I've been in two actual fights in hockey in my life. Plenty of shoving here and there, but only two real fights. The first, I was 16, playing roller hockey. 17 years later, my second, last night. With Baby Huey. Well, three of my teammates and I . . . after the game.We had a comfortable 7-2 lead. The refs had whistled the other team for 10 penalties (in our league that's enough to lose a point in the standings), and frankly there could have been several more. We had five of our own, and also could have had a couple more. Frustrated, they started losing their cool, accusing us of diving (we weren't), and generally mouthing off. Not ones to back down, we returned our own verbal jabs. After a verbal exchange, with 3:30 remaining, the refs decided to call the game (which, incidentally, isn't allowed under USA Hockey).
Baby Huey, here, was pissed. First he let the refs have it on the ice with a verbal assault that made my petty exchange with a ref in a hallway look like a disney training film. Then, he followed our team off the ice, jabbering at us the whole way about how we were diving. Naturally, we *calmly* explained that we weren't, and that he should just worry about learning to play hockey.
The father of a two-year old, I should know better. People are genetically programmed, and Baby Huey is no different. His older brother was permanently thrown from the league two years ago when, after receiving a game misconduct, he tried to hit the referee with a slapshot. Baby Huey has the same genetic code.
After following us towards our locker room, mouthing off the whole time, he turned to go to his locker room, and gave our goaltender a hard shove. Not too surprisingly one of our bigger defenseman jumped in and it was on.
Now, most of our team was already in the locker room, and all of his team was, too. It was him, and four of us. Not the brightest time for him to start a fight, but as I say, genetic programming. The other genetic component is Huey is big . . . real big. I hover around 2 bills, and our defenseman that jumped in is bigger than me by a decent margin, and both of us are small compared to Huey. I'm downright puny.
So, a couple of us jump in to break it up, the rink attendant jumps in, and everyone is subdued, and split up . . . when Huey comes at us again. Same drill, broken up, walking away, Huey comes at us a third time. This time, it's just him, our big D, and the rink attendant trying to stop it. So I grab Huey's sweater just to pull him off our guy. Between the rink attendent and I, we get him off our D (who was doing fine, by the way). He turns to walk away, sees my sweater and it was like a bull seeing red -- instantly he jumps me. So I cover up, two rink attendents jump in, and after he gets a couple of shots in, it's over.
Sigh. Why do people like Baby Huey think they need to play hockey?
2 comments:
I wish I could have been there. You guys have all the fun.
#11
So I read this and kept wondering who you were talking about...that is until you described him physically. Then I said "holy crap, he's talking about my friend (we'll call him) Joe!"
I used to feel the same way about Joe. I played against him a couple of times and I remember distinctly him running me over and jostling my head along the boards. I wondered why a guy that was 6'4", 200+ feel the need to rail me when he could get the same result using only a mere 10% of this momentum to nail my 5'8", 150lbs frame. The easy answer: asshole.
So then Joe started showing up at pick-up and I met him. After about a month, I loved the guy. He was totally easy going, had a good sense of humor, and played a fun game...at pick-up.
My point is, something takes over him in games and I can't nor wont defend it. In our league, it's not appropriate.
Maybe it's a Bruce Banner/the hulk thing?
As opponents, I say don't put up with it...call him on his junk when he pulls it. MAKE the ref throw him in the box. As a "friend," if I see him acting like an ass, I'll be a friend a call him on it too. I don't know...it's a tough one.
What I do know is that there are a few truly evil people in the world, even fewer truly good people, and everyone else in the middle made up of shades of gray. Like a lot of us, Baby Huey falls into that category.
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