Hockey Talk

I love the game of hockey.  It has everything going for it:  speed and grace combined with bone- crushing physicality.  One thing I could do without, though, is hockey speak.  Watching the highlights shows, player interviews and even the broadcasts.  Yeesh.

One ongoing sin from the world of highlights and game broadcasts is the use of the word "frame" instead of the proper term "period."  This drives me to distraction.  Hockey has periods, baseball has innings, football has quarters, soccer has halves and bowling, and only bowling, has frames.  Hockey is definitely NOT bowling.  Another annoying development of highlights shows is when a player scores a goal in the top of the net and they describe it as going "top cheese."  And don't get me started on referring to goals as "markers."  Scrap that, please.

They may as well do away with player interviews because when is the last time a player has had anything insightful to say?  "We have to go out there and get more shots on net, get some guys in front of the net and score some goals;" or "we gotta play a full 60 minutes;" "we just gotta go out there and play our game;" "we gotta simplify our game." Sorry, boys.  What you really gotta do is find something original to say.  Where's Jeremy Roenik when you need him?  Better stick with the coach interviews, they generally have more interesting things to say.  New York Rangers coach John Tortorella alone is worth watching.  You just know that one day the poor man is going to have a stroke during a post-game press scrum.

Young players are funny to listen to because everything is so "surreal".  You'd think the NHL had a LSD problem on its hands with all the surreality.  Google "hockey quotes surreal" and you'll get 151,000 hits.   You'd think the game was played in a Salvador Dali painting.

Forgive me for whining but I get like that when I'm tired.  I really do LOVE the game.  As long as hockey is being played, soccer does not deserve the title of "The Beautiful Game."  Well, time for bed and surreal dreams of pink elephants playing their own game in front of the net for sixty minutes putting pucks top cheese in the third frame with 00:03 left.