NHL
I’ve been watching hockey for roughly four decades now, and I can’t shake the feeling that I’m doing it wrong.
Well, not wrong, necessarily. But weird. Whenever I’m watching a hockey game, especially one I’m emotionally invested in, I find myself doing some odd stuff. And I’ve always wondered how much of it might be going on with other fans, too.
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For the record, I’m not talking about all the stuff I do that I know is pretty much unique to me. I’m well aware that most of you aren’t buying a good luck bag of chips for the playoffs or having your kids construct small shrines for international tournaments. And that’s fine, because I’m sure that when it comes to that level of fan angst, you have your own strange habits and traditions, so I don’t feel bad.
I’m talking the much more run-of-the-mill stuff that’s weird. Or maybe it isn’t, and we all do it, and we just don’t talk about it. I’m genuinely not sure, which is why I put together today’s post. Maybe we’ll find out that we all have a lot more in common than we think. Or we might find out that I’m an unfortunate outlier, and you’ll all side-eye me while awkwardly shuffling away.
Either outcome seems fine, so let’s give this a try. Here are five weird things I do when I watch hockey; let me know if any of them sound familiar to you.
1. When there’s a goalmouth scramble, I eventually stop watching the action in front of the goalie and instead just stare at the space behind him to see if the puck shows up there.
There’s no specific rhyme or reason to when this happens, but it inevitably does. Basically, my hockey fan brain can apparently only handle a certain amount of goalmouth action before it overloads. And when it does, my reaction is to just go “Nope!” and then switch to watching the goalie’s back, waiting for the puck to make an appearance on its way into the net.
I feel like this would be reasonable if I were jumping back and forth, occasionally making a quick check behind the goalie before going back to watching the actual action. But that’s not what happens. Instead, this is pretty much a permanent change. Once I’ve gone into “behind the goalie” mode, I’m locked in. I’ve completely abandoned any attempt to follow the action. It’s just the space behind the goalie until there’s a goal, a whistle or the scramble ends. And I mean ends, because if it feels like there’s any danger, I’m not going to risk taking my eyes off the prize.
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This isn’t a conscious decision. I don’t find myself thinking, “Welp, they’re sure having trouble clearing the puck, better make the old switch.” It’s something that just happens, and while I don’t know what specifically triggers the swap, I do know that it feels important when it happens.
Anyway, if you’re ever watching a game with me and I react to a scramble goal a fraction of a second before everyone else, you’ll know why.
2. During a power play, suddenly having a strong urge to know how much time is left, but being completely unable to find that information on the screen.
Oh, it’s there. In fact, it’s in the same place it’s been for the entire power play. And every other power play this season on that particular network, because it’s not like this information moves around. But when I need to find it, at least under the pressure of an important power play, I’m lost.
I don’t know why. It’s fair to say that I watch a lot of hockey. And even though a lot of those games are on different networks, and those networks might have slightly different onscreen setups, it’s not like there are that many places to put the power-play information. It’s probably right there next to the score bug. You know, where it was the last time, and the time before that. Under normal circumstances, I know all that. But when the power play is buzzing and I need to know how much time is left, I suddenly have the object permanence of a newborn. It’s pathetic.
Oh, and if it’s one of the rare times when I’m at a game, and trying to find this information by looking up at the scoreboard … well, needless to say, it does not go well. I’ll either give up or you’ll eventually find me wandering around the arena concourse asking random strangers if the power play is over yet. Thank you to those goalies who still put in the effort to be accurate with the stick-banging thing. There’s at least one fan out there who thanks you for it.
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Speaking of power plays …
3. When my team is killing a penalty and gets scored on just as it expires, I briefly think, “Well, at least it doesn’t count as a power-play goal,” and then get mad at myself for that because it’s dumb.
The internal dialogue goes something like this:
“Almost there, just a few more seconds and we’ve killed this off …”
“Damn, they scored.”
