Old Time Hockey

I saw the best hockey game I’ve seen in ages, last week. Flyer arch-rivals the Pittsburgh Penguins paid a visit to Philadelphia and all hell broke loose. Period two is normally when I do the dishes or go wash my hair; it’s the middle frame and not a lot happens because the frenzies happen either out of the gate or two minutes before the final buzzer, depending on the score. At the end of the Pens/Flyers first, the score was still tight, but the boys boiled over as soon as the second started.

Whoa-hoa-hoaaaaa-Nellie! Something like sixty-six penalty minutes were issued in the second period alone—this after a five minute major and game misconduct were issued to Zac Rinaldo in the first for charging (and, I confess, injuring) Pittsburgh’s Kris Letang. These two teams really dislike each other, so a feisty match is almost always in the cards when the Battle of Pennsylvania comes to town. Scoring star Jakub Voracek had his second career fight that night, and sat out seventeen minutes while serving consecutive penalties for it. That hurt my pool points, but it was worth it to see the kid lose his mind in the crunch.

Being a Flyer girl since the days of the Broad Street Bullies, I admit I have lamented the cooling of the team’s ferocious play. There was a time when the quietest room in the NHL was the visitors’ locker room at the Spectrum, when opposing players called in sick on game days in Philadelphia. One of the Montreal Canadiens (can’t remember which one, they were all so great) complained that the 1970s Flyers ruined the game, to which Bob Clarke recently replied—and I’m paraphrasing here: “The Canadiens had an all-star lineup; they didn’t have to play rough. We didn’t have that kind of skill, so we played to our strength.” *Shrug* It worked, for two championship years, anyway. After that, though they often made it to the finals, they lost the Stanley Cup and have yet to win their third.

The game has changed, so the players have changed. Skill and speed are paramount, and the rules are so tight now that the officials delay the game while calling a penalty for delay of game (stupid, stupid, stupid). Players have to think ahead of the play, and if they don’t, I end up doing the dishes or washing my hair during the second period.

The best games are played from the gut, like the Pittsburgh/Philly game the other night. High emotion, when the boys care more about winning than getting paid, gets the bench involved, engages the crowd, and results in a win-win no matter which team scores more goals.

That the Flyers happened to win this one in overtime was extra candy for me.