An Ice Hockey Primer

First published August 26, 2005

All the time my son was growing up I coached his ice hockey teams. This means that I spent years standing around ice rinks, plotting complex strategies and line combinations so we could get the drop on teams like the Linda's Craft Center Penguins.

Now most hockey parents know the game, and they can locate a rink from over a mile away by the smell of Zamboni fumes. For the rest of you, here’s a primer on youth ice hockey in North America.

In hockey, we have clever names for each age group. When they first start out, we call them “Mini-Mites,” and “Mites.” In about the fourth grade they graduate out of the personal parasite class, to become “Squirts,” then “Pee Wees.” After that we call them “Bantams” for a couple of years, just so we can get them through puberty.

In high school, when they stand six feet or taller in skates, we repeal that tiny shred of dignity and call them “Midgets.”

Wherever there are programs for children younger than “Mini-Mites,” we call them “Atoms,” the name-inventing guys having completely overlooked bacteria and viruses.

Ice hockey is played with “pucks” and “sticks.” Pucks are small hard rubber discs, designed to elude anything made of wood. Sticks are made of wood.

We give these sticks to the children, whose idea of fun would pretty much be hitting other children with sticks, then we penalize them for doing that. This confuses them, which builds character.

“Checking” is a little-understood part of the game, not to be confused with “Giving The Manager A Check,” which every hockey parent understands. Basically, checking consists of the player gliding across the ice, then crushing another player into the boards. The kids enjoy this because it makes a lot of noise and scares their mothers.

We don't allow them to check until they are about eleven years old, so they will have more permanent teeth to knock loose.

At each end of the ice there is a “net” or “goal.” Each team has a player called the “goalie,” whose job is to stand in front of the net and get hit by the puck. Occasionally a team will “score a goal,” which consists of players raising their arms in wild celebration if the puck happens to miss the goalie and roll into the net. The team who celebrates the most is declared the winner, and the other team files a protest.

The “officials” skate around wearing striped shirts and blowing whistles. Their job is to enforce “the rules,” which were made up by “Canadians.” Making up these rules apparently involved drinking a great deal of “Molson,” because there are a lot of things about hockey, like “Icing the Puck,” that nobody can really explain.

A hockey game is divided into three “periods,” making it just about impossible to have a “halftime show.” This actually works out pretty well in the long run, since the marching band would probably just keep falling down on the ice.

The “other team” is made up of children roughly the size and temperament of a combat Marine battalion masquerading as third graders. Their flagrantly criminal behavior during the game is somehow never detected by the officials, despite the fact that their many transgressions are helpfully and repeatedly pointed out by your team’s alert parents.

After the game, the players from both teams are usually laughing and swapping wedgies before they have their skates off, while the parents are discussing class-action lawsuits.

People sometimes ask me if trudging through all those ice-covered parking lots outside the practice rink three hours before dawn, in the middle of winter, with my son asleep over one shoulder and a bag of tiny pads and skates over the other, was worth it.

Yep.

Copyright © 2005 Michael Ball