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Shoot to KillShoot to Kill
By Jonathan Streete, De Anza College – December 2006
People of all ages are screaming. Blood is splattered over the place including the uniforms worn by the combatants. Sounds like commentary about the Iraqi war, but at further glance it's an ice hockey game. Instead of guns and bombs being carried by the opposition, the weapons of mass destruction are wooden and called hockey sticks. Hockey is a war game without question. Hockey has become a cultural remnant of traditional warfare, where the soldiers have to fight up close and personal. Not unlike the Iraqi war, the object is to win the war and maiming the opponent is okay as long as it is along the rules (much like the those rules set by the Geneva Convention). Not many people can deny wanting to see two guys of opposing teams (or sometimes even both of the entire teams) throwing fists at each other. This appeal to violence shows how obsessed Americans are with war and fighting. In the National Hockey League (NHL), there is a militaristic aspect that is constructed by maintaining a sense of exclusiveness for those that play.
To begin with, both prospective hockey players and military personnel are both “drafted.” After they are drafted, players and personnel go through the much hated basic training also called boot camp. The players begin to rise as a “soldier” just in the way that they would in any branch of the military in basic training. In basic training, the players or soldiers become familiar with the basics of the game, including strength, physical skills, agility, and hand to hand encounters. Many elements of boot camp or basic training prepare the involved personnel or players for the combat/competition that is to come. Basic training sorts out the strong from the weak, and the defensive from the offensive players/soldiers. The drill sergeants and coaches push the guys to their limits and only the strong will survive and be worthy of the combat to come.
Hockey players are portrayed as warriors or soldiers fighting to win the battle (game). Just like in war, in sports we have the tendency to use terms such as courage, heroism, and bravery. Both the players and soldiers are “suited up and ready to go” in their layers of protective armor. Just as the soldiers do in the armed forces, hockey players in the NHL wear “armor”. Each player on a hockey team, including the goalie, wears pads and a helmet to protect themselves from the hard, rubber puck. While some soldiers wear bulletproof vests, hockey players wear shoulder and knee pads as well as a girdle. The ironic part of the soldiers and hockey players wearing armor is that although the armor is designed to protect the wearer, it doesn't always seem to work one hundred percent of the time. Thousands upon thousands of soldiers have died in wars wearing armor, and there probably aren't many hockey players in the NHL that have never gotten hurt while playing.
On each hockey team in the NHL, there are “lines” just like there were in several wars in the past. When one line on a team gets tired, a new line is sent out to replace the other one. During a battle such as the American Civil War, the soldiers would form rows or “lines”. The first line would fire a round and then move to the back upon which time the second line would step forward and fire a round. In both situations, the “lines” are a means by which the team can replace wounded and tired players/soldiers with “fresh” ones. The lines also portray an image of organization within an army or a hockey team. It might look quite “sloppy” or non-professional if a team changed players one at time or each soldier just began fire rounds at will. In hockey, I think that a game would be very “one-sided” if players were able to go off and on the ice whenever they wanted on one team. This is because the lines are set up in way by the coaches so that there are actual offense, defense, powerplay, and penalty kill lines. If those lines were changed (or if there weren't any lines to begin with), scoring and defending would become very difficult.
In the military, there are strategies for winning a war. One such strategy is called attrition (one side attempts to tire out the other in terms of lives lost and resources to the point of surrender) (wikipedia.org). Similarly, in hockey there are plays that need to be executed to score a goal and ultimately win the game. An example of a play in hockey is called “forward criss cross” (when two players on offense criss cross, confuse the defense, and hopefully score a goal) (lifetimehockey.com). In both hockey and the military, it is important to have strategies for winning. Hockey tactics that work are closely tied to military defense strategies and tactics developed within the last 2,500 years. In hockey, history has shown how tactics make the difference between winning or losing the war. For leaders like Napoleon and Julius Caesar, the use of war tactics have made the difference between the survival of a nation or total defeat. In hockey, the better strategies and game plans should always win, especially where the rules are very strict. The ultimate goal is to get the puck into the opponent's net; therefore, the strategies of attack must be well-trained. Hockey tactics are based on the strategies of war.
