Tap, tap… Is this thing on?

Hello? Hellooooo? Here perhaps you could visualise me yawning and stretching, as I uncurl myself from my summer-shaped box and climb carefully back out into the world of British ice hockey.

And it’s a strangely barren world I find myself in. I’m used to football pre-season. It is, as a rule, very dull; the comings and goings of the transfer market serve to punctuate the brief but persistent void where football once was, providing some talking points in the absence of any real news. The announcement of the new season’s fixtures comes and goes in a flurry of non-news; if there was actual sport going on no-one would give a care as to the arresting discovery that Blackburn are away to newly promoted Swansea on the third weekend in November. But without the real thing on tap, it’s something to talk about. Tennis helps, when it’s on. As does athletics, and cricket. For the rest of the time, thumbs are twiddled, holidays partaken of, tabloid headlines featuring Premiership footballers gasped at, and life just generally got on with, safe in the knowledge that the continuation of life as a supporter of your particular team will continue in just two short months.

This is my first off-season as an ice hockey fan. And it’s already been found wanting. Wanting, most significantly, of a team. In my 20-odd years as a football supporter I’ve never experienced an aching void quite like this and I hope I never will. Not only is the season over – a fact which in itself I could cope with without too much of a problem – it IS summer, after all, and somehow gathering in a chilly ice rink when it’s 23 degrees outside seems as though it might be a bit odd – but I am now without a place in the world of the sport I love. It feels a bit like going back to former place of work to say hello to old colleagues, but when you walk into the office, it’s full of people you’ve never seen before. There’s that awkward moment of feeling as though, in your head at least, you still belong in this place. But nothing to cling onto to back up that notion. I’m metaphorically homeless. A bit of a pisser, as I was totally up to date with my mortgage repayments, I swears it, guv’nor.

So there’s no transfer news for us marooned Vipers fans, and no speculating over fixtures, or jerseys, or rinks, or owners. There’s just… Nothing. But defiance reigns among the faithful. We DO still belong here! We WON’T go quietly! And okay, we may not have a team THIS season. But we’ll be back in the future. Maybe. And in the meantime, the rest of you are just going to have to put up with us! Cue the impending arrival of the Viper Nomads in YOUR ice rink. A band of merry travellers intent on keeping the memory of the Vipers alive, visiting the homes of the other Elite League clubs in order to get their fix of top level hockey. It’s a temporary measure. And it will have to do. But you can be damn sure we will have fun in the process.

Well, what else am I supposed to fill the void with?

The whole thing has been just another surreal turn in the rollercoaster journey I’ve been strapped into since my first day as an ice hockey fan. And it got me thinking about the nature of being a fan. How do you choose a team when you start to follow a new sport? In adulthood at least, it can only be an arbitrary process, in stark contrast for example with the meaningful team-selections of childhood, which are less of a choice and more of an organic acceptance of the preferences of those most influential in your life, like a form of osmosis.

With football for me, for example, my selection was never in doubt. My football team is as inbred in me as my larger than average feet and my freakish ability to independently wiggle my ears. I was cheering for Watford before I even had the vaguest concept of what it meant. All I knew was, there were some men on a patch of grass, and a ball, and sometimes it made my Dad very happy. This consequently made me very happy. Therefore, Watford (or as I knew them back in those days, ‘youworns’) were good. As I grew into them they became embedded in my psyche. The reasons were simple: I lived there. My Dad supported them. They were my first experience of live football. They wore shiny colours and were really nice. I grew up with them, and they are as much a part of me as anything else I have lived with my entire life, like the odd lump on my right ear or my sticky out spine.

