NHL Hockey Fan's Guide for Beginners:
Happy (second) start of the NHL season! For new fans, here's a few handy-dandy tips to get you off on the right foot.
If Gary Bettman or Bill Daly are ever shown on camera or mentioned, you must boo. It's the only righteous thing left to us.
There will be player narratives; some will turn you into a feral animal gnashing at the bars of your cage and others will be repeated like a Groundhog Loop you can't escape from no matter how hard you try. Either way, stay hydrated.
No one knows what Goalie Inference is. Yes, that includes the refs.
Even if you aren't a fan of the Sens or Panthers, you should probably try to watch the Tkachuk Bowls; some of the year's most batshit behavior will probably happen during it and you won't want to miss out.
Yes, those two guys with the same last name are probably brothers. There's a lot of brothers in this league. No, Sebastian Aho and Sebastian Aho are not the same person. Yes, Jack St. Ivany and Luke Evangelista are real people, not hockey romance novel protagonists.
Almost everyone has a hard on for Sidney Crosby and/or Connor McDavid. Yes, they're amazing players, but it's okay to want to put your head through a wall at some point if you aren't an Oilers and/or Pens fan b/c you just don't fucking care. Stay strong and remember that someone probably feels the same way about your blorbo.
At some point, a coach (John Tortorella) will probably say something completely unhinged. That coach's (John Tortorella) remarks will then be blasted all over every NHL program in the land. The coach (John Tortorella) will almost certainly not explain himself after. Don't try to make sense of it, just move on. sorry philly fans
On a serious note: remember that there is no such thing as moral high ground in hockey. Your team has and will continue to do shady shit and be shaky on a moral level. It is universal and it's ugly, but there it is. Adjacent to this; there are a list of players in the league that most of us just...pretend don't exist except when we talk about the broader issues in the game. I won't list them here, but you can ask most any hockey blog to find out.
Yes, Quinn Hughes always looks like that.
Yes, Brad Marchand is just always That Guy.
On the HMI (Hockey Misery Index), Vegas is at Least Concern (has never known The Suffering) and Buffalo is Critically Endangered (has never known anything but The Suffering). Your team will fall somewhere in-between these two extremes.
It may feel like the refs are biased toward certain teams, but remember: they're just bad at their jobs and it isn't personal.
Avoid hockey twitter; by all accounts it's a cesspool of terrible opinions and rage.
And lastly, it's important to pick at least one (1) player to be completely insane about. Don't try to rationalize it, don't worry about other's opinions on them, just pick them out of the Player Claw Machine and go wild.
Thank You for coming to my Ted Talk Guide for Beginners. Stay safe and try to remember that it's only a game and it's not that deep. and if you figure out how to do that, please tell me i'm tired
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