Ice Hockey

19-04-23 00 / episode: 93

Script

Ice hockey.

Many people love it in Canada.

In fact, you could say it's Canada's national sport, although it really isn't.

That is lacrosse.

So, ice hockey is pretty popular in the northern countries.

Countries that have winter and it's easy to get ice.

And when I was a child, lots of people played outside, you could even play in your backyard in Canada because some people would just spray water on a big flat piece of ground.

And if you sprayed the water for a few days in a row and left it overnight, it would freeze nice and smooth and then you could play hockey in your backyard with your friends.

Although it was kind of small anyway.

Hockey is a very popular sport, but I think it's kind of a brutal sport for a while there in the late eighties and the early nineties, in fact, it was getting a little bit out of control and some people felt the hockey fans like to go to hockey, to watch fights and violence.

I don't think hockey's like that these days.

And it's an Olympic sport so it's pretty good.

But they do allow a lot of physical contact and with these big men skating on skates, they can achieve really high speeds.

I couldn't play hockey because I was too small.

And a friend of mine who is somewhat larger than me, he told me that he couldn't play hockey because he was too small.

So body size counts in that game.

But if you're just big and strong, you won't go very far.

You have to be quick and have talent.

One of the best hockey players I heard of Wayne Gretzky.

He said, don't skate after the puck skate where the puck is going.

Now, the puck is the little black thing that they shoot around.

It's kind of like a ball but it slides on the ice.

What Wayne Gretzky was really saying, was think ahead.

Don't follow, go where the game is going before it gets there.

So if you want to think of it that way, it's quite a planning sport and it's very fluid and it's very exciting.

Go watch a game if you haven't.