Why hockey should not be played below the Mason-Dixon Line

By eas11, January 28, 2015

By Zack Astran, Sports Editor //

Ice hockey, as great as it is, should not be played at a professional level below the Mason-Dixon Line.

Pennsylvania is about as Southern as it should get.

A sport that originated and is bred in Canada does not need to be spiced up with, “some southern twang.”

You may question, “Is this guy crazy?” or, “Is this guy even qualified to make such a wild acquisitions?”

I get it.

But, let me start by backtracking.

I was raised in a small, suburban town 30 minutes outside of this nation’s capital.

When I was a young boy, not long after learning how to stand and walk on my own two feet, my father introduced me to my first hockey stick and puck.

In an attempt to turn me into the avid hockey fan just like him, my father sabotaged me at a young age.

As I got older, I migrated to my first pair of bright green roller blades and a small, plastic ice hockey net that I set up in front of the already hockey puck-dented garage door.

While my sister sat inside with her friends baking chocolate chip cookies and dressing red-headed Barbies in who knows what in between timers going off, I rollerbladed around my street pretending I was Peter Bondra of the Washington Capitals until the blue sky turned to a yellow and red drenched sunset.

This is where it all started.

When I hit the second grade, my father signed me up for the Howard Huskies, the local ice hockey team, as a goalie. Swimming in my oversized helmet that covered my eyelids when I skated across the ice and my way to big leg pads, I became hooked forever.   

For the next nine years of my life, I played ice hockey at a competitive level and lived the dream of every young kid on skates who aspires to be the next Wayne Gretzky or Olaf Kolzig.

Now, even though I don’t play the game anymore, hockey didn’t just become a once, great childhood memory of mine. To this day, I can recite you almost every line, of every team, player by player as well as attend the Bridgestone Winter Classic every year with my hockey fanatic father.

So, to answer your questions, I am qualified and maybe  a little crazy too.

When my beloved Washington Capitals came into Raleigh, North Carolina to play the Carolina Hurricanes last year at PNC Arena, I took a break from my studies at High Point University and attended the game in my Capitals, John Carlson jersey.

As I sat down in my seat, three rows up from the puck stained glass, excited to see my team walk out of the tunnel to my left and onto the freshly zambonied sheet of ice, I thought to myself that something just wasn’t right.

Granted, it wasn’t my home away from home at the Verizon Center in downtown D.C. (Yes, Washington D.C. may be below the Mason-Dixon line, but it is widely considered by many as a hockey town with a northern feel) Regardless, it just didn’t feel right.

Something about watching a hockey game where the man directly in front of me spit his Camel Tobacco into a blue and red Pepsi cup from the fried food concession stand just didn’t feel right.

Hockey is not meant to be played where the most interesting part of the game, according to the fans I begrudgingly sat next to, was the intermission between periods when team representatives and cheerleaders in cowboy hats gave away free tickets to the local county fair with all the fried food a person could eat.

Hockey is not meant to be played below the Mason-Dixon Line where seemingly every Hurricanes fan I saw, dressed in shorts and a cut off tee shirt with frayed edges and a image of a biker gang on the back, ran into PNC Arena early just to see the zamboni drive in circles after team warm-ups.

No, hockey is meant to be played in the backyard makeshift pond that is flooded with the garden hose attached to the side of the house.

Hockey is meant to be played in front of dedicated fans that, during the offseason, count down the days until training camp opens just so they can get a glimpse at the young kids who were just drafted.

Plain and simple.

With all that being said, go ahead and play hockey at an amateur or recreational level anywhere you want. Try and score as many goals as possible in one game to impress the cute girl with her head pressed up against the glass trying to get a better view.

But when it comes to professional ice hockey, it should be played where bright, afternoon sunlight does nothing to warm anything up and the cold, crisp, northern air hits your face like a Mac truck when you stick your big toe out the front door.