With hockey it was a bit different. No. A LOT different. I’d lived in Newcastle for six years and hadn’t shown the slightest inclination to start supporting Newcastle United, or Falcons, or any of the other local sports teams. So it wasn’t really the local connection. I put it down to the first experience thing. A bit like how a duckling will attach itself to the first live creature it sees when it is born, even if that creature happens to be a cat, or a llama. I saw them, and that was it. They imprinted on me, and I became their willing devotee. I could have chosen a team that were actually, well, good. I’d only been supporting them a couple of weeks, couldn’t I just switch allegiances? It’s not like my family supported them, or I had a whole host of friends to go to matches with (because I didn’t originally). And they really were quite poor at that stage. But to use another fitting analogy, it’s like giving birth to an ugly baby. You can gaze longingly at the perfect little angels in the cribs next to your mini Winston Churchill, and wistfully imagine what it would have been like if you had had one of those. But as wrinkly and pug-nosed as your disappointing offspring may be, it’s your disappointing offspring, and you literally couldn’t love them any more if you tried, however hideously disfigured they might be.

So to conclude, either the Vipers were my children, or they were my mother. I became quite concerned at that point as to the nature of that particular train of thought, as, I believe, would Freud have been were he to have psychoanalysed me at that point in time. But I digress.

I hope you’ve understood the general thrust of the slightly disturbing extended metaphor, and that it makes plain my current plight: WHO am I going to support next season? Because I couldn’t watch a sport with impassionate objectivity. It’s not in my nature. Is it in anyone’s?! I HAVE to support SOMEONE, in EVERYTHING. I can’t watch a football match, or a 100m race, or even archery in the Olympics, without backing someone. In international sports it often defaults to the British person. But not solely: in sport like tennis or athletics, I support the person who is passionate, wears their heart on their sleeve, or is just an all-round good egg. I champion passion, dedication and guts above all else – how can you fail to love a person or team who gives it their all? It’s the reason why last season’s Vipers team were just so perfect to me in the end, despite their apparent lack of quality when stacking up against the big guns (and it’s why I loathe the England football team in their current incarnation, aside from any patriotism, with all their preening, whining, philandering amoebic dysentery. But that's another blog post for another time).

So I’ve turned this current problem over in my mind a numerous occasions, and I’ve managed to narrow it down. I’ll leave you on that cliff-hanger and take my leave for now. But don’t go far – I’ll be back next week with my team-by-team season previews. It will be TOTALLY informative and thought-provoking. As if it would be anything else! Until next time, my pretties. Over and out!

Dearly Beloved, we are gathered here today...

Over the last few days, the Vipers squad has sustained a number of losses, in the form of various players absconding for pastures new, most recently Patrik Forsbacka announcing his departure on Tuesday. We will have all have had our favourites among the dearly departed, and this post is for anyone who has had a favourite player leave, either this season or any other really. I hope it provides some comfort knowing that you're not the most unhinged fan out there (or maybe you are - please share your tales of woe with me if you wish, it might make me feel like less of a freak!)

On hearing the news of the departure of Dale Mahovsky on Sunday, I went through a myriad of emotions. I had commented flippantly the previous night that despite us having sustained some real losses to the team over the course of this season, we hadn’t yet lost a player whom I counted among my favourites, and that when we did, it would be my first real challenge as a hockey fan. I’ve opined endlessly in as yet unpublished blog posts about the fleeting, temporary nature of the sport, and the seeming lack of loyalty from players in this league, and these posts have remained rightly unpublished as they are mostly emotional rant-y nonsense. But I always knew the moment would come. I had hoped that it wouldn’t be Mahovsky, and that it wouldn’t be now, but it was, and is. I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’ve been fond of Dale from my early days of Vipers fan-dom, and so I’m going to give you an honest assessment of my reaction.

Dale Mahovsky. This is the face of betrayal, people. BETRAYAL!*

I took it personally at first. My kneejerk reaction was to dropkick a puppy or something equally cruel and unnecessary. You know the Cat in the Bin Lady? I bet her favourite hockey player had just left when she achieved notoriety last year. I wanted to pour forth torrents of howling misery on the blog but I remembered I have a duty to bring light and cheer to my fellow hockey fans even in times of trouble, so I thought again. They say the best work can only come out of the pain of experience, so this blog should be a triumph. Please, laugh at my pain, if you will.

