Hockey

As I have written a couple articles for The Banner regarding hockey and a player profile, I have decided to commit my blogs to hockey. (After my class assignments of course)

My fiance plays hockey. No, I lie. He eats, breaths, and lives hockey. He's played since the bitty years and has reffed since he was 10. Needless to say, any trivia question you could think of, Eric has the answer to it. And although he's not the biggest, he's strong and stealthy on his skates and seldom finds someone who can make a shot past him. (He's a defenseman.)

I liked hockey before I knew him, but did I KNOW hockey? Hardly. Now I can watch a game and know what the call is before the ref even says anything, and when I go to games that he ref's, I'm an unbiased party. I also know the signs of calls without the official having to announce it. Because of Eric, I know hockey.

NHL preseason games started on Sept. 21 and I couldn't be more excited. Jake Newton, Riverside's local superstar, was able to play. We're all rooting for him that he'll stay on the Ducks and not be sent to the farm team.

Another local superstar paid us a visit a few weeks ago, Brandon Morino, who plays in the International Hockey League (IHL) for the Quad City Mallards. He played an Adult League game at the local rink Ice Town on the Phantoms. Matt Dunaev, owner of Ice Town, plays on the Phantoms as well.

If you were to take out Morino's goals during that game, the Chiefs (Eric's team) would have won 7-5, but instead lost 14-7.

After being around hockey one can't help but to appreciate the abilities the players have. I've played softball my whole life and always complained about the heat and the work it took. But we got breaks every 20 minutes while our teammates took turns batting! And football players, although they get tackled, they don't get slammed into boards and glass.

Not to mention, every other sport that isn't swimming/diving or polo, players are on their feet, and balanced the entire time. Hockey players make it look easy, but skating is very hard.

Reusing my quote from Matt Joliff, Manager of Hockey Monkey (the Pro Shop at Ice Town) "Hockey is like soccer without the diving, baseball without the steroids and football with 62 games in a season," it's hard not to start to enjoy it.

Just an FYI... The New York Rangers are winning 2-0 right now against the Detroit Red Wings (:
(that's Eric's team)

And my team, The San Jose Sharks, play tonight at 10:30pm
you can catch the games on Versus (: