Aversion to Ice... Cultural Pulls

I grew up in an area where there was interest in hockey among some of the youth around me; not that many played the sport competitively. Of the closest 20 boys my age around my neighborhood in our university town not far from campus, maybe only one guy played hockey as a kid. My local high school district had an ice rink, which is pretty unusual for much of the middle of the United States, I came to realize later. And, unlike most of southern Indiana, we had a few influences like the Indiana University hockey club, or the minor league team an hour away in Indianapolis. Having thousands of students for most of the year in town from places like Chicago and New Jersey was probably influential, too. So I suspect that we had a higher chance in my town of hockey being available for youth than most places for many miles around. My part of Indiana has a climate like Washington D.C., which is like a segue to the South, where hockey historically was not that strong, a lot of it for climate and reasons of culture.

Southern Indiana is not as cold as the northern part of the state, accessible a few short hours away; the farther south you go in the United States, and even in Indiana, the less chance of playing out doors on a pond frozen over in the winter months. Most places with thriving hockey teams and players have frozen ponds and places to play, in the northern states of the United States, of course Canada to the great White North, and globally northern Europe. Cold parts of Asia do not seem to have much of a hockey presence, nor do the colder parts of the the southern hemisphere. My dad grew up north of Boston, in quite frigid New England, so he was used to the waterways freezing over more and he enjoyed skating. Not hockey however, so I do not recall watching it on T.V. as a kid, or perhaps ever, except for the Winter Olympics. Perhaps a little bit of Olympic hockey was observed by my dad when I was young.

Possibly due to my flat feet and turned-in toe direction, or ankles that naturally went "crow feet", I guess as they say, I did not like like ice skating or roller skating that much. I would fall down a lot, and part of it was my poor balance on wheels or blades, but I think it had to to do a bit with my feet. I remember going to the rink with my family, falling down a lot, and scraping my fingers and and hands. I should have had gloves for p I suppose I got some bruises on my back side and legs. I remember going to my biggest hockey aficionado friend's house for his birthday, and everyone went to the ice rink and I stayed at his house and worked on a jig saw puzzle...

As I grew into my teenage years I fell in love with playing American football; I had played some organized soccer and baseball, and then later basketball. Of all of those sports, ice hockey and skating (not to mention skiing and other winter sports) were not on the list for my likes, nor was it for most of my friends. I also played a lot of table tennis and regular tennis, and some miniature golf. Growing up with swim lessons and access to a neighborhood pool made swimming and some diving enjoyable. But skating and hockey? Not a part of my repertoire. We all have to make decisions where and when we participate in sports, and also what to follow.

As a burgeoning teenager (in the 1980s) I found myself watching many live sports and the subsequent highlight shows and reports on the major networks, ESPN and CNN. This became a regular part of my day and night, perhaps to an obsessive degree. By the time I was 16 I was an avid reader of Sports Illustrated magazine, plus the local daily newspaper and the occasional USA Today, and the major sports of the United States and parts of the world were an everyday routine, passion, and enjoyment. Perhaps as I felt somewhat alone or as a failure in other pursuits and interests, so sports seemed to fill some gaps for me and in me, and this pseudo world of reality, many would argue, became a better engagement for me than many subjects, or previous interactions with certain friends or other pursuits. 

I did not stop reading the news about world affairs, a definite passion of mine, or reading novels or magazines or watching movies and comedy and a host of other entertainments, to include religious materials, but the main sports of my interests took center stage. I became versed in the ways of sports talk and some analysis and lore. As I have written before, my church studies and associations probably promoted more attention and "reverence" for sports. Many of my faith held their close affections and passions for different personalities and teams, and even a few who may not seem like big sports teams aficionados who show their likes in the sport of volleyball, or maybe just golf, or bowling, or some recreational activity like boating or fishing...

 Boy Scouts and even the young adult magazine "Boy's Life" encouraged a respect or deep appreciation for baseball, which I could not help but notice and absorb. I sucked it in, and through television and the media, including newspapers and magazines, and a few real life connections I became a fan, a believer of sorts, a would-be raconteur and acolyte of the halls of heraldry and fortune of the courts, the pitches, the fields, the stadiums, the tracks, the pools, and the, the ... rinks? Ice not as much. And yet I still know my share of figure skaters, too!

I purposely, consciously, almost defensively, or rather for my own protection, in the sense of survival and limited resources and capacity, eased off the pull of the game of hockey. For time and effort of care and interest, I purposely cared less about hockey as a sport. And golf. I knew that I had too much passion for the other sports so something had to give. 

The National Hockey League did a good job of promoting its sport into southern American venues as I aged, but mostly what I stayed as far as hockey following with was U.S. Olympics and international competition on the ice; the NHL was  not part of my working vocabulary of the every day.

Ice sports were too far from me, culturally, internally, conscientiously. I went to live and study in places where hockey was not a part of their lexicon. I focused more on places where soccer, or rugby, or cricket, or basketball and baseball were of the norm.

Spain. South America. Israel. Egypt. Mexico. Afghanistan. Kuwait. The Caribbean. Immediate family was traveling to and living in other warm climes where the jungles were more present than icy venues: Cambodia, Indonesia. Across the U.S. I have family in some hockey markets, but they are not too plugged in...

And thus the cultural pulls have tugged me across the years. Sure, there have been times when I have enjoyed the U.S. versus Canada or Russia or Finland on the ice, which is great drama, where the super powers of the world resolve things between the nets. There have been other times where I have enjoyed the world class talent and some of the drama of the NHL, there are the highlights when they can be compelling, and the teams that finally overcome the years of toil, like the Washington Capitals since 2009 or so ... But I generally try to avoid it and confine my efforts to other sports. Even so, admittedly, I have spent time in watching hockey and its highlights throughout my life, I have listened to discussions, made some small talk about, even memorably took a victory photo of a random guy in 2013, when his beloved Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup. Wayne Gretsky or Bobby Orr or the wunderkind Crosby...  and many of the greats are still part of my and most sports' fans conversations and models.

However, over the course of my life I have been driven from the skates and realms of ice sports for my own personal enjoyment, and purposefully to not take more of my time, valuable as it is, when I actually dedicate it to other pastimes that seem to have no redeemable qualities on the surface, to many, including to me at times. As far as it relates to me personally and projecting the future of sport, the game of icing and face-offs and power plays, I still think that soccer, baseball, and basketball will grow globally, perhaps even rugby and cricket, but I do not see hockey going on to be that powerful in comparison to these other sports. Too many warm places have too many other athletic competitions to employ.

I am not trying to project my own personal habits and feelings onto a whole global sport by predicting it will not grow as much as these others cited. I just realistically do not see it spreading and going as far into bigger cultures. Field hockey, maybe has better chances due to lack of ice, and even metal blades? Lacrosse? Maybe that sport, too, has better chances with no need for ice and the colder, harder to obtain surroundings.

That's just me; I could be as wrong as my misaligned feet in skates, both the wheeled and the bladed kind.