Hockey will be here for nine months, with nhl.com and pwhl.com our constant barometers. We can ignore our other sports teams disappointing us yet again (looking right at you, Phillies, but I’ll include the Mets in there as well). In some ways, hockey is an escape from late-stage capitalism, but in other ways, it is a way for us to form community in these apocalyptic times. Some examples that come to mind include Double Hockey Stix’ community, Sara Civian’s The Civ Report 1and Anna Hudak’s Prism Report.
What also will come back are such colloquialisms as “shoot the puck!” and “STAY IN YOUR NET!” and “CLEAR THE ZONE [insert team here]". What can I say, we hockey fans get emotional to the point where I’ve worried about neighbor complaints!
PWHL hockey is also just around the corner—opening night is November 22nd.— I, for one, would love my Victoire to advance past the first round, or at the very least win more than one game. I’m sure I’ll be going back to Prudential Center to see if the Sirens wee woo their way to a slightly better record. Also, the PWHL is easier to access than NHL games by subscribing to PWHL on YouTube. Thank you, NHL regional blackouts and ESPN, for inconveniencing my desire to yell at men shooting a puck.
When June comes and two teams are still grinding it out for the chance to lift Lord Stanley, you’ll be thinking: “Why are we still playing hockey?” Then a team wins, and hockey vanishes from our lives. While baseball is fun, you yearn to scream at 12 guys chasing a puck on a frozen sheet of ice.
We get caught up in watching players golf, and go on vacations to locales not many of us will get to experience outside of our screens. Look at free agents, rehash old debates (best goalie of all time?). We yearn for hockey to come back. I know I alleviated that itch by watching old hockey games (which led to my masterpiece in Ice-Capades 6, which you should definitely read through if you are new to Not Another Newsletter). We do know in the back of our heads to watch for the pumpkin spice concoctions to come, for it is a harbinger for hockey to follow shortly after. And the turn from no hockey to hockey is the most comforting one of all.
1 I’ll be doing my first year of fantasy hockey in the Civ Report community! I stacked up on defense because a good defense clears a good offense any day of the week,