For instance, I started going to the games at the United Center last year, though I’d been watching hockey for years, and when I had a question, I would, gulp, ask people around me for the information.  I distinctly remember one kindly older gentleman (emphasis on the gentleman) who had been watching Blackhawks games since the 60s.  He patiently answered many of my questions and we ended up having a very pleasant chat.  He taught me hockey etiquette as well as some of the nuances of the game.  He didn’t chide me for my ignorance, and seemed to jump at the chance to educate a burgeoning hockey fan. So why does there have to be this seeming territorial urination with hockey?  If anyone has the right to be territorial about hockey it’s Canadians, but notice the last thing they are is territorial.  In fact, my favorite comments on this site have come from Canadians.  They truly love hockey and instead of expecting newbies to immediately understand all the unwritten rules, they, and get this, kindly explain things to the newer fans.  I’ve seen them do it, so I know it to be true.

Zawaski paints a picture of a young, drunken fratboy, wearing a jersey as a fad, not because he’s actually aware of which hockey player the name on the back of his jersey is; someone who drunkenly stumbles into the United Center because he had nothing better to do.  Ok, yes, there are those fans, and so I understand your frustration.  Last time I went to the United Center I sat behind the goal because my tickets had been a gift (can’t look a gift horse in the mouth) and I had to endure, for an entire period, some loud-mouthed drunk describing his erotic massage and “happy ending.” But compare the “happy-ender” to the gentleman I sat next to last season, and obviously the good fans far outweigh the bad. You just gotta put blinders on sometimes and go on with things.  This is true in life too is it not?  And if I really analyzed the whole “happy-ending” guy more closely, I’d be more inclined to feel sorry for him than to scorn him.  How insecure do you have to be in your masculinity to be describing to an entire section of sports fans your paid sexual exploits?

As Zawaski points out, some of the younger men do use sporting events to get wasted and act ridiculously, the “happy-ender” being case in point.  However, this behavior can be ignored, because even drunk, most of them can tell that they’re annoying everybody and usually they move on during the next period.

What bothers me more is sports elitism.  I hate it when some men pretend to know something when they clearly don’t. When I don’t understand what has happened in a game, I regularly ask those around me.  Last time I was at the UC, a Hawks opponent got called for ‘diving.’  It had been a while since I’d seen that call, so when it appeared as ‘div’ on the jumbotron I didn’t immediately know what it meant.  I asked around me and got some utterly ridonkulous answers.  I looked it up on the internet and then had a better understanding of what was going on in the game.  So why do some men feel they have to give an answer even when they clearly don’t know? I guess these “know-it-alls” are contented being ignorant, but my curiosity gets the better of me.  Perhaps I get away with asking questions at the game because I’m a chick, but how are guys who don’t know hockey supposed to learn this game?  Maybe if veteran hockey fans like Zawaski would educate these newbies, you know, in a nicer way, they might behave themselves better because they would then have a vested interest in the game.

Perhaps Zawaski and others making fun of hockey newbies could learn by Bears’ fans example.  Several years back I was lucky enough to sit next to a bunch of plumbers at a Bears game.  These guys were the epitome of the “superfans” made famous by Chris Farley, George Wendt, et al on Saturday Night Live.  They were middle-aged, blue-collar, with the mustaches and the dark glasses.  I don’t know why SNL would make fun of fans like these.  They were genuinely kind gentlemen and explained a lot of the new rules and calls I didn’t readily understand.  They didn’t look down their noses at me.  They didn’t run home to write a blog post about the ignorant girl they sat next to who didn’t know the NFL’s 1200-page addendum to its existing volume of rules.  They just calmly and intelligently explained the new rules of the game.

I don’t see unruly fratboys at Bears games either.  I think that’s because the Bears culture takes care of its own. As expensive as Bears tickets are, fans probably inform unruly fans of their unruliness and the problem is promptly taken care of.  Barring that, I’m sure they get an usher’s escort out.  I certainly saw this kind of enforcement when I was in Milwaukee last year watching the Cubs play the Houston Astros (more widely known as Carlos Zambrano’s no-hitter).  Baseball doesn’t seem to put up with any kind of ruckus whatsoever.

So Mr. Zawaski and others making sport of newbie hockey fans, maybe you could rise to the occasion and proudly take on the  responsibility of helping new fans ramp up to the game (much like the kindly, older gentleman did for me at the UC last year).  Instead of yelling angrily at people to “wait for the whistle” perhaps you could kindly explain to them why they should.  Even a “Please wait for the whistle” would suffice.

And maybe, Mr. Zawaski, you could be a little more tolerant.  What business is it of yours what somebody writes on their jersey?  And why are you counting how many times (”Wait until there is [a stoppage in play], then go pee for the 27th time.”) someone goes to the bathroom?  Are you a bathroom attendant as well as a crowd critic?  Ever hear of a condition called “overactive bladder”?  I have it and at times it is hell.  It gives no warning, creeping up unexpectedly, even when I don’t have a drop to drink, and sure as hell does not “wait for the whistle.”  So maybe, just maybe, we could cut our fellow human beings a little slack.