The whole situation brought to mind the Kübler-Ross model, more commonly known as the five stages of grief, and although the gravity of the situation clearly doesn’t warrant quite such a gross over-reaction, the parallels amused me at the time, as I hope they will you. The stages, as listed on the trusty resource known as Wikipedia, are listed as follows:

1) Denial
2) Anger
3) Bargaining
4) Depression
5) Acceptance

I think Ms Kübler-Ross missed out a key stage to be honest, that should go directly before denial – shock. I was shocked. It came completely out of the blue, and I had a literal blood running cold, hand clamped over mouth type moment, before logic kicked in and I realised it wasn’t actually a matter of life and death. And then I entered into the five stages quite unwittingly.

1) Denial. I personally don’t think this is a legitimate stage. A nanosecond of ‘nooo, surely not’ doesn’t count as a proper stage, does it? I suppose there was a bit of ‘but he wouldn’t! He can’t have!’ mixed in so okay, I’ll let it slide.

2) Anger. Ha. There was a lot of that. I was raging at the world. In a show of defiant petulance I almost threw my game-worn Mahovsky jersey across my room, until I realised it wouldn’t do anyone any good, and it might make the people across the road think they were sharing a street with a mental person. So I put it down again. But how DARE he leave? It’s not right! Well fine then. Screw you, Dale. Off you go. Just treat us like a holiday home why don’t you, see if I care. Make me fall in love with your skating skills and buy your shirt and go on about how good you are and then just swan off. Whatever. I am SO not bothered. I hate you.

3) Bargaining: I didn’t mean it. Please come back. I love you.

The bargaining stage actually lasted longer than I expected. It was also the most fun. It was when the inspiration for this post struck, and I would tentatively suggest to Kübler-Ross that the stage be re-named ‘bargaining, with gallows humour’. It went a bit like this:

‘So, he’s buggering off to the CHL then, is he. What’s that when it’s at home?’ Cue another trip to Wikipedi-land on a quest for knowledge, this time accompanied by feigned scornful indifference. I found a most interesting Wiki article on the ‘Central Hockey League’ (pfft, sounds like a local yokel joke of a league to me) and the teams contained within it. Such a lot of nonsense I have never encountered in all my days. There’s a team called the Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs. Are you freaking kidding me? On further investigation I discovered, and I quote, that the ridiculously named Mudbugs are ‘one of the few successful sports teams to ever grace the Bossier-Shreveport area’. Well slap my thigh and call me Beyonce, is that a fact? He’s not allowed to go there. It sounds rubbish. But the Mudbugs are in esteemed company, I discovered, as I continued to survey the exalted list. How about the Evansville IceMen? Oh my dear lord, give me strength. Just no. Whoever came up with that name ought to be shot. And it’s in Indiana. He’s not going there. I’ve been there. It’s rubbish. Wichita Thunder sound cool. Shame they’re from Kansas, which is rubbish. Colorado? Hmm. Okay, fine. I suppose he can go there. But can we have him back for months ending in –ember? And –uary? And can we come and visit at weekends? Some kind of joint custody arrangement would work for me. I’ll call my lawyer.

4) Depression. I scooted fairly quickly through the first three stages (possibly because Dale didn’t actually die, which is obviously the main thing to note here) and landed squarely at number four, where I dug my heels in and prepared to rest for the foreseeable future. Well that’s it then. No more Mahovsky. No more cheering like a loon every time his name is read out on the team sheet, or he scores, or assists, or moves, or generally exists. I suppose at least I don’t need to worry about his dental calamities any longer. Ooh, has anyone seen his teeth? Are they still in the country? Someone hold them hostage, then he’ll have to stay! Don’t worry about me though, I’ll just sit in a darkened room weeping bitter tears and mopping them up with my now worthless jersey. I’ll be fine. I can’t BELIEVE my shirt is already out of date. This sucks. I hate ice hockey. It’s rubbish.

5) Acceptance. I don’t think I’m there yet, although my progression through the stages was helped along significantly by Sunday’s astonishing performance in Coventry, sans Mahovsky. We don’t need you after all, splitter. So there. A colleague at work, after laughing cruelly at my plight, astutely observed that perhaps I let myself get too attached to individuals, (which is true, but I’ve always been that way with sport. I cried like a baby when Tommy Mooney left Watford) and like some kind of giant limpet I should attach myself to a different hairy rock, which I thought was such a brilliant term for a hockey player I’ve borrowed it. And so the role of my next victim – er, hairy rock – remains vacant. Although I have a funny feeling it won’t be for long.

Apologies for the general flippant/bitter/cynical tone, but I pledged to bare my soul for you and I hope you’ve found the whole debacle as hysterically amusing as I have (okay, add ‘sarcastic’ to that list of negative qualities on display in this blog post). I’m sure once the pain has eased I will be able to graciously thank Mahovsky for the pleasure he brought me for just a few short months, and all the goals he scored, and the general pleasant demeanour and hard-working attitude he seemed to bring to the club. Right now though, he’s just a dirty splitter. And I’ve just regressed back to step 4.

I of course can’t fail to mention the loss of another team member in the past week, Jamie Carroll. He seemed like a great guy and was an invaluable member of the team so it’s a massive blow for the club to lose him and Dale in one week, especially when you consider they were our top two points scorers. (Yet we still beat Coventry on the road. How. HOW?! I still can’t grasp it!). And my final mention in the most eulogy-ridden blog post I’ll probably (hopefully) ever write goes to Alex Penner, who announced his departure from the Nottingham Panthers, and the UK, this week, due to the fact ‘there’s no-one left to fight in the Elite League’. Oh Alex. I was just growing to love you as well, in a hate-y sort of way. With your goonery and your cheatery and your bare-chested slidery. He provided amusement, and eye candy, and will be missed. He’s kind of like one of those hideously weird and ugly Mexican chihuahua type dogs; publicly, you point and laugh at it and pretend it’s ridiculous, but privately you wouldn’t mind scratching its belly and feeding it a treat, just out of curiosity, to see what would happen.

Alex Penner: Tickle his tummy and see if he rolls over

Well, thank you for listening, it’s been quite therapeutic for me to lay this nonsense down on paper (and now screen). I’m off to nail down Schwarz, Sibley and Effinger to stationary objects now, would anyone care to assist? Yes it might make skating a bit more difficult for them, but at least they won’t be able to leave!

*I get it, okay. It's all about his career, or whatever. It's FINE. I don't really hate him.

Close Encounters of the Blurred Kind

Well then. Hello again everyone! Where do I even begin to start about the experience that was Saturday night at Whitley Bay Ice Rink? I fell over myself to get to the laptop to write this post and now I'm here, I don't exactly know what to say. Except for...

WE ONLY BLOODY WON!!!!

I'll start at the very beginning. Some nun-type bird once said it was a very good place to start. And I'm inclined to agree. To say that this was a must-win game was a bit like saying that Wayne Rooney earns a few quid. Coming off the back of a nine-game losing streak, Vipers were rock bottom of the league and the Edinburgh Capitals were faring little better, just above them. The temperature at the rink was Baltic to say the least, and the tension was palpable both on and off the ice. The game was a cagey affair, not particularly physical, in stark contrast to last week's clash against Cardiff - although there were a couple of illegal moves from Edinburgh players during the match, one of which resulted in coach Danny Stewart falling to the ice and dramatically rolling about in pain for a bit before staggering to the dug-out (or whatever they call that box-y bit at the side in hockey). It looked serious, but he was back on in the third period with no apparent debilitating injuries, which led me to conclude that he was either over-reacting and is in fact a big girl, or he's brick hard. I'm definitely hedging towards the latter. I certainly wouldn't tell him otherwise, so I guess that's pretty much my answer!

