Ben Still Doesn't Know Anything About Sports: Hockey

Seems like there's still too much space between my posts these days, isn't there? (And in this case, basically another month. Whoops.) Once again, I blame novel work. I'm down to the last very two chapters and epilogue, and once I finish the last of these revisions, it's time to begin the long, arduous, and inevitably soul-crushing process of chucking my work at agents while bellowing "YOU READ IT, YOU READ IT!" and maybe a "YOU MAKE ME MONIES!" for good measure. Because it might be nice to have some of those monies for once in life, maybe a means of eventually getting out and actually doing the whole starting of one's life thing. I've heard some talk that the literary publishing world's getting ready to start moving forward and taking chances again as of late, which should help, seeing as the economy's just starting to begin its painful recovery, and we're starting to see more books selling again. I'd kinda like to see my book join those, hopefully give people something to enjoy.

So, fall began just over a week ago. (Up here where the world doesn't run in REVERSE.) People seem to like to watch that sports stuff on TV a whole lot when fall arrives. It's been a long time since I last wrote about sports. Almost as though I don't actually care about athletics in any meaningful capacity. But of course, you're all about that stuff, aren't you? Whether you're about those frequently fatal hot dog eating contests or that one game the rest of the world really likes where you kick a ball with your feet. What was that game called again?

At any rate, I figure I may as well use that athletics tag a bit more and explain everything to you about some more sports I know nothing about and don't care to know anything about. Let's start with hockey. (That's the one everybody spends half the year fixated on, right? With the end zones and field goals and crap like that.) Hockey's fun. If the game goes well, all the players and the entire audience will be dead by the end of the game. Now that's a SPORT! (A blood sport, maybe, hurr hurr hurr ow. Why must I say these things?)

So there's some ice, but the important thing is that everyone's wearing skates - skates are sharp. You don't want to get cut by those, but frankly, that's the whole point of the game. That and punching. (Brass and barbed-wire knuckles are standard issue equipment.) You want to punch each other - ideally making good use of those hockey sticks/bludgeons in there somewhere too - until you knock teeth out of the opposing team's players (And in some cases the same team's) so you can score points based on toothcount. It's a fact.

If a player manages to accumulate ten teeth, they can take a trip to the penalty box, where they keep the game's "tooth fairy." (A hobo recruited off the street for each game, plied by bottle of Jack Daniel's and given a pair of fairy wings and a shotgun.) The player in question sits out for the next five minutes while the "fairy" fires his shotgun (All fairies have these. But you already knew that, right?) indiscriminately at other players and into the audience. You can think of him as the "loose cannon" or "wild card" of the game. A good tooth fairy can end the game in ten to fifteen minutes. But chances are they'll be so drunk that they probably won't.

Some hockey enthusiasts are probably protesting as they read this post. "But Ben! Hockey's not like this at all! You didn't even mention the puck!" Jesus, what is it with you purists? Of course I was getting to the puck, but get over your pucking hangup already! It's not the most important part of the game, okay!? Why is that some people can't stand it when I just tell it like it is? Some people can't handle a straight shooter. So obviously, there's a little black disc on the ground called the puck. Named after the character from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, the puck in hockey is a jester to the players much in the same sense that the character Puck was to the fairy king Oberon. As Puck was there to create mischief, the puck in hockey so exists to distract players from the real point of the game. (Hence all THESE JERKS who just won't let up about how the game is played. YOU'VE ALL BEEN TRICKED! GET OVER IT!) They want you to think you're supposed to hit the puck into a goal on the other side of the rink, but this couldn't be further from the truth. The reality of it is, the puck's only real use in hockey is as a long range projectile to knock out other players at a long distance once they've lost their helmets. (First rule of hockey: WORK THE FACE. If you make it through the game without becoming horribly disfigured, you're DOING IT WRONG. This also applies to hockey fans in the audience. Sorry, mutilation's the name of the game. I DON'T WRITE THESE RULES STOP COMPLAINING.) You also get bonus points if you break someone's teeth or nose by using the puck as a melee weapon in close-range combat. (Note: Use THE Puck, not Wolfgang Puck. Otherwise you won't get to eat after the game and you'll have no one but yourself to blame.)

