Sure hockey is the greatest game on ice and to most hockey fans it is the coolest, most bestest game ever in the history of games - to the point we make up words and forget grammar when discussing how wonderful this sport is. It isn’t the skill, the violence, the goals, the plays, the mind-blowing how-in-the-world-did-the-goalie-stop-that save, nor is it the plus/minus, the fancy stats, the North American game, the European game, it isn’t the snow falling on a private pond in the middle of winter nor the chill of an indoor rink in the dead of summer. The sound of skate blades cutting across the ice, the sounds of pucks hitting goal posts and the glass. The cheers of fans, the parents supporting their little ones to take that first step on the ice. It isn’t the jersey we opt to wear that makes this game nor those part of the hockey world no matter where they fall in it cool.
What is cool about hockey is all of it.
We are in a YOLO world and too often are we as a society caught up on doing the right things, saying the perfect things and making sure what we wear and what we portray is cool.
But too who?
Who do we are thinks we are cool? The random fan you come across at a game whom you wouldn’t recognize in three days pumping gas next to them? Is it the social media hockey world of executives to writers to the fan next door? Or your friends and family whom you talk to about all the aspects of hockey?
The Hockey News Ronnie Shuker published a piece about why it’s not cool to wear the jersey of a player who’s younger than you are.
Umm. Okay.
I guess I missed this rule in the unwritten how to be a true hockey fan rulebook. Who cares what team, colors, name, or number I, and/or anyone else decides to don? Who are you to judge a fan for which player is their favorite? Sure depate the topics of who is better Jonathan Toews or Sidney Crosby.
Debate and discuss this game from old traditions to new fancy stats; but why knock someone for having a favorite player and enjoying this game that at one point you all loved and that is what drew you to it in the first place.
Debate and discuss being key. Judging someone by looks is a huge assumption that are often wrong.
What of these future fans? Maybe they are out there right now – reading this even – waiting for their city to get a team of their own (or to return in some cases). Are they not allowed to have a jersey with a player’s name on it if they don’t make this age minimum?
Hockey, along with the rest of the sports world, has enough discrimination be it by gender, sexual identity, race, etc. now we are throwing out cool factors based on a fan’s age on if they can or can’t wear something to be cool.
Being cool is over rated. You will never please everyone and those that matter you don’t need to impress and could care less which name is on the back of your jersey.
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