In terms of the action, I can tell you that some goals were scored. Which was nice. And one was written off, which was even better as it was one scored by Edinburgh. We had the score up to 3-1 for a while but the two goal cushion did not last long as the opposition scored in the third period to bring it back to 3-2. But I'm not going to faff about with stats and specifics (as if I could!) when I can instead wax lyrical about what was undoubtedly one of the tensest 11 minute periods I have ever experienced in sport. I'm deadly serious. I was a nervous wreck, going from the edge of my seat whenever we pushed forward to cowering back with my knuckles in my mouth like an American teen at a horror movie whenever Edinburgh were on the attack. I was actually shaking although I think that was more to do with the fact I was freezing my knackers off. I'm as guilty as the next sports fan of silly superstitions but I swear every time I blinked, it made Edinburgh miss. So I blinked quite a lot. Although my contact lenses were giving me jip, which could have explained it. That in itself was a bit of a concern as on literally three separate occasions, the puck nearly exited the rink right by where I was sitting and I couldn’t actually see it properly. It was a bit too close for comfort. I might have to start wearing goggles. Now THAT would make me look like a novice! I’m so going to do it.

Despite the fact we were leading for most of the game, and we were clearly the better side on the night, I daren't let myself believe we could actually win, even in the dying seconds. But the buzzer sounded and the place erupted and I realised, we actually did it. We won a match. It was a real landmark for me, I'll be honest. A sort of coming of age. It was a carbon copy of the game against Braehead in so many ways (can we play a team from Scotland every week?!), yet it was a parallel universe. I was invested, now. I felt every challenge, mirrored every save, and willed in every shot. I was no longer on the outside. So it's happened, then. I've lost myself. I am in danger of glazing over and becoming a bit Shakespearian here so I'm going to beat a hasty retreat before I start spewing sonnets at you and refocus on the bigger picture. I am still very much a hockey novice. But now, even if I still don’t know the offside rule, I feel like a part of it all.

We have known too little of late the sweet elixir of victory (oops, I Shakespeare'd anyway!), but being the underdog makes winning that much sweeter. It’s why I have loved supporting Watford FC all these years as opposed to the Manchester Uniteds of the world. What’s a win when it’s a formality. The rollercoaster of emotion is what makes sport worth watching; the ups and downs mirror real life and it’s so much more satisfying to live in hope than in expectation; you’re much less likely to be disappointed.

That being said, I can confirm that on arrival back at my house I needed several strong drinks to return my shredded nerves back to normal, despite feeling on top of the world. Blood pressure medication and paper bags on standby, people. Hockey is not for those of a nervous disposition.

Extract from - Joke’s over now, okay? (originally posted 27th October)

Having recently been to see some live hockey matches and having not seen any live football in months, I found it quite difficult to get my head back in the game on my recent visit to see my team, Watford, play a Championship match.. For example, I was quite disconcerted that the staff at Vicarage Road hadn’t taken to playing bursts of fitting R'n'B numbers whenever there was a break in play. I was a bit disappointed to find that throw-ins weren’t sponsored by Phones4U. I found myself glazing over a bit whenever there was a section of play that lasted longer than thirty seconds. Although that may just have been because the game was flatter than a pancake. Laid flat, on a flat thing. In Norfolk. Or perhaps my attention span has been butchered into submission by hockey and I’ll never be the same again.

Things went from bad to worse that Saturday night when, forced to miss the Vipers game against the Cardiff Devils due to my foray darn sarf, I sat tensely in my parent’s home following the match on the Elite Ice Hockey League’s Live Scores page (which is about the most nerve-wracking method of following a sporting contest I have ever encountered, I might add). We lost again, which I was gutted about. Even worse, whilst reading the match report half an hour or so later, I let out an audible gasp upon discovering that Canadian forward Dale Mahovsky had to be treated after a goal was deflected in off his jaw and he lost three teeth! I concluded that ice hockey was just a big mean boys game and the Cardiff team must be a bunch of Neanderthals. How could they. Poor boy. He was one of the pretty ones, as well.