The puck-crazed crowd also seems to have a fixation on those goal nets on either side of the rink. You aren't supposed to see those. What's wrong with you guys? Have you been shooting smack into your eyeballs again? (Generally not well-advised behavior.) There's only supposed to be two junkies in the rink at any given time, the "goalies," who hallucinate the existence of these "goals" as so to give them more direction than the rest of the players. With everyone else on the offensive, you want at least two strictly defensive players out there to shake things up. Otherwise the whole game'd get dreadfully boring. (And once the novelty wears off, there's nothing more boring than wanton violence.) And most sports are unforgivably boring - especially when they don't involve robots - which is why I don't watch these things. BECAUSE I HAVE TASTE. (Stay tuned for my soon to arrive next post after these long delays, looking at what I've deemed worth watching in the 2009-2010 TV season!) Clearly yours is questionable.

The best thing that can possibly happen at any hockey game is the arrival of a zamboni. (You know, those ice resurfacers.) If a game goes over time, it's the only way to settle things - and it's much more exciting than watching people get flattened by a steamroller. (Which is, in actually, nowhere near as funny as you'd think.) OHH! THE CLOCK'S RUN OUT! AND MR. JONES HAS ARRIVED ON THE ZAMBONI! CAN THAT ONE DISFIGURED GUY OUTSKATE IT!? I DON'T THINK SO, TOM, HE'S LOST A LOT OF BLOOD! IT'S GOOD! TOUCHDOWN! GOAL! (Imagine that last word stretched out for as long an interval as humanly possible. There's no limit to imagination.) Now this is what athleticism is all about.

Next time! Competitive ice skating: like hockey, but slightly harder to kill people. That is to say, I have no idea when I'm going to do another of these. (IT'S A MYSTERY.)

What Makes This Bowl So Superb?

At last! Here we are! What you've all waited for! Even if you haven't! The second-ever installment of Spiral Reverie's whenever-the-hell-I-feel-like-it feature, "Ben Doesn't Know Anything About Sports!"

Today's a big day. What day is it? Why, it's that day America's masses most inclined to inevitable heart disease - the kind that comes from negligence, not genetics - cling together like positively charged ions (Or negatively charged ions, or... science isn't my forte either, okay?) in front of their TV-boxes to bask in the sterility-inducingly warming glow of that there big football game. They pour bag after bag of crunchy fried pig remains - "pork rinds," they call them - into a bowl, with maybe some high fructose corn syrup-based dip on the side for extra flavor on which to gorge themselves during the game - hence why today is known as The Super Bowl.

Personally, I don't see what's so superb about it. The big winner is decided, blah blah blah, who cares? They're just going to do it again next year. And the year after that. And they'll probably be doing it long after you're dead, too - barring any major nuclear accidents. But then, I'm sure the mutants would form their own leagues too. They might even form their own separate leagues for flying mutants, and flying mutants who prefer flag football to all this tackling bullshit - to clean up their language, these future mutants seem to find that sort of behavior overtly homoerotic. But then, these mutants aren't too fond of pants either. Time travel was not a comfortable experience.

To find out more about this most spectacular of food receptacles, I talked to three unsuspecting football fans when out and about walking the great prairies and plains of modern America.

The first interviewee was a man by the name of Jason Burtwick, 28, a full-time bag boy and aspiring frat boy who got kicked out of community college for accidentally making a pipe bomb out of a beer bong and nearly killing several of his classmates in Street Dance 101.

Q: So, how 'bout this big game? Is it going to be a sports-filled time or what? There might even be some athletics!
A: No shit, asshat. It's gonna be the bomb - the bomb diggity. That's like a bomb with even more digging involved.

Q: Is digging typically a part of bomb-related processes around here?
A: Are you trying to fuck with me? You already yelled at me until I told you why I got kicked out of school. If you don't watch it, I'm gonna have to break out a whole shipment of whoop-ass on your ass.

Q: You seem to be fond of the word "ass." Is this indicative of that perhaps football fans exist in a state of arrested development, fundamentally drifting along in their anal phase?
A: I don't even know what you just said, but I like chicks.

Q: That's okay. So, who're you rooting for, the New Hampshire Bellboys or South Florida Geriatrics?
A: Those aren't the teams, dude. What are you, living in a cave or something? 'Cause there's bears there. I bet I could wrestle a bear.

Q: Can we get back to the previous question?
A: Oh yeah. It's the New England Patriots and New York Giants this time. And I'm not rooting for either of those teams. Their fans are dicks, man. I'm a Carolina fan.

Q: That must be very sad for you, then. One last question - who do you think is going to catch the Snitch?
A: What the fuck are you talking about!?

