Alan Truex: Hockey is the now sport — even in Central Texas
Updated Thursday, April 25
LLANO, Texas — The jukebox was silent, but the chatter was loud and enthusiastic. The patrons — mostly men but also several women – were crowding around the oak-planked bar and chattering about the Dallas Stars about to play the lamentably named Nashville Predators on the wide screen above.
Frankly, I wondered if I’d entered some sort of Twilight Zone, and I hadn’t had my first Negro Modelo.
There was baseball available. And NBA playoffs. The San Antonio Spurs, the closest we have to a local professional sports team, were being ignored. So why is the happy-hour crowd all abuzz about a sport none of them have ever played? The only ice most of them ever see is in a margarita.
It took me back to being a hockey writer in Atlanta in the mid-Seventies, covering the Flames, who were fun to watch but were not welcomed by most in that very southern city. The sport was marketed, stupidly, as “The Ice Society,” targeting the upper class instead of the middle class.
So hockey failed, and it fled back to where it belonged, the tundra. It was perfect for Calgary, where the name fit as well: one of the world’s coldest cities, with its primary industry providing more than ample fossil fuel to heat it.
It did not occur to me that hockey in the 21st century could catch on in Las Vegas and Tampa. And Denver, where I’d seen it fail before. And Northern California, where I’d seen it catch on, almost, like roller derby.
It failed a second time in Atlanta, with the poorly managed Thrashers, but that turned out to be Winnipeg’s gain. Sort of.
And just to show hockey can grow in Dixie, we see it thriving in Nashville. This is where catfish are hurled onto the ice in weird celebration of goals — an element of the new cultural dynamic of the sport. I think I’ve figured out where the NASCAR fans are going.
Watching the first round of this year’s playoffs, I see why hockey is having its day. Both conference winners and the defending Stanley Cup champion were eliminated. Meanwhile in the NBA, the top seeds and the No. 2s coast, though the Golden State Warriors are coasting to the ledge, turning a 3-1 romp over the LA Clippers into a 3-2 test with Wednesday night’s snooze on their home court.
In the eight first-round series in the NHL, there have been just three front-runners: New York Islanders, Colorado Avalanche and, most stunningly, Columbus Blue Jackets, with their sweep of the Tampa Bay Lightning, who tied the league record with 62 regular-season wins.
Defending champion Washington was ousted Wednesday night in the tenth overtime game of the first round. This one took a second OT to produce the shocker: The Carolina Hurricanes, suddenly a Category 5 force, advanced from the South to win 4-3 in Game 7.
The NHL has parity Roger Goodell dreams about. And the action is fast, timeouts rare, penalties entertaining. Give me a power play over a 15-yard march-off. What’s not to like?
The main drawback to hockey in decades past was that it didn’t show well on television. It’s better now, technology making the puck more visible, replays clarifying any questions, though an Alex Ovechkin non-goal Monday night is being endlessly debated.
Rules were changed to create better flow of action. And less goonery.
As a whole, the league has much better skating than it had in the Eighties when there were but a handful of Europeans and non-Canadian Americans. Now the talent pool is hugely expanded. A fourth of NHL players are U.S.-born. All but extinct are plodding defensemen. These days almost everyone can rush the puck across the blue line.
The hero of the Sunday night action was San Jose’s Finnish forward, Tomas Hertl. With a rush on the net he scored the first double-overtime shorthanded goal in NHL history and fulfilled his promise to Sharks fans to “come back home” for a Tuesday night Game 7.
In this particular Game 7 – unfortunately too late for most to see — the Sharks were down 3-0 midway through the third period. But they scored four goals in a 5-minute power play set up by a Cody Eakin cross-check onto the chest of Joe Pavelski that was not a brutal hit by NHL standards.
Pavelski fell onto the ice. He was bleeding, causing officials to think Eakin struck his face, which was not the case. The NHL on Thursday admitted the error.
Vegas forward Jonathan Marchesseault said: “That call changed the whole outcome. It changes the whole future for us.”
Hopefully there’s some penalty-killing in their future.
Although the Golden Knights tied the game late in the third period, they lost 5-4 in OT on a goal by fourth-liner Barclay Goodrow.
As for the Dallas Stars, they won Saturday night and again on Monday night to take their series in six.
Most of the Stars’ success this year is due to a 6-7 goaltender, Denver-born Ben Bishop. He’s saving 94.5% in the playoffs, allowing 1.9 goals per game.
But led by 19-year-old Finnish defenseman Miro Heiskanen, who played 32 minutes in the overtime clincher, the Stars outskated the favored Predators, who were undone by an 0-for-15 power play and a penchant for turnovers. After an especially grievous giveaway near his net by P.K. Subban, a cry from the back of the bar: “That’s my nigger!”
This is where you roll your eyes, just enough to let them know, without provoking a hockey fight. One thing hasn’t changed since my early days of writing about the NHL: still not many descendants of African immigrants. I can’t help but wonder if that’s somewhat by design. Somewhat uncomfortably, but true to my roots, I live in a hotbed of white nationalism. Rush Limbaugh is omnipresent.
On my way to town I drive past a neighboring cattle ranch with the entrance marked by a Confederate battle flag and, above it, naturally, the Lone Star. At least there’s no swastika. Yet. Maybe in this land of football, hockey will bring us all together.