So that was that. Another loss for the Vipers followed on Sunday and I was left feeling particularly sorry for myself as another Monday rolled around, and this one a cold, damp and thoroughly autumnal one. I’ve changed my mind. Can I have winning back please? I promise I won’t complain about it ever again. I was only kidding, y'know. The internet clearly can't take a joke these days. Hmph.

Some further musings on my early days as a hockey fan… (first drafted 20th October)

Being a relatively under-represented sport in the UK it’s not surprising that ice hockey teams have to work hard to secure a large amount of sponsorship to support their existence, but the extent to which it’s infiltrated the game makes me giggle. When I was at my first match and heard over the tannoy ‘icing, sponsored by Winn Solicitors’ I was rightly confused. There was no cake in sight for a start. If there was, why hadn’t I been offered any? I have since discovered that icing is actually an illegal move, a bit like offside. But more puck-related than player-related. The pesky little thing sometimes gets ahead of itself, apparently.

Sponsoring an element of play is incomprehensible to me, and has always made me laugh, ever since we were at Hull’s KC stadium watching Watford a couple of seasons ago and the announcer kept insisting that penalties/half-time/possibly even throw-ins were sponsored by such-and-such. But I do understand the need for it in challenging times, especially for a sport that is so little known in this country. They could at least provide cake, though.

Something else I did find it quite difficult to keep up with in my first couple of hockey outings was the constant changing of personnel (I speak in the past tense as I am now, thankfully, beginning to catch on). There are unlimited changes allowed throughout the game, and according to the rulebook (of which I am now an aficionado) as long as they are not directly influencing play, players can even change during the run of play. Which seems like a wholly unnecessary complication when you consider by comparison the arguments that break out in football over exactly what constitutes 'directly influencing play' when disputing offside decisions. And football is played at less than a quarter of the speed of hockey. Really. It's been scientifically proven. By my eyes. But in hockey it can result in anything up to about 16 players on the ice at any one time, especially if both teams are switching line-ups simultaneously. It's baffling. I have a hard enough time matching what my eyes are seeing to what my brain thinks is going on without all that added confusion.

Which brings me to the player of the month award for September, which I feel it worth mentioning, despite it now being October. Latvian forward Toms Hartmanis took the honours, just ahead of Patrik Forsbacka, who probably came second due to the epic fight he had on the ice against Braehead, on the day that hockey stole my heart. But quite how anyone works out who their player of the month is I don't know, as following individuals is nigh on impossible; it’s like trying to find your pet bee at the Chelsea Flower Show. I've ended up choosing favourites based on their names, and the ones I've managed to track around the ice for more than a minute at a time. My reasoning is faultless.

Which reminds me, I have finally selected an NHL team. In the end I went for the ones with the nicest jerseys. Which turned out to be Calgary Flames. Minutes of careful research went into that decision, so don’t knock it. I also quite like Vancouver Canucks. For some reason I fancied supporting a Canadian team over an American one. It's colder there, therefore they have more of a right to win stuff on ice. QED.

It’s cold, it’s hard and it’s right outside my house: a novice’s review of an ice hockey match (originally posted 8th October)

Yes, it’s another post about sport. Really, I can’t help it. It’s not just any sport though. It’s that most whimsical and enigmatic sport generally embraced by those with colder climes than ourselves, ice hockey. I’ve never really thought about ice hockey before, other than a novelty visit to a match during my time in the states, 10 years ago (and that was in Arkansas so it really can’t have counted). So when my other half brought home free tickets to last Sunday’s Newcastle Vipers match I was mildly intrigued but thought no more of it until the time came for us to head to Whitley Bay ice rink.