Mr. Zawaski and others of hockey’s old guard have a unique opportunity to pay it forward to future hockey generations.  After all, someone did that for you once did they not? So please try to be patient with those new to hockey, help them out, and kindly instruct them in how they should be and what they should do.  We all live in a world of our own making, and if the UC is a microcosm of society, which it is, and there are those new to that society, maybe they could use your wisdom and guidance in understanding the unwritten rules of that society.  As that Chinese proverb goes, “Give a man a fish, you have fed him for today.  Teach a man to fish, and you have fed him for a lifetime.” Sure, it may feel good for the moment to be elitist, to make fun of people who aren’t in on the joke from the comfort of your office where they can’t defend themselves, but wouldn’t it be better to teach someone how to fish instead of continually smacking them upside the head with that fish?

It was like both teams had taken Ambien and were sleep walking through the game.  They were slow.  I mean, slooooooow.  You can’t really blame the Hawks.  Why expend more energy than you have to to beat such a lousy team? And the Wild are lousy, at least on the road.  Even Patrick Kane was able to score a goal in the 3rd period, unassisted at that. (Other goals were scored for the Hawks by Dave Bolland and Troy Brouwer, both in the 1st period.)

Watching for the bad calls was the only thing keeping the crowd lively.  At times you could hear a pin drop in the UC.  It was eerily quiet.  Even the fight between the Wild’s Shane Hnidy and the Hawks’ Jake Dowell in the 1st period was blah.  No sooner had they gotten going at each other and the refs were breaking it up (which elicited a resounding, collective boo from Hawks fans), even though neither Hnidy or Dowell had put the other on the ice. And for that little go-around, Hnidy and Dowell got a 5-minute major penalty!  Similarly, in the 2nd period, the ref would independently call boarding on both the Wild’s Cal Clutterbuck and the Hawks’ Tomas Kopecky; both were minor penalties which indicated the hits were no big deal and certainly not severe enough to necessitate a boarding call.  If you blinked, you would have missed it.  I love it when refs try to phase out fighting or what they deem questionable hits by excessively penalizing them.  Yeah, because we don’t know what they’re doing.  Tonight’s game illustrates, at least in one way, why fighting in hockey is necessary.  It picks up an otherwise dreary game.  (And mad props go to the Hawks’ penalty-kill unit tonight.  They were mighty busy.)

Other of tonight’s calls that left us all scratching our heads came in the 3rd period when the Wild’s Benoit Pouliot was called for diving and the Hawks’ Cam Barker was called for interference. Even the scoreboard keeper was confused at those “penalties.”  The scoreboard at first called Cam Barker’s “interference” as “roughing.”  Hey, the statisticians’ guesses were as good as ours because we didn’t see Benoit Pouliot embellishing and we sure as hell didn’t see Cam Barker interfere. We did see Pouliot tripping, which came on the heels of another missed tripping call that should’ve been on the Wild, but how a ref could get diving out of that I don’t know. Perhaps the weirdest call of the night, at least against the Wild, was on goaltender Niklas Backstrom who was called for slashing in the 2nd period. <shrug>  It was about this time that the fans started realizing that the refs were just pulling calls out of their cracks…or they were smoking crack.  Something having to do with a whole lot of crack.

Overall, it was a weird game.  The refs must have been high and the players were in a funk, but the fans were in rare form.  Indeed, many wore their old Martin Havlat sweaters as if to say thank you to Havi for last season.  One fan even pointed to the ‘24′ on his Havlat sweater when he made it on the jumbotron.  That’s what’s great about Hawks fans.  Unlike other fans from other teams, we honor our former players.

Final score: Hawks win 3-1 against the Wild in a very strange game.

Between periods at the United Center last night, the Blackhawks had something that looked like the Sausage Race which the Milwaukee Brewers have during their 7th inning stretch. Am I right? Were those supposed to be sausages? Maybe since this is Chicago, they’re brats…or kielbasas. It was funnier than the Brewers’ Sausage Race though with those top-heavy sausages slipping and tumbling on the ice. I laughed so hard I snorted a little beer up my nose!

Going to the United Center is always interesting. Getting there during rush hour (which if you’re not familiar with Chicago is from about 3:30-7:30 p.m. or later in bad weather), especially in weather below 0 degrees Fahrenheit, is a hassle. But once you’re there, it’s like magic. And, it was Patrick Sharp bobblehead night, which placated all the fancicles that streamed into the UC (including yours truly). They were nice bobbleheads too, not the cheap kind. Thanks to AT&T and the Blackhawks for those, because hey, who doesn’t love bobbleheads? And who doesn’t love taking in a game between Original Six teams?

And while I’m handing out thank yous, thanks to the kindly older gentleman who sat next to me for a period or two and painstakingly pointed out things I missed. Wish I’d gotten his name. Hope to see him at future games. These are the kinds of fans I love. Clearly he’d been watching the Hawks for a long time, decades probably, and was happy to impart some of his wisdom to the younger generations. Wish there were more like him.

I also wish the Hawks had not lost to the Rangers, but then, that goes without saying. Fans who’ve been coming to the UC for years can probably shrug off a loss like that. As a young fan, I take it harder. I went to the Billygoat Tavern up the street in hopes of commiserating with the rest of the Blackhawks fans. I bellied up to the bar, ordered an Old Style, and waited to join in the misery of others that I thought would keep me company. But I was shocked to find people laughing and having a good time like it was any other Friday night. My eyes were wide, shocked at the possibility of anyone being able to shrug off such a close game, inexplicably lost 3-2 in overtime. (Not to mention scoring only once with five, that’s five, 5-on-3s is just…well…painful.)  It makes me feel as bummed as Jonathan Toews was in this interview from the Hawks/Predators game on January 10: