What kind of a fan are you?

My dear hockey buddies. We all call ourselves a "hockey fan". We are kind of a HUGE family which is connected by one amazing thing - by the love for HOCKEY! And there are LOTS of different personalities, opinions, ideas, reasons for supporting this wonderful sport etc. So many kinds of the hockey fans. That's why I think it's almost impossible to sort them in any way. I've tried to pick some and give them my definitions though.



collector
Jerseys, hockey cards, tshirts, hats, pucks, posters, sticks and so on and so on. This kind of a fan has tons of these things. If you visit his/her place you will see walls covered with the pics of the players, with posters, flags and many other things. Everything matches with the team's (the fan cheers for) colors. This fan spends most of the time on the shop.nhl.com, eBay or any other e-shops with NHL products. These fans are usually very proud they have such a huge collections so if you ask them to show you their collections, they will be very happy to do so.

players-hunter
This fan is kind of obssesed by the players. No matter the team. Even the fact if the player is active or has already retired doesn't matter. This fan takes anyone who has ever played or plays in the NHL. Everytime there is a chance to meet the players you can be sure this fan will use it. These fans are at every "meet and greet", they visit practices of the teams, they attend every event which is related to the hockey in any way. They need to be there! They love collecting signed pics or jerseys, they love taking photos with the players and if they get to talk to them, they are the happiest in the world.

critic
Did the team lose the game? You can be sure that this fan will be the first to tell you. This fan thinks he/she knows the best. He/she believes that his/her opinion is always the right one. These fans would love to replace the coaches in the teams they root for. Everytime the player makes a mistake, this fan will be the biggest critic. They like to criticise anything the team does. Even though the team wins the game, this kind of a fan will always find something what was bad - too few shots on goal, too complicated passing, too many penalties, bad penalty killing, weak power plays, slow skating, bad puck handling etc.

stats-freak
Who is the top scorer of the Flyers? Which of the Ducks' players has the best +/-? Who took the most penalties? What is the GAA of Mike Smith? Wanna know that? Ask this fan and you can be sure he/she will tell you. This kind of a fan is crazy about the stats. He/she loves going through the lists of the best scorers, of the most successful goalies, the biggest hitters and so on. The highlight of the season for these fans is when the awards and trophies are given to the players.

history-lover
If you meet this fan and you ask him/her who made it to the playoffs from the 6th place in the Eastern Conference in 1991 you will hear the right answer. You can bet on that! These fans love the history of the NHL and they love talking about what happened in the past. They remember everything what influenced the development of the league, they will tell you when and where were the NHL teams established, they are very familiar with the history of each NHL draft, they can recall all the names of the #1 picks, they are simply walking encyclopedias.

game-viewer & game-attender
These fans are, I think, the most common. They watch every single game they are able to. These fans simply loves watching any hockey they can get. There are just a slight difference between "viewer" and "attender". The "viewer" prefers to stay at home and watch the games on TV. That gives him/her the opportunity to see more games, not just the game of the team he/she roots for. While the "attender" prefers the live games and obviously, he/she can see only that particular game. The "attenders" are usually the season-ticket holders and they have usually the best seats in the arena.

fight-seeker
This kind of a fan can't see the excitement in the game itself. He/she needs some fight during the game. These fans barely pay attention to what's going on on the ice. They sit in their seats, drink and eat and they kinda wake up only when there's a fight about to begin. When there are two guys getting and giving punches, that time these fans are usually the most loud in the arena. They go nuts. But if there is no fighting during the game, they leave the arena very disappointed.



So. Did you find yourself? I hope you did. And if not, let me know! :) I think that most of us are the mixture of two or more kinds of a hockey fan I've described. We all love watching hockey, I suppose. We all are happy when we buy a new jersey of our loved team. Most of us are interested in the history of NHL and we look at the stats from time to time. When there's a fight on the ice, some of us get excited. We all criticise our guys once in a while. And I believe that all of us are glad to meet a hockey player.

Can you spell Artyukhin?