“Well, at least the penalty had ended, so it won’t count as a power-play goal against.”
“Why would that matter? They still scored.”
“Yeah, but I’m just saying, from a statistical standpoint …”
“You are an idiot.”
“I am an idiot.”
I guess the point I’m trying to make is that I am an idiot. Moving on …
4. I am completely convinced that if I have to leave the room for an extended period of time, I can tell what the score is when I come back just from how the crowd sounds.
I might have to explain the logistics on this one. I typically watch hockey in my living room, which is next to an open-concept kitchen that I have to walk through to get to the rest of my house. So if I have to go somewhere and do parent stuff or take a phone call or see if my wife still lives here or whatever else, then when I come back, I’ll be able to hear the game before I get back in front of the screen. That gives me a chance to try to “read” the crowd and tell if either team has scored based on how it sounds. I don’t mean just scored, because that would be easy. I mean that I can leave a 1-0 game and come back fifteen minutes later and go, “Hmm, that sounds like 3-1.”
And my lifetime success rate in this endeavor: Approximately 100 percent.
Can I prove this? I cannot. Is it possible this is just confirmation bias, and I’m actually nowhere near as good at this as I think? Absolutely. Will I let that fact reduce my unwavering faith in my abilities in this very specific and otherwise useless skill? No chance. I am amazing at this.
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How do I do it? It’s a gift. Sure, it’s mostly just about the crowd’s volume — you’d expect it to be quieter if things are going badly for the home team. But there’s more to it than that, and it gets subtle. There are ebbs and flows to a crowd’s energy, and tiny differences in inflection can tell you everything about who scored and how long ago and in what order. I truly believe this. I’ll acknowledge the possibility that my brain is broken and I am imagining all of it, but I really think I’m on to something here.
I will pause so you can all make the same jokes about a Maple Leafs fan having any idea what a cheering crowd sounds like.
5. I occasionally realize I am a few seconds behind the real game because at some point I’ve paused or rewound and forgot to come back to “live,” and when this happens, it shatters my entire worldview.
You know the drill: You’re watching a game, and you have to pause for a few seconds to talk to someone, or maybe you rewind a bit to rewatch a play or because you were late getting back from a commercial break. At some point, you forget that you’re not live anymore. No big deal, right? Happens to all of us. You just fast-forward until you’re caught up and move on.
Not me. When this happens, I am absolutely furious.
I mean, what have I even been watching? What world was I living in? What kind of fake hockey-fan multiverse was I wandering through, acting like I understood a reality that I was woefully wrong about all along? WHAT ELSE HAS BEEN A LIE, HOCKEY GODS?
So yeah, it’s a whole thing.
And I know what you’re probably wondering. Since this bothers me so much, surely I make an extra effort to make sure I never put myself in this situation. That would be a reasonable thing to assume. It would also be completely wrong, because this happens to me multiple times per game.
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Look, I realize that any broadcast you’re watching is already a few seconds behind, just because of the nature of transmitting the signal out to your home. I don’t like that, but I can live with it. It took me a while, but I’m there. As long as some idiot sportswriter isn’t posting big plays on social media so quickly that it spoils the action for those of us at home, it’s OK. (By the way, when this happens, that person should be immediately expelled from the PHWA for life.) Other than that, it’s fine. I’m fine.
But when I do it to myself? Unacceptable. Unforgivable. And it launches me into an existential spiral about everything I’ve just seen.
Just like it does for you … right? You do all this stuff too. Please tell me you do at least some of it, and I’m not as weird as I fear I might be.
(Top photo: Mike Carlson / Getty Images)
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Sean McIndoe has been a senior NHL writer with The Athletic since 2018. He launched Down Goes Brown in 2008 and has been writing about hockey ever since, with stops including Grantland, Sportsnet and Vice Sports. His book, “The Down Goes Brown History of the NHL,” is available in book stores now. Follow Sean on Twitter @DownGoesBrown
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