THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, January 9, 1997 TAG: 9701080006
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A17 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: OPINION
SOURCE: Patrick Lackey
LENGTH: 73 lines
Recently I held a hockey puck for the first time.
It was barely heavy enough to serve as a paperweight.
``Goalies must be wimps to wear masks,'' I told a hockey fan. ``How much could a puck hurt?''
At 100 mph plus, I was assured, it hurts.
So here's everything I know about hockey:
1. The puck hurts.
2. There are five players on a side, plus a goalie. I discovered that when several screaming Portsmouth women - the youngest in her 60s - took me to an Admirals game at Scope, the only hockey game I have ever seen live. On TV, there appear to be eight or nine players per side swarming after the puck and high-sticking one another.
3. High-sticking is sticking high.
4. Cross checking is nothing like cross dressing.
5. Hockey players don't wear socks. My colleague Kerry Dougherty told me that. She knows because she played semiprofessional women's hockey in Washington, D.C.
6. I'm a huge Hampton Roads Rhinos fan.
Don't get me wrong. I don't plan to attend more than one Rhinos game if the team comes to downtown Norfolk. I'll sample the popcorn and see how many players are on a side in the National Hockey League. That'll be enough big-league hockey for me.
But again, I'm a huge Hampton Roads Rhinos fan.
The reason, pure and simple, is that Hampton Roads needs a big-league team, and the Rhinos are our best shot. To be more accurate, they're our only shot.
In this sports-crazed country, big-league regions have big-league teams. Lately, the name Jacksonville is being spoken across the nation far more often than ever before. Why? The city's big-league football team is one victory away from the Super Bowl.
Come hockey championship time, the name on people's lips could be Hampton Roads, as in Hampton Roads Rhinos.
The name Rhino is supposed to have incredible marketing potential. The Rhino logo could appear on sweat shirts from sea to shining sea.
And if Hampton Roads had a big-league team, it would be easier to recruit companies with high-paying jobs. As things stand, a local recruiter can truthfully boast to a CEO being courted, ``Hampton Roads is the largest metropolitan region without a major-league team.'' Somehow, though, that boast falls flat. Better to be a region with a major-league team.
Maybe, at long last, people could answer the question, ``Where's Hampton Roads?''
What's confusing about hockey, of course, is that toughs play it before fans with above-average amounts of money. You might think it would be the other way around, that working-class stiffs would pay to watch people in suits high-stick each other's teeth out. But then, in England, why does the working class play the relatively safe game of soccer while the gentry engage in the suicidal sport of rugby? Life's a mystery.
Another mystery: Why are most hockey goals scored by accident, after the puck ricochets off somebody or something?
Personally, I'd prefer to have a National Basketball Association team here. The Hampton Roads Roundballers has a nice ring. I understand basketball. But again, our shot at the big leagues is in hockey. Not in baseball, basketball or football. Only in hockey.
Partly because of the popularity of in-line skates and partly because of improved marketing by the NHL, hockey is getting hotter by the month. I can't imagine that I'll ever like it, but many young people do. Several Portsmouth women in their 60s and 70s attend nearly every Admirals home game.
A recent Pilot headline declared, ``Hockey isn't just a cold-weather, prep-school sport anymore.''
Yes, hockey is our best and cheapest shot at spreading the region's name north and south, east and west, up and down, back and forth.
Go, Rhinos! MEMO: Mr. Lackey is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot.