Anyone who knows my husband and I will tell you that hockey is a massive part of our lives. It consumes both time and finances, late nights, weekends and vacations. People think we’re crazy. They can’t understand why we would play at such late ice times, why we would watch that many games live or on TV. The way you spend your time is always a choice and as both fans and players of the game, it’s become a big part of how we spend our time. Here’s what you might not know about why we’ve made that choice.
Hockey isn’t just a sport to us – it’s so much more. Don’t worry, I’m not following this statement up with “It’s a religion to me because I’m Canadian.” What I am going to follow it with is how and why this one thing – this sport – has become such an integral part of our lives.
Personal History With Hockey – A Journey to Fandom
Neither my husband or myself played hockey growing up. I remember watching NHL games with my cousins, Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em videos, Coaches Corner and playing Blades of Steel on Nintendo. I attended Regina Pats games in my teens with my girlfriends – some had crushes on players (Barrett Jackman if I do so recall!). We’d go to hang out on a Friday night and there was always the added bonus that the Agridome was one of the only places you could get mini donuts! After moving to Calgary shortly before the Flames’ 2004 Cup Run, I started watching a lot more games. I joined an office pool or two and that really started to get me into it. Almost every boyfriend I had teased me for being a big goalie fan and loving Kelly Hrudey’s segment Behind the Mask on CBC. I must have really liked goalies because I married one!
My husband is originally from the Former Yugoslavia where hockey isn’t a popular sport. He moved to Calgary in the early 1990s and the night he arrived in Calgary, the first thing he saw on TV was the Flames playing on Hockey Night in Canada and he was hooked. Both the sport and the Calgary Flames had captured his attention. Having always been a soccer goalie, throwing on a set of pads and standing in the crease wasn’t entirely new territory for him. Attending as many games as he could, he eventually got season tickets when he was in his 20s.
We’re Big Fans of Our Team and Hockey in General
In case it wasn’t clear up to this point, we’re huge hockey fans.
We have Flames season tickets. There are 41 home games of which we try to attend 85+ percent, not including pre/post-seasons and 41 road games that we like to catch on TV (if we aren’t home, we DVR them). We travel to see the Flames on the road at least once per season. We even flew to Vancouver for the day during the 2014-15 playoffs to catch a game. We attend season ticket holder events, Flames Foundation events and buy memorabilia for the children of our friends who live in the States (hockey is Canada’s game and if their city doesn’t have a team, it’s up to us to fill that void, right?!).
Did I mention that we try to travel to see the Flames on the road at least once each season?
Our Christmas vacations are spent watching the World Junior Hockey Championships and we have even streamed this through some complex technological means when we are out of region for broadcast games (let me add here that not every nation broadcasts this tournament in the way that Canada does, so if you’re abroad, good luck finding these on broadcast television). We spend a full day in February/March watching TSN’s Trade Deadline Day and July 1st is spent watching TSN’s Free Agent Frenzy over brunch. We listen to talk radio (Sportsnet 960 The Fan) while in the car, watch panels and highlights on TSN’s SportsCentre every night before bed, and on Saturday nights we’re watching Hockey Night in Canada.
Hockey Is Part of Our Personal Lives
Our dog’s name is Hattie, short for Hat-trick (she is also the 3rd member of our little family, making it all the more fitting). She recognizes the Saddledome goal horn on TV as if it were Pavlov’s bell and when we cheer or say “Flames score”, she raises her paw to give a high-five (for which she expects a treat). When a game is on, she always chooses to chew on a stuffed Harvey the Hound toy. If you shoot a ball or puck into the net in our backyard, she will retrieve it and place it back by the blade of your stick so you can take another shot. One of her first big events as a puppy was attending the first Flames Fur Baby Festival in 2013.
Our basement is decorated with memorabilia, tickets, programs and photos of us in jerseys. 50% of our Christmas tree is decorated with some kind of hockey or Flames-related ornament. 90% of my husband’s ball caps feature a hockey logo of some kind. We have a closet full of jerseys to wear to games. Getting together with friends can often centre around watching a game, dinner on the way to the game or post-beer-league game beers.
We Love to Play
My husband is a goaltender, as mentioned above and he plays on two beer league teams, one of which I manage. I manage, play on and captain a women’s beer league team. My husband helps to coach my women’s team and I attend every one of his beer league games (yes, even at 11:15pm!) unless I myself am playing at another arena. The catch phrase of “hockey wife, hockey life” definitely rings true and I’ve found being a goalie wife attracts a lot of attention and (mostly hilarious) commentary from refs and other fans.
