Posts Tagged ‘hockey’
Getting Bugged
March weekends are spectator sport-acular and the past two days didn’t disappoint. It’s primarily college hockey and basketball competing for my attention as both sports are heading into their final four tournament games next weekend. Between the many men’s and women’s games, I snuck in portions of a Minnesota Wild NHL victory, MSL Loons match, and even a half-inning of MLB Twins grapefruit league game.
I LOVE seeing athletic endeavors. My basketball skills were learned in grade school and I played in the neighborhood, on intramural teams in high school, and in pickup games after hours with co-workers. I was a terrible shooter and generally too short to be effective but I knew how to dribble back in the days when officials would call palming violations.
It bugs me to watch poor dribbling discipline allowed to happen unchecked. Carrying the ball, letting it bounce over shoulder height, turning the hand over like it doesn’t matter. It matters to me. Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter to referees anymore.
I hate to be a whiner about horses getting frisky over the increasing hours of higher-angle sunlight but it bugs me when they get unpredictably jumpy and put my well-being at risk. I had a lapse of good judgment for a moment and tried standing my ground against Light as she wanted to run out from beneath the overhang because Mix was flexing her dominance. Thankfully, Light paused just long enough for me to come to my senses and get out of her way to let her pass.
I think I startled her by staying put and leaning into her chest. She stopped for a surprised second, allowing me to realize the mistake I was making. I would have felt awful if that had enabled Mix to give Light a bite in the butt. In this case, Mix was just telegraphing her disrespect toward Light’s direction with pinned ears and a feigned step.
Another thing that bugs me is box elder bugs.
Really? That is the sign of spring that greeted me as the sun warmed the south side of the barn yesterday? No thank you.
I’m going to stay focused on the calls of the robins that have returned to the branches of our trees. They don’t bug me at all.
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Horses Shedding
It’s that time of year when horsehair starts showing up everywhere. When you touch them, their hair gets on your gloves. When you rub them, the shedding hair gets in the air. With hair floating on the wind, it gets in your face. If you reach up to swipe the hair from your face, you get more hair than you bargained for.
Case in point:
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Cyndie’s brother, Steve, paid me a visit while his sister is in Florida. We stopped by a paddock gate to visit with the horses and found several of them showing interest in allowing us to give them scratches. Swings stopped by first. She stood for a bit with her nose just at the gate, breathing in our scent. I turned away for a moment and when I looked back, she had stepped forward and was reaching her head completely over the gate.
Steve and I both happily obliged her willingness and rubbed our gloved hands on her head and neck where she seemed to want some scratching action.
Upon receiving her fill, Swings stepped away and Mix moved in for her own dose of similar attention. Mix has a bit of a runny nostril and appeared to think Steve’s jacket served as a fine “tissue” for wiping her nose. Undaunted, Steve served her up a good massage around her head, coming away with two hands full of Mix’s hair.
Steve was playing in a hockey tournament in River Falls this weekend.
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I was able to show up and watch their first game on Friday night and then Steve and I visited a sports bar with live music on Main Street for a late dinner. He came back to our house to spend the night before heading back to River Falls for his second game, after a leisurely morning that included a walk with Delilah and the time with our horses.
Hopefully, Steve wasn’t still finding horsehair clinging to him while he was trying to chase the puck around in game two. I stayed home to enjoy all the shedded hair showing up in our house, and on my clothes, stuck to my boots, on our furniture, getting in my mouth, blowing like tumbleweed across the paddocks…
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Fan Frustrations
As many distractions as I mustered to keep from solely focusing on sports outcomes yesterday, the negative vibes of witnessing the abuse that referees allowed to continually occur in last night’s hockey game between Minnesota and North Dakota left me stewing. It’s too bad, given I had a great start to the sunny, warm March day, taking a long, brisk walk with Cyndie that worked wonders to stretch out the ol’ hamstring and lift my spirits. Plus, there’s that news which broke about an hour before the hockey game had even started that the basketball team is in this year’s NCAA Tournament! Such a shame that all that good potential got lost in the angst of my suffering the malicious intentions displayed that seem to have a history of occurring in games I’ve witnessed involving the Dave Hakstol coached UND Souix. It frustrates me to the extreme.
I truly love the game of hockey, but I have never understood the culture of allowance for post-whistle chippy activity that permeates the sport at most all levels. That fighting is still woven into the NHL and other professional leagues is mind boggling enough, but then the game barely looks any different in the levels below where fighting is supposedly not allowed. It starts with checks that would earn unsportsmanlike penalties in most other sports, and includes post-whistle punches, stick hacks, and passive aggressive intentional contact that deftly provokes under a guise of innocence. Nine times out of ten, the officials just skate in and separate all the players, as if that will end it. Ridiculous.
I dream of someday watching a game where every time a player smacks a stick or pushes their glove into a player’s face mask after the whistle has blown, they get sent to the penalty box without hesitation. I’m pretty sure they would get the message real quick. Imagine what the game could be like if they had to channel all that miscreant behavior into actual skating, passing and shooting the puck.
A fan can dream, can’t he?
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