Fumbling newbie at large. Lock up your hockey players.

Hello everyone! Welcome to my first regular weekly post on this here blog. I have much to disclose to your fine selves after Saturday’s match, but let’s face it, it’s been a weekend to forget for the Vipers as far as results go, so I will attempt to lighten the mood by regaling you with stories of my continued blind fumblings through the world of ice hockey. Rather than talk about the actual results. Deal?

To try and liven up the blog a bit, I took some of my own photographs on Saturday. Big mistake. Here for example, is a picture of the team as they took to the ice before face-off. That’s what they call kick-off in ice hockey by the way! It just makes me think of Nicolas Cage being over-dramatic (ie, being Nicolas Cage). ‘Face...OFF!’ He should start every ice hockey match. Anywaaaay…

The white blobs are players, believe it or not. If a photo could have sound effects (yes I know, that’s called a ‘video’ – I’m not THAT backwards!) there would be a total Doppler effect ‘neeeeowww’ thing going on, like in Formula 1. Unfortunately this is a silent photo so you’ll have to do the sound effects yourselves. Try it, it’s quite fun!

And I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned this yet – they play the national anthem at the beginning!! Totally weird, considering 75% of those on the ice aren’t from this country. It’s all very sincere and serious though, and adds a sense of grandeur which I rather like. I took a picture of that, as it’s basically the only part where they all stand still.

Sing up, lads. They can't hear you at the back. 'O Canada...' No? Uh...

I don’t think I’ll bother trying that again!

On with the action. Vipers took on Cardiff Devils for the third time in as many weeks, and the match started out with a real buzz. It was a feisty match-up, blood presumably running high due to festering resentments, and there was no shortage of physical challenges. This included a good three or four fights, the most notable being between the smallest player on the ice, Vipers defenceman Sam Zajac, who would comfortably fit in a generously sized pocket, and a man so large, I was at first unsure if he was in fact composed of two normal players, one on the other’s shoulders (perhaps Cardiff have too many players on their roster?!). The name of this man mountain was Brad Voth, and he was a veritable behemoth (check my mad poetry skills).

So Zajac pretty much became an instant hero to the Vipers faithful, the little terrier, and was henceforth presented with the Man of the Match award and christened ‘the Hitman’. Scott Langdon also secured big props for defending his team-mates, being sent to the penalty box twice for fighting. Dude. The Devils are definitely a bunch of hard-asses, though. At one point Jon Pelle completely pole-axed Kyle Sibley and Vipers were in danger of being reduced to just two defencemen. But he escaped relatively unharmed, and I was able to shelve the mother hen routine, much to Sibley’s relief. (Trust me).

The match also saw the return of Polish forward Jaroslaw Rzeszutko who had been out with a broken wrist since before I started watching the Vipers. All involved should be extremely glad I wasn’t there to witness that one. He scored a goal, which was nice. And had a cool swirly skatey thing going on which was a bit nifty. So good on him. And stuff.

At this point I feel we should take a moment to remember why we’re all here. And that’s to laugh at me and my blundering incompetence. So I bring you:

Tragic admission of the week: once during the Cardiff match, I clapped just because everyone else was. I still don’t know what we were clapping for.

BUT! This week I almost figured out why someone was given a penalty! All by myself! Except not quite. I thought it was slashing, when in fact it was hooking. On reflection, I feel it may be advantageous to my future well-being to find out the difference between the two. I will return to my trusty rulebook.

Here’s the thing though. I know literally half of what’s going on. But what I don’t know isn’t worth knowing. Case in point: play starts from one of like, six or so spots around the rink. Or maybe it’s nine. Or five. I don’t know. Or care, much. How they determine where to re-start from, I have no idea. There will be some logic involved, and one day I might even bother to figure out what it is. But for now, it’s really not important when elsewhere on the ice, gloves are being thrown down and opponents engaged in headlocks whilst the Rocky themetune is playing (I’m not even kidding).

It crossed my mind, could the music be construed as an incitement to violence? I think so. And I like it! I believe that I too would be drawn to misbehaviour if I knew my reward would be a burst of Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It’ followed by a two minute sit down.