to to not blog about.  On Saturday night, a bus carrying the Humboldt Broncos junior hockey team got into a horrific crash in northern Saskatchewan, Canada.  Sixteen people have since passed away: ten players, two coaches, and four other staff members.  Many others on the bus were injured and remain in the hospital, some still in severe condition today.

To many, this is seen as just a terrible accident, something that shouldn’t have happened and took away many people far too soon.  And that it was.  But to those in the hockey community, it hit so much harder.  Junior hockey, teams for high skill, sixteen to twenty year old kids, is a major institution throughout Canada.  It is  something that many towns hold very dear.  I see myself as a part of this community, because my town is one of very few in the United States that has a junior hockey team (based out of a Canadian league).  And I could not fathom the feelings I would be having right now if it were ten of our boys we had just lost.

As you can probably tell from the entire topic of this blog, I am very passionate about hockey, especially my hometown junior team of the Erie Otters.  The experience of watching players grow, develop, and then move on through this league is one that cannot be fully compared to any other (aka college hockey doesn’t hold a candle, sorry NCAA).  The attachments fans form with their players are deep and lasting, many being preserved as they move to higher levels of play.  If, at any point, let along the middle of a season, any one of our players passed away, the fan base would be devastated.  I know I would be devastated.  Let alone loosing half of the team at the beginning of the postseason, after an entire regular season of attachment to the group.

The entire hockey community understand how significant of a loss this is for the people of Humboldt.  And this is why I decided to write about this somber of a topic for my final post.  The hockey community has showed me over the last few days why I love it so much.  In times of need and despair, we will come together to provide support and hope.  Before many hockey games played in the first days after the crash, the opposing teams gathered at center ice in a circle for a moment of silence to honor the victims.  In fact, almost all of them did.

In addition to these memorials, the #SticksOutforHumboldt movement was started as a show of solidarity with those effected.  It involves placing a hockey stick outside of the door, sometimes with candles.  The movement has gone even further than these pre-game ceremonies and allowed individuals to show their support as well.  We are all Humboldt fans right now, and this is how we show it.

 

Just some final tweets that hit me hard and I couldn’t leave out:

https://twitter.com/rsuter20/status/983433593539190784

This was posted by a billet mom, someone who houses these players as many play away from their hometowns.  She lost two of her three players.  (One was mistakenly reported as having died when she posted this tweet, causing her to believe she had lost all three.)

One final story is that of Ryan Straschnitzki, an 18-year old defenceman whose lower body was paralyzed during the crash.  He has already started talking about his goals to get back on the ice, if not traditionally then as a member of Team Canada’s sled hockey team.  These lofty goals produced what I find to be the most moving quote to come out of this situation.  “No one doubt him.  He is carrying the weight of (16) on his back.”

Why I Hate Fighting

Jess Briggs2 Comments

There are a few things about hockey that everyone understands.  You are skating on ice and hitting a puck with sticks.  You win the game by putting the puck behind the red goal line the most number of times.  And hockey fights are exciting.

Well, this is what most people think.  Especially for those who only watch the game occasionally, fighting is seen as an exciting break from the actual action.  I, on the other hand, have a slightly different opinion.

I can remember the moment that changed my mind on this topic as clearly as if it happened yesterday.  It was late 2014, early in the Erie Otter’s season.  I was at Erie Insurance Arena, watching my beloved team, and something unthinkable happened.  Connor McDavid, our golden boy and star player, got into a fight.  It was his first fight ever in the OHL, so you new something has to have really made him made.  Fists were thrown and a tangle of bodies collected, with every Otter ready to step in in place of Connor.  But no, he fought his own fight that day.  They were right by the boards of the opposite side of the arena from I, but I could still clearly see when his hand smashed into the glass, having missed the other player’s head.  The fight soon ended, and away Connor skated.  Holding his hand close to his chest and doubled over in pain, he skated straight off of the ice.  I remember looking at my dad, and us exchanging an equally distressed but solemn look.  We knew this was bad.  “He better not have broken his hand,” I said quietly.

And that is exactly what he did.  During the fall of his draft year, Connor McDavid got into his first ever OHL fight and shattered his hand, making him unable to play again until the World Junior Championships that year, in late December.  I remember hearing stories of him in the hospital, crying into the chest of Sherwood Basin, the Otter’s general manager and close friend of McDavid’s, about what had happened.  And since then, I cannot stand to watch any player I care about fight.