It’s More Than Just a Game
Why do we do this? What do we get out of it? Besides the fact that playing this sport is a whole lot of fun and a great way to stay in shape, there’s more to it. There’s a sense of community and camaraderie that you get from being a member of a team. The fun and conversations in the dressing room before and after a game is something I wouldn’t give up for anything.
It’s not just about the people in our own locker rooms. I’ve become friends with some of the “hockey wives” from my husband’s teams, and some of them play on my women’s team now, too. Hockey has allowed me to forge strong female friendships that I might have not otherwise had the opportunity to find. There’s also a sense of hope when one of the single guys on my husband’s team brings out his new girlfriend to the rink for the first time! (we could be friends! another one to add to the fold! I hope she isn’t a Canucks fan! JK, well, not JK, but you know!).
Winning a championship with my women’s team was a really exciting moment in my life (at age 30!) and those moments bond you. I’ve watched one of my husband’s teams win back to back Provincial Championships (apparently they have those in beer league!) and all of the nerves and excitement, joy and disappointment are incredibly fun. I wasn’t on the ice, but could hardly contain my pride for how hard these guys worked and played for each other. Cheering them on next to other spouses, kids, parents and friends of these guys was something I loved being a part of.
The people we play hockey with are the types of people that would help you move, the guys that offer to come over and “hammer up some drywall” when you’re developing your basement or those that you can call when you need to blow off some steam. These are the people I would call for help long before reaching out to my actual extended family. When you spend at least one night a week with a group of people for weeks, months and years, they become like family. The kind of family you want to spend your time with, the kind of people you want to share your joy with, your life changes with. These people are a part of your village.
We Have a Home at The ‘Dome
This sense of community and belonging stretches to our home at the ‘Dome, too. My husband had his season tickets before we started dating, and we still sit in those seats. Our first date was to a Flames game and the ticket holders around us watched us date, get engaged, and eventually married. We’ve watched the girl who sits behind us grow from a seven-year-old child to an eighteen-year-old woman. We’ve gotten to know our ushers and the other staff near our section. We’ve chatted stats, trades, coaching, favorite players, heckled on another a bit, stood together against rival fans and screamed and hugged during regular season and playoff wins.
Side note here…I know Calgary needs a new arena, but there is just something so home-y about the Saddledome. I know I’ll be emotional seeing the final Flames game there (whenever that may be!), especially as that is where my relationship with my husband really started. It’s where I watched my husband play in net against Flames Alumni that he idolized as a kid. It’s where I have had so many of my favorite memories over the last ten years.
The Emotions and Why It’s All Worth It
When broadcasters say things like “Where were you when XYZ goal was scored?”, I can tell you so many of those stories (I’ll only share a few here). One of my favorite memories was when the Flames eliminated the Vancouver Canucks at home in the first round of the 2014-15 NHL Playoffs. When the final buzzer went, the energy in the Saddledome was so electric – it was insane. I remember the sound of the crowd, the smile on my face and my husband picking me up off the ground in excitement. I can’t help but feel filled with joy when I recall that memory.
Last Spring, my husband and I attended the Sportsnet Brightest Star Luncheon where Ron Maclean was the keynote speaker. My husband bought me his book “Hockey Towns” for Christmas this year and I brought it along on the off chance I would have a chance to have Maclean sign it. Not only did he say it was an honor to sign the book when I asked (like a little fangirl), he took a significant amount of time to chat with my husband and I on a really personal level and it was one of the coolest experiences I have ever had. Listening to how he found common ground with us through his experiences (through hockey and broadcasting) was truly incredible.
Ok, one more. But more like two more. A few years ago, my husband and I were in L.A. to catch part of the Flames California road trip and hang out with some friends (one, a Calgary ex-pat, a Flames Fan, and the other, a born and bred Kings fan). When we met up with them, they made jokes about it being a special event at the Staples Centre that night – wait for it….they were honoring none other than Kelly Hrudey (see previous comments about why this is a massive deal). Of all the away games, what serendipity! My other favorite memory if a game at the Staples Centre? We were at the game that Johnny Gaudreau scored a hat-trick to send the game into OT (which Gio scored to win). The Kings lost, but their fans were high-fiving me after the game for wearing a Gaudreau jersey.
Why It All Matters To Me
There’s something that unites us when it comes to hockey and I don’t entirely know what it is. All I know is that for me, hockey has provided me with a group of brothers and sisters when I don’t have any of my own. It’s offered me opportunities to try something new, push myself physically, make new friends and find somewhere that I felt like I belonged. A group of people who truly know and “get” me and my quirky sense of humor and give me a space where I feel the most at-ease. Most importantly, it’s given me a village, a community of people who support me, that I can count on and that I would go to the moon and back for. It’s given me the family that I didn’t have.
