Hello there! My blog is inspired by a young lady called Katy who writes one about her new-found support of Newcastle Vipers. I used to write for an online football fanzine about Sunderland (I'm a northern girl originally, exiled to Buckinghamshire, but proud to say I support the same team as Messrs Carr and Farn). The brief given to me then was to give "a girl's view of being a Sunderland supporter". Times change and I no longer produce that column, but inspired by Katy's courage to admit a lack of knowledge - but growing all the time - about the game of ice hockey, thought it might be fun to have a go myself, from an EPL team supporter's view.
Like Katy, I’m a relative newcomer to ice hockey. My son is a volunteer member of the matchnight team at MK Lightning (an English Premier League team). For several seasons, hubs and I would drop him at the rink on Saturday evening, then go off and do our own thing for 2-3 hours (either go home and enjoy the peace, go out for a meal, or hit the supermarket while it was relatively quiet at that time of the evening). The sort of boring things parents do...
My family still live in the north east, and I’d been to a Vipers game with hubs and our boy a little while back, when Vipers were based at Newcastle Arena. They’ve since had a little contretemps with Arena management and moved to the less salubrious surroundings of nearby Whitley Bay rink. Whatever you may think of the Thunderdome occasionally looking a little ragged around the edges, if you compare it with Whitley Bay's rink, our boys play in a palace.
I can’t fully remember what made me think I should take in a Lightning game instead of disappearing off home/to eat/to Tesco’s, but I suspect enjoying the atmosphere at the Vipers must’ve had something to do with it. The ‘Americanisation’/commercialisation of hockey is something than many football supporters would hate...but I love the way the music before the game and in breaks from play builds the atmosphere, how some players have their own songs, and I love how friendly people are at games and on the MK Lightning forum. Some football supporters can be very hostile, even to each other - and certainly in my online existence I found that there's a relatively large amount of suspicion and hostility towards women even daring to know what they're talking about. I began to think that life was just too short to put up with that much grief from keyboard warriors, and gave up the writing.
And so began my relationship with MK Lightning. From my first game in the 2009/10 season I was very quickly hooked, and my one night stand is quickly developing into a meaningful relationship.
I’m very lucky in that my son (so as not to embarrass him, let’s just call him ‘The Boy’, as me and his dad have long called him) knows exactly what ‘s going on in the games – so most weeks, he’s my point of reference. And he notices SO much – both on and off the puck, and I hear the full story later. One of the first things – if not THE first – that absolutely blew me away about hockey is how damn fast it is. You get used to Premier League football....and in my case even Formula One – and think you can cope with a fast sport. But they’re nothing compared to hockey. That announcement to “keep your eyes on the puck at all times” completely underestimates how long it takes to get used to the speed of the game!! I completely missed Michal Pinc's off-puck cross checking of Nick Poole the other week, which rendered our player-coach less effective for some weeks with a neck/shoulder injury - because I was trying to follow the on-puck action. How on EARTH can you follow it all?! If the puck is anywhere near one of the netminders, why would you be watching players heading off for a line change?! Incidentally, line changes and the rolling 'substitutions' are something I still haven't got my head around, so if anyone would like to enlighten me please feel free :)
It also helps that The Boy knows a lot of the characters in the EPL game and also in Lightning’s team in particular - who's likely to be trouble, who's got past form for wanting to beat seven bells out of a particular other players, etc. If it wasn’t for The Boy, there’s no way I’d have a full picture of an average Saturday night’s game and things/characters to watch out for.
So I’m still getting to grips with rules and regs, knowing where to look and when, and also things like songs associated with players. Even if you hear “Pigbag” played every week but don’t realise that people are singing “da daaaah da dah, Graaaant McPherrrsonnn”, how are you supposed to know that it’s “his” song? See, I really AM still a relative virgin to all of this!! I did, however, click very early on about the humour used in music played when someone's heading to the sin bin....brilliant! Always puts a smile on my face when I hear "Sit Down" by James...
Until recently I’ve been wearing a borrowed, match-worn Jo Wiklander shirt to games, and The Boy speaks very highly indeed of him, I think he used to look after Jo's skate guards during games and has ambitions to visit his bar in Stockholm. So many people wear MKL hoodies or replica shirts at Lightning games that I felt a bit ‘out of it’ without suitable attire. But I am now the incredibly proud owner of a 2010-11 season home replica shirt with Poole #91 on the back. I’ve been told about Nick’s history with hockey in MK and his involvement with the change from Kings to Lightning (one of hubby’s friends doesn’t agree with Nick’s involvement in all that, but I’m not getting into politics - as far as I'm concerned hockey in MK is where it is now, at least partly because of Nick Poole and for this we should be grateful). I was torn between a few names for my first shirt – but settled on Poole because of his long-term involvement with the game in MK. He won’t always be playing for us, and when one day he hangs up his boots (hopefully not for a long time) I hope we'll still see him on the bench - so he’ll always be a Lightning legend, hence my choice.
So that’s me. If you’ve been going to Lightning games for years and will get irritated easily by the ramblings of someone less informed than yourself, this blog probably isn’t for you. But if you have a little more patience and might occasionally be willing to help (politely) inform me and enhance my knowledge of the game, then please stick with me and I'll try not to bore you too much!!
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