I will have to admit though, I don’t hate fighting in ALL situations.  There are some areas, while rare, where fighting can be “necessary”.  This is the case when a team is being beat on by another, and the refs are not calling everything that they should be.  It is times like these when someone must step in and say enough is enough and put the pain to a stop. The players who do this are commonly referred to as enforcers.  These player’s, whose only role is to fight, are much more rare in today’s game.  In the 80s and 90s, these players were staples on the team, being there to protect the more skilled players on the team and provide intimidation to prevent any especially bad behavior.  People aren’t going to go after someone if they know that when they do, they are going to get there face beat in, its just a fact.

These players are being phased out, as the game becomes faster and teams need to be able to continuously roll four lines filled with credible scoring threats.  For me, this is a good thing, because I less have to watch through cringing eyes as players I care about attack or are being attacked by others.  But the violence will always persist, as players must be able to protect themselves and their teammates, from others.

(If the idea of a enforcer interests you, I highly recommend watching the documentary Ice Guardians on Netflix. Great movie that goes into much further depth about these players.  Also, peep former Otter Luke Gazdic.  What a guy.)

The Cat Part 2 #meow #purr

Jess Briggs1 Comment

Welcome back to Slapshot Stories!  This week, I am going to do a continuation of a post from last semester, focusing on former Erie Otter Alex DeBrincat.  Last time, I had updates on Alex’s first few games in the NHL as a Chicago Blackhawk.  This time around, we are going to focus on the accolades he has collected throughout the season and how he is shaping up to be the future of the Blackhawks organization.

As only a rookie, DeBrincat has already made his mark on the score sheets for Chicago.  At this point in the season, Alex is 4th overall in total points on the team, 5th in assists, and tied for first in most games played and goals scored.  This is a remarkable feat for any rookie, but the fact that it is DeBrincat makes it all the more special.  Just a reminder, this is all from the same kid who many people though was too short and small to play at any level above junior hockey.  Watching him prove all of these critics wrong has been my favorite thing to do throughout this past hockey season.

Another testament to his greatness have been his hat tricks this season.  So far, he has tallied 3 separate hat tricks, or games where he has scored three goals. This is an amazing feat in today’s NHL, especially for a rookie.  He is one of only two rookies in the last twenty five years to accomplish this.  In fact, only seven players this season have recorded multiple hat tricks.  If there is anything that serves as a defense of his natural goal scoring ability, it is this.

In addition to this, Alex managed to become the youngest Blackhawks player ever be named Player of the Year at the Blackhawks Alumni Scholarship Luncheon.  Many of the current stars of the team are former winners of this award, including Patrick Kane.

Alex DeBrincat has been one of the bright spots on a team that has had a very rough year compared to what they are used to.  For the first time in ten years, the Blackhawks have missed the Stanley Cup playoffs and will not have chance to make a run for the championship.  But many have seen Alex’s breakout year as a good sign for the future and a key spot to build off of.  Not bad for a kid who is too small to ever make it, huh?

All in all, when I see DeBrincat doing good things I can’t help but feel like a proud mom.  Alex is like my baby.  He is the first player to pass through the Erie Otters from start to finish during my time of intense fandom who I connected with and has gone on to become successful in the NHL.  It may be because of our same number bond (12 for the win) or because I like to root for the underdog (this is fake, he was never actually an underdog.  He may be small but he is fierce.), but I am very attached to Alex DeBrincat.  He has even caused me to almost entirely shift my favorite NHL team from my family team to the Blackhawks.  I am extremely proud of how he has done and how he is representing Erie, and have no doubt he will continue to do so for a long, long time.

And once again, I would like to give a HUGE shout out to the Blackhawks social media guy.  He also seems bonded to my boy, and all of the media really makes my day.

Thoughts of a Fan During a Losing Season

Jess Briggs1 Comment

Ah, losing.  The kinda sucky, sad side of sports that people like to pretend just doesn’t exist.  At least, that’s what I do.  I will be honest, I hate losing.  Especially when I’m used to doing the absolute opposite.  There is no worse feeling than going from a high win season to the bottom of the standings.

