Hockey Fan Quotes

Well. Um. The thing is…” I inhale, then continue with rapid-fire speed. “Imnotahockeyfan.” A wrinkle appears in his forehead. “What?” I repeat myself, slowly this time, with actual pauses between each word. “I’m not a hockey fan.” Then I hold my breath and await his reaction. He blinks. Blinks again. And again. His expression is a mixture of shock and horror. “You don’t like hockey?” I regretfully shake my head. “Not even a little bit?” Now I shrug. “I don’t mind it as background noise—” “Background noise?” “—but I won’t pay attention to it if it’s on.” I bite my lip. I’m already in this deep—might as well deliver the final blow. “I come from a football family.” “Football,” he says dully. “Yeah, my dad and I are huge Pats fans. And my grandfather was an offensive lineman for the Bears back in the day.” “Football.” He grabs his water and takes a deep swig, as if he needs to rehydrate after that bombshell. I smother a laugh. “I think it’s awesome that you’re so good at it, though. And congrats on the Frozen Four win.” Logan stares at me. “You couldn’t have told me this before I asked you out? What are we even doing here, Grace? I can never marry you now—it would be blasphemous.” His twitching lips make it clear that he’s joking, and the laughter I’ve been fighting spills over. “Hey, don’t go canceling the wedding just yet. The success rate for inter-sport marriages is a lot higher than you think. We could be a Pats-Bruins family.” I pause. “But no Celtics. I hate basketball.” “Well, at least we have that in common.” He shuffles closer and presses a kiss to my cheek. “It’s all right. We’ll work through this, gorgeous. Might need couples counseling at some point, but once I teach you to love hockey, it’ll be smooth sailing for us.” “You won’t succeed,” I warn him. “Ramona spent years trying to force me to like it. Didn’t work.” “She gave up too easily then. I, on the other hand, never give up

How would you invade Canada?” “Jeez, it’s not something I’ve thought about. Probably, um,” I stared at the ceiling. “Infiltrate small groups across the border undercover as hockey fans, then they seize control of strategically important Tim Horton’s donut shops? Without access to coffee and Timbits,” I chuckled, “their economy would grind to a halt.

I've believed in the Toronto Maple Leafs my entire life. The least you could do is believe in yourself.

Everyone will remember the chanting from the Hed fans’ standing area: “Queers! Sluts! Rapists!” A Lot of people will believe that that whole part of the stand was chanting, because it felt like it, and from a distance it’s hard to differentiate among people. So everyone in the standing area will be criticized, even though by no means all of them were chanting, because we’ll want scapegoats, and it’ll be easy for anyone wanting to moralize to say that “ culture isn’t just what we encourage but what we allow to happen.” But when everyone is shouting, it can be hard to hear the opposition, and once an avalanche of hate has started to roll, it can be hard to tell who is responsible for stopping it. So when a young woman in a red shirt bearing a picture of a bull on the front leaves her place in the standing area, no one notices at first. But the woman loves Hed Hockey as much as the people shouting, she’s supported the team all her life, this part of the rink belongs to her, too. Going to stand among the seated fans, the hot dog brigade she’s always mocked, is her silent protest. A man in a green shirt sitting a short distance away sees her and stands up. He goes to the cafeteria, buys two paper cups of coffee, then walks down and gives one of them to her. They stand there next to each other, one red, one green, and drink in silence. A cup of coffee is no big thing. But sometimes it actually is. Within a few minutes, more red shirts have walked out of the standing area. Soon the steps of the seated part of the rink are full. The chant of “Queers! Sluts! Rapists!” is still echoing loudly, but the people chanting are exposed now. So everyone can see that there aren’t as many of them as we think. There never are.

He found that when the Montreal Canadiens ice hockey team—once described as the national team of French Canada—got knocked out of the playoffs early between 1951 and 1992, Quebecois males aged fifteen to thirty-four became more likely to kill themselves. Robert Fernquist, a sociologist at the University of Central Missouri, went further. He studied thirty American metropolitan areas with professional sports teams from 1971 to 1990 and showed that fewer suicides occurred in cities whose teams made the playoffs more often. Routinely reaching the playoffs could reduce suicides by about twenty each year in a metropolitan area the size of Boston or Atlanta, said Fernquist. These saved lives were the converse of the mythical Brazilians throwing themselves off apartment blocks. Later, Fernquist investigated another link between sports and suicide: he looked at the suicide rate in American cities after a local sports team moved to another town. It turned out that some of the fans abandoned by their team killed themselves. This happened in New York in 1957 when the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants baseball teams left, in Cleveland in 1995–1996 when the Browns football team moved to Baltimore, and in Houston in 1997–1998 when the Oilers football team departed. In each case the suicide rate was 10 percent to 14 percent higher in the two months around the team’s departure than in the same months of the previous year. Each move probably helped prompt a handful of suicides. Fernquist wrote, “The sudden change brought about due to the geographic relocations of pro sports teams does appear to, at least for a short time, make highly identified fans drastically change the way they view the normative order in society.” Clearly none of these people killed themselves just because they lost their team. Rather, they were very troubled individuals for whom this sporting disappointment was too much to bear. Perhaps the most famous recent case of a man who found he could not live without sports was the Gonzo author Hunter S. Thompson. He shot himself in February 2005, four days after writing a note in black marker with the title, “Football Season Is Over”:

By June, if you’re a Leafs fan, the season is over. Truthfully it is usually over by December. Every year, the Leafs have a great team on paper, but, unfortunately hockey is played on ice.

became a fan of the Pittsburgh Penguins,

The game's not over until it's over. Never leave early.

