Descriptive Essay

Lauren Kinghorn

Word Count: 1090

Friday Night Fans

Walking into the Sackville Hockey arena, a sense of relief fills me as I leave the brisk outside air and a winter that seems to be going from one extreme to the other. Today, the weather has decided to be on the extreme side of cold. The only upside to the icy air is the picture perfect sky. It is too cold for clouds to form so it is a vast open blackness, with stars spattered across it and an almost-full moon shining down. The moonlight reflects on the snow, lighting up the night and highlighting the biting cold. Just like a breath the sense of relief leaves my body just as quickly as it had entered as I step through the creaky double doors from the lobby out to the stands. I realize it is just as cold in here as it was outside. I pull my zipper up to my chin and walk by the ‘Home’ team stands.

The bare grey cement carved into long blocks looks more like seats in a jail cell than the ones you see at NHL  games. My aunt and uncle walk slowly, stopping to greet parents of kids on the home team.  Little jokes flit back and forth about who will win the game. The light-hearted banter puts me at ease as I pass the fans of the opposing team.

The space near the scratched up plexi-glass boards is filling up quickly with thin, legging-clad ‘puck bunnies’(as they are so kindly referred to by the parents around the rink). The girls are between the ages of 14 – 18 and huddle together. Their hair is strategically styled to seem nonchalant but in reality took an hour or more to get just so.  The girls wave to the boys on the ice. Giggling, whispering and hoping to get noticed. In turn the boys on the ice pretend to not see the girls while shooting the puck directly at the boards where the girls are standing. The bang of the hard rubber against the beaten-up boards echoes throughout the entire tinny building, causing the girls to scream in giddy delight.  I smile to myself remembering my own such adventures as a teen.

I find my place on the fleecy blanket that my ‘prepared hockey parent’ uncle has brought in as a guard between the unwelcoming barren cement of the stands and our behinds. I am sitting on the grown-ups side of the ‘visiting’ team stands. The separation between parents and teenagers is noticeable. My uncle leans over to me, a knowing smile on his face.

“It’s so funny to see how the students pack themselves in like sardines,” he laughs, nodding toward the students’ side of the stands. “They really are all jammed together.”

“I feel like it’s partly for warmth,” I muse back, “but also with so many of them and no one wanting to sit on the parents’ side, it also seems necessary.”

We both laugh. The parents all banter about the kid who lost three teeth in the last game. Other than the actual temperature the atmosphere is warm, everyone is chattering and laughing excited to watch the boys play their rivals. The music blaring over the loudspeaker is a mix of old ‘pump-up’ songs that date back to before my birth and 90’s songs that were hits at my school dances. I laugh to myself how these songs never change, the only difference is they are now mashed together with recent dance tunes.

The music goes quiet as everyone stands for the national anthem. I am always overwhelmed by the pride even teens take in this song, all removing their hats and standing at attention.   A blonde girl stands on the ice between the five starting linemen of each team and starts to sing. Her voice is shaking and barely audible, but the students in the crowd help her out by singing along. As she fights to not let her nerves get the better of her she tries her best Mariah Carey (or possibly Beyonce) impression to make the ‘O’ in ‘O Canada’ last far longer than it should. The sticks start banging on the ice, as is tradition with the final phrase of the anthem at hockey games. Cheers start coming first from the students, then from the parents as the girl leaves the ice and the first puck is dropped.

The game is fast, back and forth from end to end in a matter of seconds. The only sounds are the scraping of the skate blades on the fresh ice and the hammering sound of body to body to boards. It is the most physical game I have seen in the realm of high school hockey. The testosterone-filled boys are more interested in ramming another body into the boards than getting the puck in the net.

The atmosphere has changed, it almost feels like the lights have been dimmed (even though they are bright as ever with the shiny aluminum reflecting the light everywhere) because the ferocity on the ice is translating into the parents surrounding me. At first there is some cheering for the team, but the cheering quickly deteriorates into boos at the other team. From there it becomes comments between parents about how dirty the other team is playing and then quickly escalates into yells and frustrations being taken out on the referees and lines man as they try to keep up with the fast paced sprints down the ice.

“Ref are you blind?” yells the irate father almost jumping off the seat in front of me, “Get your head out of your ass and watch the game!”

The tension builds throughout the arena with the referees becoming bouncers, getting between players before the shoving turns into more. The parents continue to berate the refs, but when that doesn’t work turn their angry comments onto the players on the other team.

“Get a haircut!” yells the same man at a boy from the other team as he is escorted to the penalty box. Childish giggles among the parents in front of me, make me wonder who are the adults and who are the children here.

I sit almost frozen, shocked at the animosity in the parents and the behaviour I never hope to emulate. I shrivel in on myself, wishing I could sink down out of this negative space, feeling suffocated by the hatred. After all, aren’t we all just fans? Enduring the cold to cheer on 15, 16 and 17 year-olds in a fun game?