Lighter Side of Hockey

So, training camp has begun for the Ducks and all around the league, but as these start I’m reminded of all the lighter things about hockey. Things such as pranks, locker room babble, and player-to-player interaction on the ice. I have a few good friends who play hockey and they have some of the funniest stories I’ve ever heard. I’m sure the stories from NHL players are even better. I want to talk about some of the funnier things that go on in the NHL.

Yeah, you can go youtube and look up hockey pranks and see some goodies, and yes I have done this plenty of times. I’m sure almost every Duck fan has seen the Getzlaf vs. Ryan competitions that are shown during the NHL Awards show, which I enjoy very much, both part one and part deux. I remember another time in a previous training camp, Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry fought during a practice. That ended with Getzlaf pushing Perry over the boards into the bench which brought a collaboration of laughter and applause from players and spectators.

There are a lot of other pranks such as in the Chicago Blackhawks a couple of years back a few years ago, Adam Burish and Patrick Sharp had pooled a popular prank by ordering breakfast for teammates Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews, which including basically every single item on the menu. Instead of getting the food at 10:00 a.m. like they had wanted, Burish and Sharp made sure those guys didn’t sleep in too long by ordering the food for 6:00 a.m. Oh and Kane and Toews picked up the check.

HBO’s 24/7 show is a great chance to see some of these off ice pranks. Probably my favorite, of the Caps-Pens season was when Marc-Andre Fleury recruited two of his teammates to remove all of the furniture from Ben Lovejoy and Mark Letestu’s room and leave them in the hallway while they were out for dinner. Also, on that show, Penguins forward Matt Cooke pranked his former teammate Paul Bissonnette by cutting some of the laces on his skates and shoving bubble gum into the fingers of his gloves. Some of the little things like those are fun to see every once in a while, like Mike Richards being poked in the face with the blade of a hockey stick on the bench during a TV interview, or Marty Turco opening the bench door right before Roman Polak leans on it so he falls into the bench.

I really enjoy the game and I really enjoy the banter and pranks between players. It just reminds me that hockey is supposed to be fun. So all I’m trying to do with this post is remind fans that hockey is just a game and games are meant to be fun and to be enjoyed. So, don’t be so homerish and boo every single play by your opponents team, enjoy the beauty that is hockey. Enjoy it, the players certainly do.