As promised, here is my post of things that surprised me when I went from zero to sixty in terms of hockey knowledge.
Holy shit how does anybody ever score, ever? I used to wonder why hockey games are typically low-scoring. I do not wonder anymore. There’s no other major sport where the goal is so well-defended. In football and basketball (and baseball, if you think of it like that), there are defending players, but the goal itself is undefended. In soccer, there is a goalie, but the goal is way bigger than them. In hockey, the goal is a tiny 4 x 6 net defended by a large man wearing enormous pads who basically takes up all the space and spends his life practicing intercepting pucks. The current NHL average goalie save percentage is 91.4%. The current NHL leader is sitting on a 95% save percentage. If you score on him, you’re probably more lucky than good. Also, teams looooooove their goalies. That’s their boy. He’s the only one who’s out there the whole game (unless he gets hurt) and he’s the last line of defense. Immediately after the game is over, the whole team files by the goalie to give him a little pat or helmet bump. If the other team messes with the goalie, prepare for WRATH.
There is no such thing as “sitting on the bench” like there is in other sports. Oh, there are guys on the bench, but they ain’t staying there. Cause you see, hockey players swap out all the freaking time. It’s insane. If you’re used to other sports, and you’re not paying attention to the players’ numbers, it’s easy to miss the fact that the guys on the ice change constantly. Hockey is so strenuous that you can’t do it for full-on game speed for more than a couple of minutes at a time, a little more for defensemen. And they don’t stop play to make substitutions! They just sort of fling themselves over the boards and switch out while the puck is in play. I have not yet stopped being impressed by this. A team typically has four sets of forwards (they go out in “lines” of three, a center and two wingers) and three sets of defenseman pairs. Usually the only guy out there the whole time is the goalie. Most of the time, all 12 of the forwards are going to get comparable amounts of ice time, especially in teams that have lots of deep bench strength. If the game is a blowout, the winning coach may choose to rest his top two lines (usually his best players) and give the lower-tier guys more ice time.
There are eight million awards in hockey. There are like dozens of variations on “The [Somebody’s Name] Trophy” or “The [Somebody’s Name] Award.” They’re all for specific stuff. There’s one for the top-scoring player, one for the goalies, one for the playoff MVP, one for the best overall player voted by the players…it’s kind of intimidating. They have an awards show and everything. Like the Oscars.
Hockey rosters are not big. I was used to teams of 60-70 dudes in football. Hockey teams typically have 23ish guys on the roster, but by rules can only “dress” 20 guys per game (as in, get them in gear and ready to play). That’s four lines of forwards, three D-man pairs and two goalies. That’s not a lot of dudes.
Fifty percent of the players in the NHL are Canadian. I mean, I knew there were a lot of Canadians but I didn’t know it was THAT many. Only one-quarter are American. The other quarter are mostly Russian, Swedish, Finnish and Czech players.
There are more hockey teams than I thought there were. Currently 30, although it’s soon to be 31 with the new Las Vegas expansion team. Seven of those teams are in Canada.
The NHL All-Star Game is not just a game, it’s a whole days-long extravaganza. The players don’t just play a game. They also engage in the Skills Competition, which is like a fancy pro-athlete game show and it’s amazing. The two team captains select players to compete in stuff like Fastest Skater, Hardest Shot (that’s hardest as in force, not hardest as in most difficult), shootout, and accuracy. There’s also an anything-goes breakaway competition that’s purely judged on fan votes, so the players can do whatever they want – wear costumes, do fancy trick puck shots. There’s lot of stuff from the skills competition on YouTube, it’s fun.
Hockey is grueling. There are 82 games in the regular season. That’s a lot considering how physically demanding the game is and how much of a pounding these guys give each other (checking is harsh, even without a fight breaking out). Sometimes they have to play two days in a row. I don’t even know, man.
All these players know each other. I mean, I know that’s true in many pro sports, but it just seems more true in hockey. The hockey world is small, and everybody played together either in the junior leagues, the minors, the Olympics or Worlds, or on various teams.
Being a captain actually means something. When you start learning about hockey teams and players, within 0.5 seconds you’ll start knowing who the team captains and alternates are. The captain is the only player who’s empowered to discuss rulings on the ice with the officials. A good captain is equal parts leader, cheerleader, counselor, and on-ice coach.
Hockey is invisible. There are not a lot of players in hockey who break out into fame just in the general sports world, and even fewer who get name-recognition in general pop culture. Wayne Gretzky is probably the last one, Mario Lemieux, perhaps, and Sidney Crosby definitely has it in the sports world but even he’s not general pop-culture famous (except in Pittsburgh and Canada). That’s…kinda fun, in a way. Like being part of a little secret club who know who Alexander Ovechkin is.
Anyway, that’s all I got for now. Shoot me a message if you have Hockey Questions. I get intense when I pick up a new interest.
this is gonna be a special rant bc my ass actually logged onto tumblr on my computer and it was special requested to put out some knowledge bc apparently no one cares enough about the caps franchise before we got successful and thats a BIG ISSUE for me so we’re gonna start at the very beginning.