OMG! I've just found this video on youtube and I f-ckin' LOVE it! It's simply hillarious. It made my day! :D Haha... Enjoy!



credit goes to: youtube hockeybuzz

Canadian hockey in the eyes of czech hockey fan

The young boys from Canada made it again. For fifth time in a row. And what exactly? I'm talkin' about Junior's Hockey Championship. Canadians won golden medals when they beat "Three Crowns" (=Sweden). They didn't lose at all during the whole tournament (well, they were close to fall to Russia in semi-final - they tied the game just 5 secs before the end and eventually won in the shoot-out) and 46:12 is the ratio between scored goals and the goals in their net. WOW! They absolutely deserved to win. When you look at the canadian boys you can see how hard they work on themselves. And why should we wonder? NHL is something sooo damn attractive. Especially the young Canadian, Tavares, seemes that he'll be the first pick in upcoming NHL draft. I can just hope that it won't be Tampa where he could be drafted. Haha.

Canada simply was, is and always will be favorite in all hockey tournaments. I'd never thought before (when I was even more silly than I'm now - yes, it really is possible) that I'd be writing something like that about Canada. It's not that I didn't like this country 'cause I did (and still do) it was just that I was kind of blind and envious to the fact that they really are the best in hockey. Yes! It is true! You can say whatever you want, you can say that Russian beat them, that we, Czechs, have beaten them many times as well, but still... Even though I don't like this kind of phrase, hockey "was born" in Canada, it's so true and in my eyes, they really are the best in it. Just look how many people went to see this year's juniors tournament in Canada. Oh my god! The final was sold out! 20 380 fans! And what fans! Chanting, clapping their hands, screaming, with colors on their faces, in jerseys, with flags and so on. Sure, we (czech people) can be amazing fans too. We can just overcrowd every square in bigger cities in the country, every pub, bar, restaurant or just our living rooms when we want to watch hockey together. And we enjoy it damn much! But when? Only when men are playin'. Only when something "huge" is going on. I mean World Championships or Olympics. And only if it's play-off. Nobody cares that much when it's like the first game in the group. And nobody cares that much when the juniors are playing. Just remember the last year's tournament when it was held in our country. So few people went to the arena to see the hockey game. It's a shame, isn't it? Like when you compare it to the atmosphere at junior's tournament in Canada. And we call ourselves as a "hockey nation". What an irony.

Our hockey might be more "inteligent" or our players might be "smarter", but nobody can deny that Canada gave to the world so many amazing players. Like the best on the planet. And Canadians are proud of it. Well, maybe too much sometimes. The pride and belief in your own strenghts which Canadian hockey players have might look not very nice sometimes in your eyes but sayings like: "He plays like a fuckin' asshole because he's a stupid cocky Canadian." is as idiotic as if you were saying that you'd sleep with some ugly man just because he's fuckin' clever and his brain is sexy. Canada, its hockey and hockey fans simply deserve my huuuge admiration.

But don't get me wrong. This article seems that I'm like: "Oh, I love Canada and fuck you, Czech Republic." but it's really NOT like that. Even though I think Canada = the best hockey country, czech hockey (the national or our leagues) is damn important for me! Well... I'm a bit disappointed sometimes that only few people around me really care about hockey and know the game but on the other hand... I'm Czech. And I'm fuckin' proud of it! Damn, I love our "gold hockey generation" and I love my memories about me as a small 11-year-old girl who was discovering the beauties of this sport while watching Olympics in Nagano. Since then I've been more or less livin' for hockey. And still I am. After the national team, I added Zlin (=my hometown) hockey team to my favourites and finally the NHL team Tampa Bay Lightning. These three teams simply belong deep in my heart.

So. To close this article, which should have been much shorter, I have to say that Canada has my respect, admiration and part of my heart. To the Czech Republic belong my undying support, loyalty and my whole heart.

I will always love hockey. Forever. And I don't care that there are still some people who think I love it just because of the cute guys on their skates. I don't care at all.

Welcome!

Since almost every Connector I know has his/her own blog I've decided to set up my own too. I run lots of websites including my personal one but this blog will be a bit different. It will be just in English and I will post my thoughts only about the best sport ever - about hockey. I start with posting some blogs I've posted earlier on the NHL Connect. I hope you'll enjoy it here. Feel free to leave a comment or whatever (not really) you want... :)