I am not a big hockey fan, simply because I do not watch sports, in general, unless it involves two men standing in a ring or octagon, beating the snot out of each other. However, given our Canuckistani friends like to say that hockey is basically MMA on ice – “we went to the fights, and a hockey game broke out” – this sport is about the closest thing you can get to a legally sanctioned bloodbath in the form of a team sport.
Seriously, the actual RULES say that if two players start throwing hands, the umpires CANNOT step in to break things up, until and unless one of them goes down and touches the ice. I mean, it just does not get more awesome than that.
My understanding is that modern ice hockey is basically a version of the old Gaelic sport of shinty – a sport played on grass, with a curved stick and a ball, and GAELIC AMOUNTS OF VIOLENCE. I could be wrong, but that seems to stack up.
Anyway, it is in the context of this highly violent, and therefore SUPER AWESOMESAUCE AMAZEBALLS, sport, that we ought to take the time to acknowledge an amazing achievement – the breaking of a record once thought unapproachable, by one Aleksandr Ovechkin:
The fact that Ovechkin is Russian, AND the captain of the Washington Capitals team, just makes the whole thing that much better. In fact, the Great One himself, Wayne Gretzky, who held that record for so many years, said proudly that his grandfather was Russian, and would have been glad that his grandson’s record was broken by a fellow Russian.
(This, by the way, proves yet again that Gretzky is every bit the gentleman that I remember from my childhood, listening to stories told by my international school classmates from the US and Canada who did follow hockey.)
In the ceremony that followed this monumental achievement, Ovi himself showed great class and grace, thanking his team, his family, and his народ:
As far as I can tell, he is not even CLOSE to done with his career yet. Which means there is a real possibility he might reach 900 career goals. And THAT record will surely stand for decades to come.
All this is to say – in a world gone insane, it is always worth taking a moment to stop and celebrate the little victories.
3 Comments
Gretzky is still the GOAT (he still has more assists than anyone else has points). Ovechkin is a pure scorer while 99 was an all-around better player. That being said, beating the goal record is an incredible achievement. Congrats to Ovie. The goal record is kind of like the home run record in baseball. At least hockey’s record isn’t currently held by an insufferable douchebag.
Hockey is played on the hardest surface on earth, by big white men wielding wooden poleaxes, traveling at a significant portion of the speed of sound, shooting a flattened cannonball at each other’s heads, wearing armor, with friggin SWORDS strapped to their feet!
What’s not to love? The Gracies never played hockey because they knew they’d get hurt.
I love hockey 🙂 American football is for pussies.
Aussie Rules Football, oi, oi, oi.