At this point, Mr. Burtwick became violent and unruly. He had to be tasered repeatedly and animal control was called. Last I've heard, he was relocated to the African savanna where he now lives peacefully amongst a pod of hippos that gradually learned to accept him as one of their own.

The second interview took place in New York City, with a man who requested he remain anonymous and be referred to only as Mr. Nobody. But this was a stupid request, and it is only by that I was too lazy to write his name down that he continues to be anonymous here - if it were up to me, I'd be giving you his social security number about now. But fortune does not smile upon us all, I'm afraid. Damn you, Mr. Nobody!

Q: These New England Patriots - what makes them so patriotic? Fox News keeps telling me that this segment of the country is full of America-hating communists.
A: Why'd you ask me 'bout the Pats, huh? You know where you are now? Those schmucks wouldn't know the foot from the ball, I tell ya. They sure ain't patriotic like New Yawkers, we had 9/11 and everything. 9/11 was ours.

Q: So you're telling me that the Super Bowl isn't so much about artery-hardening, blood-thickening consumption habits as it is 9/11?
A: Were you even listening? It's about America, it's about freedom, it's about my freedom to walk away from these stupid fuckin' questions of yours any time I choose.

Q: But then how will the internet learn about the Super Bowl? C'mon buddy, this is about education. Future generations need to know about their ancestors fighting amongst themselves over ball games.
A: Did you just call football a ball game? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you did. And that, my friend, is your first mistake.

Q: But the word ball is right in the name... it only follows that-
A: No, no, football is a metaphor. John Madden was yammering about it last week. I forget his point, but there's more to it than just throwing a ball around.

Q: Why do they call it football anyway? I mean, I don't know anything about sports and even I know that the "football" the rest of the world plays makes a lot more sense.
A: They run, don't they?

Q: This is true.
A: Then they use their fuckin' feet! Use your brain, dumbshit!

Following this interview, I was beaten severely by goombahs who just happened to conveniently be in the area. I nearly died, and years later, here I am finally relating this story to you. I'm not sure if it's more depressing or relieving, finally getting this off my chest.

Lastly, I traveled back in time to 1934 to learn about the early Super Bowl. I didn't care anymore by then, so I just shouted at a random stranger. Everything was black and white. It was pretty weird.

Q: Hey buddy, how 'bout these Super Bowls, eh?
A: Super Bowls? I'm afraid I can't help you there. We've got a Dust Bowl out there though. You can go see that if ya want. Presuming you're not being crippled by the depression like the rest of us.

Q: Nope. I've got magic powers. I'm talkin' 'bout the Super Bowls. C'mon, you must know something.
A: I don't know what you're getting at. Say, that's a pretty fancy toboggan you've got there.

Q: It's a time machine. I'm from the future and I used it to travel back in time.
A: You sure you're feelin' alright?

Q: I'M PERFECTLY FINE. YOU'RE THE ONE IN A BACKWARDS TIME PERIOD. YOU DON'T EVEN LET BLACK PEOPLE VOTE YET. That's it. I'm outta here!
A: What a weirdo.

And that, my friends, is how "weirdo" was introduced into the American vernacular decades before it was originally conceived.

Wait - what was I supposed to be doing again? The Super Bowl? No. No. Who cares? I'm done.

For Sports Lovers Everywhere

Introducing a new whenever-the-hell-I-feel-like-it feature in this blog! I call it "Ben Doesn't Know Anything About Sports." I felt that it was necessary to start a feature like this largely because clearly my massive reader base has been clamoring for one thing - and that thing is important and relevant commentary on people running around after balls, looking to score. (And with none of the immature follow-ups to a statement like that most other bloggers might resort to for a cheap laugh. This place has never been anything but a class act, after all.)

"But Ben," you're asking yourself, "why write this feature if you don't know anything about sports?" For starters, don't be so familiar. Secondly, I'm a very generous and giving person - it's just my nature. I feel that after years of painful experiences with sports - from being scrutinized for "throwing like a girl" (That's misogyny, by the way!) to being smashed in the head by a soccer ball and that movie Space Jam (Just the fact that it exists is an affront to everybody.) - it's important to return the favor to sports lovers. For each time you gave me a snide look because I was a nerd (And not a high school athlete and thus an inferred date rapist by default like yourself.), for each time you expected me to see your hackneyed Hollywood "true stories" about delinquents reformed through football, for each time you suggested I use my own legs to propel myself instead of levitating with my mind - this feature is for you.

