Puckheads!

I went to a Colorado Eagles hockey game last night, and something very interesting happened:

Not one player from either team climbed into the stands and started beating up paying customers.

Not only that, but they didn't beat each other up, either. There were no fights, no hard fouls, no cheap shots when the referees weren't looking. It was just a game where both teams played hard and played fair. Remarkable, isn't it?

Well, no, not really. It was pretty much a typical hockey game.

So, in light of the recent Pacers/Pistons, South Carolina/Clemson, and Steelers/Browns incidents, I don't want to hear anybody quacking about how violent hockey is. In fact, before anybody starts talking trash about hockey, they'd better prove to me that they even know anything about the game. (We'll get to that presently.)

How does hockey compare to the other major sports in terms of violence? Pretty well, actually. Consider the following.

Football: I consider football to be the most violent of the four major North American sports, simply because almost everyone ends up getting hit and/or knocked to the ground on almost every play. That's why so many players - professional athletes, mind you, who go through a monstrous training regimen - end up on the injured list. It's not inexplicable that the Carolina Panthers are using their fifth starting running back of the season. (George Will suggested that football combines the two worst aspects of life in America: violence and committee meetings.)

Baseball: Baseball is inherently the least violent of the four major sports, simply because there's not much contact between players from opposite teams. But if you go to the ballpark and see a collision at home plate, a pitcher intentionally hitting a batter, or a runner sliding spikes up into second to break up a double play, you're looking at individual acts that rival anything you'll see at most hockey games.

Basketball: Flying elbows, charges, hard picks, and takedowns from behind as a player drives to the basket are pretty common fare in an NBA game. Fortunately, you don't see that quite so much of all that at lower levels of competition. But anyone who says basketball is a noncontact sport has never played the low post, I'll tell you that right now. And church basketball? Don't even get me started.

Yes, hockey involves a lot of checking and physical contact, and a hockey rink has been fairly described as a place where grown men in short pants spend sixty minutes hitting each other with their sticks. Does that make the game more violent than other sports? No, I don't think so. Feel free to disagree with me if you wish. If you know as much about the game as I do, that is.

And that brings us to what I was talking about earlier. For your edification and/or enlightenment, I present the following quiz. Take it, and see how much you really know about hockey. A pasing grade is around 50%.

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The Puckhead Quiz

1. How many players can a team put on the ice at one time?

2. How much playing time is there in a hockey game, and how is it divided?

3. How much does a hockey puck weigh (within 1 ounce or 25 grams)?

4. Define the following hockey slang terms:
  a. Sin bin
  b. Five hole
  c. Twig
  d. Put the biscuit in the basket

5. If a player scores three goals in a game, what is this feat called?

6. How many teams currently make up the National Hockey League?
  6a. How many of those teams are based in Canada?

7. Name at least three of the NHL's Original Six teams.

8. What are the three general categories of penalties, and how do they differ?

9. More than half the players in the NHL come from Canada. What country produces the next highest number of NHL players?

10. Which of the following is not a penalty in hockey: back checking, fighting, cross checking, or charging?

11. Can a team play without a goalie?

12. What is the name of the trophy given to the winner of the NHL playoffs? Which team won that trophy for the 2003-2004 season?

Bonus question: What is the name of the minor league hockey team in Macon, Georgia?

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I'll post the answers in a day or two. If you still have questions after that, please contact me. I'd be happy to take you to a game and educate you personally.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!