2003-10-13 10:31![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
digitaldiscipline
digitaldiscipline[from King Kaufman's column in Salon this morning}
> I've never met any actual people who think that a snarling, venomous rivalry that occasionally spills over into beanball wars and bench-clearing brawls is anything but a rocking good time.
This is why people watch hockey, and us purists get annoyed when the neo-hippy whiners complain that it's too violent, and that fighting has no place in the game. Watching these people discover that a little violence is good for the soul is almost as much fun as watching them feel guilty about it afterwards.
Plus, they don't drink anything but white wine when they come over, which, as Kenny Mayne says, "That's more beer for us."
> I've never met any actual people who think that a snarling, venomous rivalry that occasionally spills over into beanball wars and bench-clearing brawls is anything but a rocking good time.
This is why people watch hockey, and us purists get annoyed when the neo-hippy whiners complain that it's too violent, and that fighting has no place in the game. Watching these people discover that a little violence is good for the soul is almost as much fun as watching them feel guilty about it afterwards.
Plus, they don't drink anything but white wine when they come over, which, as Kenny Mayne says, "That's more beer for us."
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Although I also think that hockey fighting can get boring if there's too much of it. I lost interest for a while in the, I guess it was the early '80s, when it seemed like every game I saw got interrupted for 10 minutes at least three times for what were essentially pretty boring fights. And then there'd be no more full-strength hockey for what seemed like hours.
My formative hockey years, circa 1980, were the heydey of the Broad Street Bullies and their ilk. Divisional games [when there were eight of them a year, with such quaint titles as "Adams" and "Patrick"] invariably cleared the benches at least once, and the same thing often happened with hated rivals from other divisions. It was definitely more like "Slapshot" than fine art.
Then again, we're witnessing a style of play today that would have baffled the scoring machines of the early and mid 80's - Gretzky's 214 would very nearly equal the output of some teams today [witness my "beloved" Sabres, opening the season with 120 minutes of terrible, goal-free play].
When it comes a little more organically, from genuine boiling over, then I'm right there with you. I think that's more the case these days.
There's something to be said when both coaches recognize this, put their designated thug on the ice, and the officials let them do their thing. It's three minutes and an extra commercial break, and it fires up the fans - nobody loses, especially the dentist.
Congrats on your What The Heck Pick this week. . . apparently, the Bills have -also- been replaced with Folgers Crystals.
Hockey for me...
Re: Hockey for me...
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