Thus, we reach the meat of this first feature - the fall season. Everybody loves watching sports in the fall, hunched around their 1930s style scanning disc TVs. Except for perhaps the terrorists - apparently they're readers, and too good for our all-American television addiction. Our lives just wouldn't be complete without the regular crack of a baseball bat as old Ty Cobb scored a touchdown, or eagle, or whatever it is you pull off in baseball where you might not lose the game. Of course, here and there you'll find the odd individual, like myself, who never strapped on the oversized helmet of sports-addiction, the appeal of which continues to elude us. But if you play your cards right, you'll learn to blend into modern society as though it didn't matter that you skipped watching the big game because you had better things to do - like catching up with friends, reading a book, or watching paint dry, all of the above are more enriching than the average bout of televised sportification, after all.

Now, this would be a more stressful time of year for those of us less inclined to athletics if we actually cared. But indifference is a virus that threatens to destroy society as we know it unless something is done. It's not just your obligation, but your solemn duty to be a pain in the ass to the sports-lovers during their most prized of seasons. You weren't raised to tolerate their fondness for kinetic motion when their misery could be your pleasure! Don't give me any lip, that's the American way!

Now, finding joy in wrecking sports fans' days may seem like a daunting task - especially to those of you who like to think of themselves as "good" people (This will soon change. Empathy is a communist sentiment! You're not one of the reds, are you?) - but once you get the hang of these simple, little, every day behavior patterns, it'll be the easiest thing since passing a sobriety test! (If you pass it the right way, anyway - punching the cop and running away. They can't catch you if you believe they can't.)

1) Reference Canadian athletics whenever the topic comes up in the break room, coffee nook, or whatever booby-trapped little corner employees actually think they've escaped from big brother into when at work. The Toronto Maple Leafs are a preferable reference, as in most of America, they're considered more mythical than anything else. (Canadians, playing hockey! Yeah, right. Next, you'll be telling me Soccer's not its real name!) If you run into an individual who is well-versed in all things Canada, you should run away immediately, as if you're caught in their gaze, you'll be turned to stone immediately. If they're not a Canadian themselves, they're probably a sleeper cell, and you should report them to Homeland Security. (Or at least the writers of 24. Word is they've just about run out of Republican wet dreams to write about.)

2) Should someone try to drag you into a conversation about sports, there's a simple statement that, when made defiantly, can break up any and all athletic conversations within a matter of seconds. Whether they want to talk about skeet shooting, curling, or turbo-ice skating, cut them off with a single demand: "Who caught the Snitch!?" If the subject is a sport, there must be a Snitch, and you must know who caught it. (Warning: This method may not work on Harry Potter fans. In fact, to many fans of the boy wizard and his adventures, this is essentially a mating call. Carry a Klingon dictionary with you at all times to ward them off if need be.) This sends a single clear, concise message - that you don't know what they're talking about, and if you don't understand or care about these things, neither should anybody else. It's up to you to make it your personal lifetime goal to ruin anything and everything athletics-related around you. (If they try to ignore you, get more aggressive. If they try to make you back off, be sure to carry a bat you can brandish at a moment's notice - always held at the wrong end, that way they know you're crazy. No one fucks with a crazy person.)

3) Video games. Sometimes you'll encounter people playing sports games - particularly one celebrated by cultists on the Pagan holiday "Maddenoliday" every August when their software of choice gets a roster update. Should any such a fool attempt to coerce you into joining them in a round of their 1980s Jack Nicklaus PC golf simulator, demand to know if what they are playing is a game called "Battletoads." No matter what, be insistent. Battletoads will wear down their willpower in a matter of minutes, dissolving them into a puddle of goo that you can trade for an arrowhead on the black market. A little known trade secret.

4) Should anyone invite you to watch an actual athletic event with them, decline fervently. Should they press the issue, fake a seizure - bellowing outdated profanity as you do so only drives the point further home. If you're lucky, not only will they never invite you to anything sports-related, but they may, in fact, never so much as speak to you again. And once they've had that experience, they can't un-have it. The damage will have been done.

This is all you need to know for now, dear readers, as you fight the good fight in the crusade against others' simple pleasures that you may not share. I leave you with one last nugget of wisdom on this subject for the time being - should all the aforementioned methods be met with failure, begin wearing a full beard of bees at all times. It may drive away family, friends, and even lovers, but there is no method more effective in warding off physical-activity-mongers quite like a beard of bees. Those things have stingers, you know.