The Hockey Code

The Hockey Code

By: Stephen Buchanico

“Aye bud, your sauce ain't so tasty tonight, I smacked that biscuit right outta the air.” I replied with . “ Lucky tap buddy, I still got it back and dangled right by ya.” I flew past him and rifled a shot top shelf where momma hides the cookies and turned shouting. “ but that snipe makes up for it ya?” Hockey is like a different world, there's a whole language that comes into play when you get into it. It becomes like second nature to talk in that sort of language. “aye how bout that snipe bud?” Top cheese all day.” Its just something that you pick up as you get into the sport, and something that you don't forget. I use it around other hockey fans, players and friends. Its just a code that is picked up from playing and being around others who use it. If I said “He water bottled the biscuit like 99, made the goalie look like swiss cheese.” I'm pretty sure a lot of people would just look at me like i'm speaking another language. But I can say that kind of thing, or use that kind of code, around my friends whom i play hockey with, and they will know exactly what Im talking about.

One time I was on the bus with a couple of my teammates the day after a game, and we were just talking about the game. There were three of us and we were in the back of the bus and there was a lady sitting, listening in. “There chirps were pathetic yesterday.” I said. “Oh yeah I know, the one bender told me I had no flow and he was buzzed hahaha.” my close friend and team mate said. I peeked over at the women whom was listening in and noticed she had a very confused look on her face, I was about to say something and then I heard, “excuse me, If you don’t mind me asking, what are you guys talking about?” My teammates and I laughed and replied with “We are talking about our hockey game yesterday.” She still looked a little confused, “oh ok, well what were all those words?” we laughed again and replied to her, “There just hockey terms,” and my teammate chimed in with, “its just what we say.”

It was just like in the story with the girl who got the mouthguard and had a funny lisp. She said “Nobody takes me serious anymore.” People who don’t know what I am saying could not take me serious either. They would get too confused at what I am saying, just like the women on the bus. That was the first time I actually realized that we sound a little strange to people who do not know what we are talking about.  It seems a little weird to use the hockey code outside of places where it is easily picked up, like the rink or just around others who know it.

In my opinion, it is just like using a different language in a place that does not speak it. You would not go to somewhere that speaks mainly french and try to speak spanish, just like you would not go to a football game and talk in hockey code. That is how big of a change it is, all of the vocabulary, like snipe, gino, bottled, bar, cheese and so many more, are very confusing to many people.

Hockey code is different from other sport codes as well. In most sport, the fans know the code of the sport because it is not as deep. For example, football code is not as deep, because most of the words in the vocabulary are related to the rules of the sport, which makes the fans easily understand it. Hockey, on the other hand, is much deeper than that. For example, an average fan would call a bad player, just a bad player or a scrub, but a hockey player would call a bad player a bender, which is a player whose ankles bend because they do not tie their skates tight enough, which affects their skate and makes them bad. That is just one of many examples of words that are known by mainly only players, and not fans, unlike many other sports.  That is what makes it unique, and in some cases very confusing and different from other codes that people might hear everyday. Some call it weird or different but it is just because they are not used to it, If they were in the rink every day, they would not think it was weird, they would be fluent in it.