Newcastle Vipers are an elite league ice hockey team who had suffered of late from a win-less run of matches in what was obviously a frustrating opening to their season. Or at least, that’s probably what someone who knew about British ice hockey would say at the beginning of a match report. However, I was blissfully oblivious to any of the back-story at the time, but on reflection, the reactions that night of a clearly dedicated fan-base spoke of a team in desperate need of some success. I have been that fan on many an occasion in my long and devoted yet tumultuous relationship with Watford FC, so I should have recognised it. And now I have, I’m right on board.

Okay I’ve bleated nonsensically for a bit but I can’t ignore the elephant in the room any longer. Being a total ice hockey noob, one of the few things I really knew about the sport was that they seem to have a lot of fights. I had wondered in passing whether being a bit cold perhaps makes one slightly irritable, or maybe it’s the jock-itch beneath all that padding that puts a player in an argumentative frame of mind. Either way, anyone with even a vague knowledge of the sport knows that it goes on and is an accepted part of the game of ice hockey. Yet I have to say, I was still surprised to see it happening right in front of me. And I couldn’t actually tell at the time whether or not the fights were for real, or staged, something like wrestling. I was hedging towards the latter and wondering if it was all bit camp and unnecessary but after further discussion and research it appears that this isn’t the case at all. It probably only looks a bit camp because it’s hard to have a fight when both antagonists are on skates.

Apparently, fighting, or ‘roughing’ as it’s known in the sport, is tactically important as the players defend their most valuable team-mates and disrupt their opponents’ play, and although it isn’t officially allowed within the rules of game, it’s not severely punished either, and officials are content to stand back and let it run its course in most cases. It’s actually condoned as part of the game in the US. Is it wrong that I find it mildly arousing? Probably. But I know for a fact I am not the only one. And most of the others are men.

Anyway, besides the fighting, what else can I tell you about ice hockey, from my completely novice point of view. It’s a very American sport. And by that I mean, there are a LOT of stoppages in play. During which, a multitude of well-chosen popular music clips are played over the tannoy and/or the match announcer explains what’s just happened in language that only those who already know what’s just happened can understand. Altogether, this made the bits where they WEREN’T playing a lot more over-whelming and confusing than the bits when they were. Even though the game-play itself is carried out at approximately the speed of sound and appears to have about as much form and style as a hyperactive fly at an all night rave. It’s a game for those with the attention span of a goldfish. A goldfish with Alzheimers, at that. It was in no way unpleasant though. In terms of levels of understanding versus levels of enjoyment, I suppose I felt something akin to a toddler watching a group of drunken adults play Twister at Christmas. Wide-eyed, happy and confused, but slightly concerned for the welfare of all involved, including myself.

And also, I found myself in the novel and unnerving situation of not knowing what the offside rule was. It’s not just because I’m a woman, OKAY?! Don’t worry, it was the first thing I learnt during my subsequent ice hockey rules study session.

Yet there was something undeniably thrilling about the whole experience. Maybe it was just the knowledge that top level sport was being played right on my doorstep, and the excitement of expanding my mind around completely new game, hungry as I currently appear to be for a football substitute (and all this despite Watford’s current impressive run of form). Maybe it was the exotic sounding names on the team sheet, giving me leave to support a team with ‘Newcastle’ in its name despite my slightly more Mackem loyalties (sorry!), after all, Blair Stayzer and Patrik Forsbacka can’t be Geordies, can they?! Or maybe it was just the chill in the air, the buzz of the crowd and the tension of the final few minutes that reminded me just how much fun it is to kick back and take in a live sporting event. There’s nothing quite like it. So I’m going back for more this Saturday.

As we later concluded, this is physically the closest top level sport to our home that currently exists (unless there’s a pro tiddly-winks league situated in the Billy Mill area of North Shields that I’m not aware of), and not only is that quite an exciting prospect, it also gives me no excuse not to get involved. Go Vipers!