Weapons play an enormous part in military combat as well as in the NHL. While soldiers have their guns, hockey players have their sticks. Whichever side in a war has the better artillery and other weaponry, it is likely that it will win the war. The quality of a player's stick is equally important in the sport of hockey. Each player has his/her own set of sticks that are designed to fit their specific needs (height of the player, weight of the stick, and type of stick – wood or light metal). In both hockey and the armed forces, this seemingly minor detail is essential for a player or soldier's maximum performance. For, it would be very difficult to win a game or battle without one's stick or gun, respectively. Without a weapon, a player or soldier becomes nearly helpless until they can re-obtain one.
Similar to the military, the NHL has several implied requirements for the players which ultimately exclude a lot people. When one looks at any hockey game on TV, they will notice one thing that all of the teams have in common: there are few if any non-white players. In his article “The Black and White Truth about Basketball”, Jeff Greenfield points out that “[i]n a neighborhood without the money for bats, gloves, hockey sticks and ice skates, or shoulder pads, basketball is an eminently accessible sport” (par. 3). So, aside from the fact that they can't afford it, black children see mostly blacks in the NBA and they figure that basketball is an outlet for opportunity. When I went to Sportsmart one time with my aunt and brother, my aunt's friend (who worked there at the time) was helping us find what we needed. When we asked him what kind of hockey sticks we should get, he said to my aunt that “brothas don't play hockey.” The implication here was that “brothas”, or blacks don't not participate in the sport of hockey. “Brothas” also has a sort of street connotation and applies to only poor blacks. Hence, very few blacks play in the NHL, but those that are had parents wealthy enough to afford the high costs of getting started in hockey.
Unless they are phenomenal athletes (and can somehow get someone to sponsor them), players must be quite wealthy in order to play hockey. Although in the NHL the players are payed, their career rarely starts out in the same way. For kids aspiring to be in the NHL, their first years begin as them having to pay to play in a league on top of all their equipment. Just to play on an ice hockey team in a youth league, it costs around $900. The parents must then be willing to cough up another $500 or so for all of the equipment (it can cost even more for goalies with all of their pads). For this reason, hockey is a sport mainly just for people of the upper- and middle-classes.
Physical strength and stamina are large factors that exclude the weak from fighting in a war or playing in the NHL. In order to play hockey in the NHL, a player needs to be in excellent condition in terms of being able to skate quickly for a period of team as well as strong enough to force another player off of the puck. In the military, a soldier must be strong enough to hold all of their equipment and be able to sprint in the case of an emergency. Hence, in both the military and in the NHL, there are very few people who have a weak body-type. Players and soldiers both must go through some intensive training and practices to get stronger and increase their agility. Once they have the necessary strength and speed, the participants need to be able to maintain it and accomplish that by continuing to practice.
In both the military and in hockey, there are sets of rules that all participants must abide by. Players and soldiers alike that fail to play by the rules and etiquettes can be banned from participating in the game or war. There are referees on the ice and coaches at the benches that are there to make sure the players are following the rules. The refs will not hesitate to make a call against a player that breaks a rule. There are very specific rules like, “[e]ach player and each goalkeeper listed in the lineup of each Team shall wear an individual identifying number at least ten inches (10") high on the back of his sweater” (nhl.com). Similarly, a commanding officer or general in the armed forces can give a soldier dishonorable or bad conduct discharge if they commit some type of serious offense while taking part in a war (wikipedia.org). The rules in hockey play a large part in defining the sport itself because without them, it wouldn't be considered a sport at all. In both cases, rules are used to explain the importance of fair play and safety of all “combatants”.
While hockey and the military have several similarities, people need to realize that in the end hockey is just a game. It's not just about blood and violence, winning or losing but the social aspects of the sport. In the armed forces it also is not just about the blood and violence, winning or losing, but there is also a lot more at stake. Unlike sports, there are peoples' lives, homes, and even entire countries to think about. We should learn to rejoice in the spoils of the game and not the spoils of violence in war. There is peace, social justice and in the end, hockey. Go Sharks!!!
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