The Very Beginning: Think of the worst team in the NHL right now. Who came to mind? The Oilers? The Leafs? Okay now imagine them like 8,000 times worse and you get the inagural 1974-1975 Washington Capitals hockey team. Widely regarded as “the worst team to ever skate”. The worst record right now is the Vancouver Canucks with a record of 27-34-13. The Caps inagural season record? 8-67-5. If going down in the record books as the literal worst team in NHL history here are some other records they hold: -Fewest wins by an NHL team playing at least 70 games -The worst winning percentage in history (.131) -Most road losses (39 out of 40) -Most consecutive road losses (37) -Most consecutive losses (17) The Washington Capitals earned themselves a total of 21 points that season, which is just truly astounding to think about imho because HOLY SHIT this team made history by being the worst Things became really unstable for The Washington Capitals throught the rest of the decade. The Caps varried from “horrible team burn it all to the ground and start again” and “we were in playoff contention until literally the last day of the regular season”. The good thing to come out of all the pain? Dem draft picks son. Y’all should know at least one of the guys because his number is hanging in our fucking rafters. #11, Mike Gartner. Dude finished second to Gretzky for Rookie of the Year honors (i believe in the WHA). Gartner played with the Capitals for nearly ten seasons and when he was traded to the Minnesota North Stars, he held the records for franchise leader in career goals, assists, and points. Even with Ovi, Backstrom and Bondra (who we will get to later) taking over he still stands as 3rd, 4th, and 3rd respectively.
Moving Out or Moving On? Because of the Capitals awful records, there was serious talk of the team leaving D.C. and fans were like “lmao you thought” so #SaveTheCaps started and two major things happened to ensure the caps would stay. One of the biggest trades in frachise history gave us Rod Langway, Brian Engblom, Doug Jarvis, and Craig Laughlin (We know him as Locker now) for Ryan Walter and Rick Green. You know who else is up in the rafters? Rod Langway. #5. They man, the myth, the legend. The named captain who led the Capitals to post-season appearances every year he played in Washington, which was 11 btw. Langway is probably one the greatest, if not the greatest defenseman in franchise history and with Langway, Gartner and later drafted Dman Scott Stevens the Capitals would have their first ever playoff appearance in 1983. Needless to say, we didn’t go very far. We lost to the 3 time defending and going FOUR the Dynasty New York Islanders. This turn arround essentially assured that the Capitals were #HereToStay
The Miricale Run Fast forward a couple years because if you want to look at all the post-season defeats do it on your own time though I recomend looking up the Easter Epic game because holy shit bruh. Anyways, the year is 1998 and the Capitals are in fucking form. You got Peter Bondra, Dale Hunter (Also a retired number, look him up), Joe Juneau and Oatsie (who was a great player but an awful coach), and my personal favorite OALLIE THE GOALIE. I don’t have time to tell you all about these guys but please, please look them up because I will fight skin and teeth to see Bondra (#12) and Kolzig (#37) hanging in the rafters. Anyways, The capitals defeat the Bruins, trump the Senators and in a dramatic OT GWG by Joe Jeneau in game 6, pass the Sabres to make their only Stanley Cup finals appreance. Unfortunately, the Capitals would not hold up against the defending champs (Detroit Red Wings) and got swept in 4 games. (Fun Fact: in this season Oates, Housley, and Hunter all hit 1,000points, the only time in NHL history 3 players on the same team reach the same milestone in the same season)
Sad times in DC The season after the miricale run the caps finished with a record of 31-45-6 and the team was sold to current owner and probably the sweetest owner ever Ted Leonsis (luv u Ted).in 2000 an 2001 the Caps won b2b SE division titles but lost to the fucking pens in the first round. After the 2000-2001 season actual fuckface Oates demanded a trade but management was like “nah, plus cause ur a fuckface you don’t get to be captain anymore lmao”
Why I hate Jaromir Jagr In the summer of 2001 the capitals signed the biggest fucking contract in NHL history for living legend Jaromir Jagr. $77Mil over 7 years. We gave up a lot of young and good talent for Jagr and he played like he didn’t want to fucking be here. Look at his numbers from the last year playing with the Pens (121 points) his highest year with the Caps (79 points) and the year after he got traded to the Rangers (123 points). Jagr was suppossed to be our franchise guy and while I respect the accomplisments he has acheived and I recognize his undeniable talent and I acknowledge his title as a literal living legend who is still playing at 43 years old, fuck that guy for what he did to us. After this whole debacle, the Capitals went into rebuild mode trading Bondra to the Sens and Gonchar to the Bruins and if there was one good thing that came out of this it was Oh Captain, My Captain Alexander Ovechkin. (Side note: during this rebuild Robert Lang the League’s leading scorer was traded mid-season, the first time that has happened, yet another milestone)
From here on out, I think the majority of the fanbase knows and if you don’t here’s a summary: killin it in the reg, being killed in the playoffs. Life sucks with game sevens and 1st and 2nd round exists but this team has something magical in them and now you know the history and can learn yourself up about the legends I didn’t cover in depth. Please, Please look into Capitals history because it is so amazing and so important to know where we come from as an organization. And, if you made it this far, i’ll buy you a drink because you care about this team more than most people so thank you, so so much.
check please is not itself a problematic entity beyond that fact that all art on some level is problematic. however i think some of the culture that its fans have bred or misconstrued can be kind of unhealthy. Ngozi has been very open when talking abotu the comic that she didn’t want it to be another gay tragedy. and thats great and we need more of that in the world we need lgbt stories of all types. that being said what a lot of i think maybe a lot of people have taken away from that is that places like samwell exist. and maybe they do, but its an unrealistic expectation of how those spaces have identity. hockey is a very expensive sport played by mostly white men. it’s stupid to think that there isn’t a population of lgbt people even in professional circles. but life isn’t a buddy comedy. it’s crazy to me that this is the website that takes every opportunity to take down frat culture and college party culture as evil but as soon as you put both of those things on ice skates it’s some how soft and accepting. any hockey player you like, you can find receipts of them that you’re not gonna like. i’m so thrilled that check please exists and i think we need more media like it but its readers need to be more critical about what they’re praising.
There’s also a lot of irony here about the fact this is written as a happy story Bc she did that Bc the original story she did all the hockey research for WASNT a happy story, so she decided to take the time to write a happier one taking place in a mildly similar setting. Like you’d think that’d be clue enough that the culture isn’t a bed of roses
just moving along like everyone else 