The Lingo
Two weekends ago, as I was relaxing in the middle of a canoe, gliding across the glass-like waters of Tom Thompson lake, something struck me. In a physical sense, that something was my dad's canoe paddle, which he had whacked lazily (albeit unintentionally) on my head. But in a metaphysical sense--after my dad had reacted with, "Oh no! I'm so sorry, is it a double minor?"--that something was that I really, really love hockey lingo. I love it enough that it causes me to giggle even when I've recently been smacked in the head with a wooden blade.
As a hockey fan, I have a plethora of specialized terminology at my disposal. Even the most pedestrian of sports terms (jersey, team...) have unique and exciting hockey equivalents (sweater, club...). Maybe it's the Theater Major in me, but I never thought twice about the use of "dressing room," until my boyfriend overheard one of the Sabres intermission reports and exclaimed, "What is this, a play? Don't they mean locker room?" I found myself strangely proud to declare that, no, they don't. There's something very satisfying about hockey having its own vocabulary. Even better is how so much of that vocabulary can fit deliciously into everyday conversation. I've found it can brighten any situation. Like when my dad wants to know if I'm bleeding. Or when I'm watching baseball with my mom (read: she's watching, and I just happen to be in the room) and someone hits a homer: "Uh, oh. Over the glass. Delay of game." Or when I stub my toe: "Oh no! A lower-body injury!" The possibilities are endless! I have visions of me in the future, sending my squabbling kids to their rooms by yelling, "That's it! Five for fighting! Get in the box!" (That's a good enough reason to want to have kids, right?)
This year my brother took biology from a teacher notorious for giving hockey players special treatment in his classes. He and one of his friends decided that since they don't play hockey, the best way for them to get free extra points would be to answer questions like, "On which side of the abdomen is the pancreas located?" with things like, "Gloveside!" Or explain that, "The gonads are located right above the five-hole, near the groin." Or raise their hands to say, "Mr. M, you might want to forecheck that answer. I think you mean mitosis, not meiosis." After which they would high-five each other and exclaim "Yeah! Ten points for us!" If I were their teacher, they would totally get the ten points. Hockey lingo is just that cool.
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4 comments:
I have visions of me in the future, sending my squabbling kids to their rooms by yelling, "That's it! Five for fighting! Get in the box!"
I tell my students all the time, "Two minutes in the box!"
Hee. Great post, Gambler!
I think this came up once on IPB, but I have taken to calling Kleinhans Music Hall, "our building".
Welcome back. Does this mean you're finished with HP and we can now have a discussion about the ending of that series?
I can't think of any examples where I use hockey lingo to describe things in my life, but probably do so unknowingly. I do like the fact that the band Five for Fighting took their name from the penalty though.
Great post! I think we all knew our reasons were going to overlap so -- spoiler alert! -- we're going to write about this, too, at some point. It's just such a fantastic reason to love hockey!
One of my favorite things is when we make up our own lingo. For example, Boomer once decided, back with Curits Leschyshyn was playing, the word "lasceration" should be interchangable with the invented word "leschyshyn". For some reason this stuck, and at IPB Manor it always takes us all a moment to figure out which is the real word! So don't be surprised to read in an IPB game diary "So-and-so is out with a deep leschyshyn."
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