I wasn’t a child. I cried because I was disappointed in myself, not because my boss was mad at me.

I killed a tree with anxiety that day.

Dearest Kitten, I was having a fairly dull evening last night, until you wandered into it. If you’re not otherwise occupied, I would like to have you in the stands tonight at my game. Hopefully cheering me on. I got the feeling that maybe you aren’t a hockey fan, so I included something for you to wear. There are usually a couple of people wearing my jersey, so don’t worry about everyone knowing that we slept together last night just because you’re wearing my name. Yours, Mr. Fuck Hot

The Red Wings had missed the playoffs that year, so he’d picked up a gig as a television commentator for the postseason. On an off day, he wound up watching a bridge game between some of the players. Our dad was an avid bridge player and a real student of the game. At one point, Dick Duff, who played left wing for the Canadiens, took a trick by finessing a mediocre trump card past the other players. Appreciating the move, Dad mumbled, “Great play” under his breath. One of Montreal’s defensemen, J.C. Tremblay, overheard him and snapped, “What would a dummy like you know about it?” That didn’t sit well with Dad. He told J.C. to remember what he’d said and walked away. Six months later, the Red Wings were in Montreal to play the Canadiens. As it happened, it was the night that Dad scored his 600th goal. The fans had barely finished giving him a standing ovation for the achievement, when they reversed course and started to rain down boos. A few minutes after his big goal, Dad trailed J.C. into the corner after a puck. When he came out of the corner, he left J.C. on the ice with a fractured cheekbone. The Forum crowd didn’t know why it had happened, but Dick Duff did. He skated past Gordie and said, “Card game.” Dad just nodded.

A lot of people would jump at the chance to be seen with me, y'know." Her expression was pitying. "Poor Superglutes, aren't you getting enough attention from your millions of Instagram followers? Is it lonely being adored by all your fans?" "Very! All they see is this amazing body and gorgeous hair and beautiful cheekbones. Sure, I'm hilarious and great in bed, but do they appreciate it? Do you appreciate it?

Try putting the phone down at least 15 minutes before you go to bed and don’t pick it up for 15 minutes after you wake up. It’s better for your brain, anyway.

It is easy to say that a fan can stay at home, or at home he can change a channel and watch something else. But it isn't as simple as that. A sports fan loves his sport. A fan in Toronto loves hockey, and if the Leafs are bad, he loses something he loves and has no way to replace the loss.

You know, in 2009, I was getting on a plane to go to the World Juniors in Regina, because of a YouTube channel I had started. Five years before that, it was 2004 and YouTube was just coming into existence. Facebook was still in its infancy. Twitter didn’t even exist. Most of the tools I use every day for my job didn’t exist. So, in 2004, I could’ve given you a wonderful, thoughtful answer as to where I see myself in five years, but it would have been completely wrong. Right now, all I see myself doing is growing my skillset and trying to become better at as many things as possible. So where do I see myself in five years? I have no idea, but I can make something up if you like.

It’s amazing what can happen when you mix inherent distrust and alcohol.

You ever wish you could slap your own thoughts in the face?

the Charlie Conway? This guy scored the game-winner on a penalty shot, no bucket!

Is that like the standard jock-mobile?” With the click of a button, the black F-450 lights flash. “I see you’re a fan of hockey stereotypes.” “More like empirical evidence. All you need now is a country playlist to seal the deal.

I want out. I don’t want to do this anymore. I want to live my life in peace and play hockey.” “You don’t get it, do you? There is no out. This is who you are to the hockey world. This is what people want.”  “Things can change. Fans can change their opinion. I’ve changed. Just because I’m not fucking a new girl every night or getting into fights every chance I have, doesn’t mean people aren’t going to want to watch me play.

I open my eyes again and see Hammond making circles around a small area of the ice while he stays back, allowing other players to handle the puck. He glides forward, then backward, crossing one foot over the other, then changing sides, making sharp, abrupt turns, but never pausing his movement. I imagine a true hockey fan would be watching the puck during a game, but I can't look away from number 42. It's the closest thing to dancing I've seen in months.

I try to reconcile all the things I know about Landy as I study him. Before today, I knew him as a hockey superstar, a flirt. One who has legions of female fans and he seems to enjoy them if social media is an indication.

there are four large screens on the scoreboard showing the score, replays of the game and fan participation. Throughout the game, the video screens showed highlights of games played in the past as well.

scene. I called the crowd sports fans because most of them carried baseball bats, hockey sticks or croquet mallets. Sports became more popular after private ownership of weapons was made illegal.

I spend a lot of time in the penalty box and I get yelled at a lot by angry hockey fans. I expected Saskatoon fans to hate me.

Only 16 years old, this was his first game with the Portland Winter Hawks. In fact, it was his first game in the Western Hockey League. I knew it. The fans knew it. The media knew it. Everyone knew it. Half the reason the stands were so full was because of Riley Judd, superstar.

Fans like me don't watch hockey, we read it. The hockey nexus - the league, owners, teams, players, media and advertisers - under-reads hockey and overlooks those parts of the game women respond to, like scruffish players in sharp suits saying hi to Mom back home in Cranbrook.

His whole life, Fabian had only known hockey to be a horrible, toxic thing that celebrated homophobic bullies and trained boys to believe there was only one acceptable way to be a man. Hockey was the wall that separated Fabian from his own family, the blueprint for masculinity that prevented his parents from understanding their only son. Fabian knew himself, and he knew he would never be a fan of the game, or the culture that surrounded it.

She swipes two waffles off my plate and places them on hers. My jaw drops. In all my days, I’ve never… ever… had a woman steal my food. No one has dared. I’m not sure I’m a fan of it.