As a part-time devotee of Vice magazine (a free street rag), each time a new issue lands on my desk I eagerly flip to the latter pages to find the DOs and DON’Ts section. It normally consists of embarrassingly candid photos of people doing things that are either awfully humiliating (aggressively eating a quiche in a packed NY train) or doing something terribly cool (wearing clothes previously owned by an old Jewish man).

Anyway, this got me thinking. What are the DOs and DON’Ts when it comes to hockey? What should we have more of and what should we avoid like the plague? So I’ve put on my intrepid investigative journalistic fedora and have scoured our metro lands for a concise, beginners guide to the DOs and DON’Ts of hockey.

DO

• Model yourself on Andrew Smith: Respected, talented, fit, hard-working and a good bloke too. St. Smitty is so freakin’ sweet he apologises sincerely to his opponents when he humiliates them. And has pec definition that casts a shadow over mine and Ballza’s combined man-boob cleavage. A man mountain with a heart to match.

• Be polite. If you’re polite you can insult an umpire and get away with it. Sarcasm hasn’t crept its way into the by-laws just yet. Mums will like you too.

• Come to terms with the fact that you’re not good enough to play football. Deep down we all harbor some kind of residual shame that we’re not playing a full contact sport. Get over it. Promote your sport and tell everyone proudly you’re a hockey player… and that ice skating is for teenage girls with annoying parents and a penchant for sequins.

• Worship the amateur. Being an amateur sport doesn’t make hockey a mediocre sport. We all play this game for one reason and one reason alone – we bloody love it. Money in sport is like religion in life, it starts wars and complicates things. I’m happy to be proven wrong, but a little amateurism can go a long way.

• Take off those skin coloured bike shorts. Ok, so that’s kind of a round-a-bout way of saying “don’t wear skin-coloured bike shorts”. So yeah, what I just said. While not an exclusive rule for hockey players per-say, I don’t play badminton, bowls or soccer, so it’s not my problem. In fact I’m going to go one step further here: don’t wear anything skin-coloured. It’s just wrong on so many levels, and no-one’s skin is that colour anyway, seriously, who you are kidding? Are you like Buffalo Bill or something? Please, please, please just burn them…and ease off the Dancing with the stars re-runs while you’re at it.

DON’T

• Bitch. There are lot’s of things that can improve in our sport, but remember the only reason you want them to change is because there’s so much love. So don’t bitch, go out there and make things better. Or just start a blog and bitch about them. I mean, “write” about them.

• If you’re under the age of 13 don’t wear sunglasses, to, from or during a game. In fact, don’t wear them at all. You might be protecting your eyes, you might be being sensible, but you just look like a smarmy little know-it-all. Precociousness is almost as annoying as the next point. Almost.

• Be an annoying parent. Will you just go to hell already!? Seriously. Everybody knows and hates an annoying parent. Everybody. So just go away and let your kid play hockey in peace. Annoying parents sit closely on a scale with Joseph Stalin and George W. You’re not going to invite them to a dinner party anytime soon. So, don’t tell everyone how good your kid is, don’t play mind tricks with the other 10 year olds in your kid’s team. And don’t, don’t, don’t speak to my parents, they hate you more than I do.

• Wear a headband. Unless you’re a Swedish tennis player or a Brazilian soccer star please refrain. Take it off, get a hair cut and stop embarrassing your team mates. Girls are exempt (except if you start rollin’ with one of those wet-suit material visors, in which case refer to previous sentence).

• Hip-and-shoulder a girl. Many years ago a team mate, in a mixed junior match, hip-and-shouldered a girl who was playing at left wing. She went flying. Like, really flew. Had it been at a ground with a lower fence, she would have landed in the canteen. It wasn’t cool back then, and it’s still not cool now. You just end up looking like a cun-

• Drop the c-bomb.

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This entry was posted on Friday, February 29th, 2008 at 4:18 pm and is filed under Gus. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.