This fact made this year especially rough for me as a hockey fan.  I was incredibly spoiled with my hometown hockey team throughout my high school years, with the Erie Otters recording 4 back-to-back 50 win seasons. This had never been done before in the history of the OHL.  We weren’t only good, we were great.  And we only got better as time went on, culminating in an OHL Championship.  This year, you may ask?  Well, this year we only won 23 games.  Out of 68.  It was kind of rough.  Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon theme.  The Otters tend to be either the best in their division, or the worst.  It’s all or nothing.  And unfortunately, there have been NINE separate season where we have finished last.  They are kind of pervasive.  But hey if the trend holds up, this means we are going to get good again in three years!  That’s good, right? (Cue the nervous, sad crying.) (In case you were wondering, this *shouldn’t* happen this time.  But who knows, really. We shall see.)

I had high expectations coming in for Penn State Hockey as well, with the team coming in as last year’s B1G Champions.  However, there were rough periods in the beginning, and some persisted for most of the season.  While we definitely improved, and ended up doing okay in the B1G Tournament and are NCAA Regional bound this weekend, it still was not the level I was expecting.

This was my first year really following the Chicago Blackhawks.  However, after 10 straight years of making the playoffs, the team officially became out of contention for the Stanley Cup Playoffs earlier this week after a season plagued with injuries.  (Although there were some bright spots…. see “The Cat” and be on the watch for “The Cat Part 2”, coming soon.)

And the Buffalo Sabres, my other NHL team?  Well, they always lose.  Always.

For a fan, it can sometimes be difficult to go through a losing season.  While the die hard fans will stay through the ups and downs and wait for luck to strike, others will simply stop paying attention.  It can be discouraging to watch a team continue to lose especially when they are improving over the course of the season as occurred this year with the very young Otters team.

My mind tends to wander back to better times, or toward the future.  You start looking critically at your team and thinking about what is best for it.  Should this player stay, or be traded?  Do we need to pick up a new center?  Defenceman? What about a goalie?  Is this youth going to grow together and and become their own leadership, or should we trade for some older guys?  Its all about working back toward that major goal, and the main question is:  What do we need to do to get back into championship contention?

To finish off, I just have to say to anyone out there considering jumping ship from their current loosing team: think long and hard.  Because if there is one thing I know, its how sweet success tastes after you have lost for so long.

Hockey in the Sunshine State

Jess Briggs1 Comment

Over spring break, my family and I took a trip to St. Pete’s Beach, an area around Tampa, Florida.  While planning our vacation, we looked into many of the things to do around the area.  Of course we would have to go see the Clearwater Marine Aquarium and see Winter, the dolphin without a tail.  The beach is a main and important attraction.  I also planned on dragging my family to a mall to visit some stores were don’t have around home (this mission was successful).  But being the weird, crazy hockey fans we are, my dad and I knew there was something missing from our itinerary.  Tampa is also home to the Tampa Bay Lightning, an NHL team that many former Erie Otter’s players are connected to.

Image may contain: 4 people, including Yvonne Briggs and Jessica Taylor Briggs, people smiling, crowd, eyeglasses and outdoor

While we were in the area, the Lightning had two home games, and my dad and I really wanted to go to one.  Unfortunately, my mother is not quite the hockey fan we are.  In fact, she kind of hates the sport, and how much of our attention goes toward it (sorry Mom!!).  Because of this, we had not originally planned on making our way into the downtown area to catch a game.  No one that we knew was actually on the team, and they weren’t playing me or my dad’s favorite team, so it really wasn’t a terrible miss, right?

Wrong.  The week before our trip, former Erie Otter and last year’s championship-winning-goal scorer Anthony Cirelli got called up to play for the Lightning in his first NHL game.  In this game he scored a goal and had an assist, and proved his place in the big leagues, at least until the team was healthy again.  This meant that Cirelli would be playing in the games that happened while we were there, and our excitement grew even further.

My mother could see that we both really wanted to go, and since the weather ended up being colder than we had hoped and there was little to do on weeknights in our hotel’s area, she gave in.  To the game we went!

https://twitter.com/JessTaylor2712/status/971932462057172993

We got to the arena early, and made our way to the lower level seats to watch warm ups.  I watched as Cirelli skated round and round, excited that I would get to see a former Otter while he worked to prove himself even further.  My dad had his Erie Otters Championship t-shirt on and tried to get Anthony’s attention as he got off the ice, but to no prevail.  He was far to focused on the game ahead to get distracted by fans (even if we HAD come from over 1,000 miles).

But he definitely did not disappoint.  In the game, Cirelli scored two of the team’s five goals and tallied an assist in the team’s 5-3 victory over the New York Rangers and was voted first star of the game. We waited in our seats after the game, and listen to our little Otter give his first of what will surely be many interviews to an on-ice reporter.

Needless to say, we were very glad we went to the game.