Hockey: Canada's Royal Winter Game/Chapter III
CHAPTER III.
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FOR many reasons, the quality and species of the skate is a most important consideration to a hockey player.
Imagine a man in a championship match wearing a pair of sheep's shank bones, fastened to his feet with hide cords, as the Scandinavians, Hollanders and the English used before the year 1650.
The evolution of the first contrivance for locomotion on ice, has brought to us, after years of improvements and new inventions, the desiderata for general, speed, figure-skating and hockey.
We have the long, thin, flat skates, after the Norwegian pattern, for speed work, the round-bladed Barney & Berry for fancy skating, and the regular hockey skate, for our game. As hockey developed into a scientific game from the crude shinny, skill and experience have turned the art of hockey-skate-making into a science, and for some time past, each succeeding year has seen the death of an old shape and the birth of a new. A hundred shapes and patterns have faded into the past, and a hundred new have risen to succeed them. But the skate that seems to have found more favour among hockey players than any other, is one manufactured by a Montreal machinist, Lunn. It has more good points and is altogether more satisfactory, than any skate yet introduced for the game. Built at the heel as at the toe, it affords equal facility for backward, as well as for forward skating, an excellent point, and being forged and hammered, it is stronger and more reliable than the ordinary skate that is only cast. Unfortunately for players living outside of Montreal, many inferior skates built almost in the shape of the Lunn's, have been forced upon them in their ignorance of the genuine article.
The hockey skate should be just high enough to prevent the plate or the sole of the boot from touching the ice when turning or cutting corners, because a low skate is not so straining on the ankle as a high one. The blade should be long enough and sufficiently flat on the ice to admit of great speed, but should not project at the toe or heel so much as to trip the skater on any occasion, and should be curved slightly in front and behind, in order to allow of quick turning. Although it should be so pointed as to enable a player to begin a rush by running on the toes, these should not have a distinct, projecting point, but should be so shaped that they will admit of this start, because a sharp projection is often the cause of a nasty fall, and also of a dangerous cut to the wearer of the skates or to one of his opponents.
A good hockey skate should be a combination of great strength and lightness of weight. It should be strong because the thousand twistings and turnings of a player strain every inch of the blade, each plate, and every rivet; it should be light because the lightness of the skate adds to the swiftness of the skater, and because a heavy skate is tiring. To again refer to the length of the skate, the blade should project about an inch in front of the toe of the boot, and an inch or a little more behind the heel, and the width of the bottom of the blade should retain the same thickness from toe to heel, or rather on that part of blade that touches the ice when a skater maintains a standing position. The two ends back and front should taper slightly in width, becoming thinner towards the points.
A player's clothes should be light enough to be of no perceptible weight, and warm enough to insure him against catching cold. A moderately heavy sweater, pants padded at the hips and knees and heavy stockings with a suit of light underwear are the necessary articles of clothing for a hockey player.
Hats are not needed if the hair is allowed to grow moderately long, in fact they are an unnecessary extra.
Gloves, thin enough to permit the player to retain a firm, sure grasp of his stick are used to prevent the hands from being cut on the rough ice, after a fall. It is advisable to wear shin guards and any other appliances that afford protection. Unless a player’s ankles are weak, or his boots too large, straps should not he used, because they are of no other value than to strengthen the ankles, which, with practice and well-fitting boots, do not, or should not need support.
The hockey stick is the requisite next in importance, but as it will be treated in chapter 4th no further mention of it will be made here.
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"He thinks too much: such men are dangerous."
2. Coolness, in hockey parlance, is the power and practice of taking time to think out a move. A player must be cool-headed to a degree that verges on slowness, because, so fast a game is hockey, that an expert player, an experienced team, should take advantage of every opportunity that the changing plays present, and this to do, even in the quickest rushes, the swiftest combinations, the fierest "mix-ups," it is necessary that one should remain as cool as the proverbial cucumber.
As a hockey axiom, it might be said that "it is better to think more and rush less, than to rush more and think less."
The cool, collected, calculating player is worth more to a team than two or three of the class whose main object seems to he the possession of the puck for a "big" rush down the ice.
If any man among your opponents is to be feared, let it be the one who thinks out each move, who makes no useless plays, who shoots for the goals only when there is an opening, because "such men are dangerous." Many a game is lost, many a chance is missed by the man who will not, cannot take time enough to think out a play.
Another requisite is confidence, both in your assistants and in yourself. Just as that regiment whose soldiers rely upon one another is a better one than another, in which the members have no confidence in their comrades, so, in a hockey team it is absolutely necessary that each player should be able to depend upon his confrères.
A team should feel that it can defeat any seven that opposes it, and each individual man of a team ought to believe that, if necessary, he can pass any one of his adversaries. A team that goes on the ice thinking that defeat is probable, is already beaten; a player who fears that he cannot elude certain of his opponents, is a factor of success for the opposing team. Care should be taken, however, that confidence may not be exaggerated. Over-confidence is a greater fault than confidence is a virtue. While each team should feel that it can probably defeat its opponents, it should also bear in mind that until the game is ended, its own goals are in danger, and act accordingly.
"A spirit that could dare
The deadliest form that death could take,
And dare it for the daring's sake."
Pluck is an essential to a man who aspires to perfection in the game, and is as indispensable to him as it is to a footballer or a soldier. The calculating player often saves himself by avoiding unnecessary dangers, but occasion demands, at times, a fast rush through a "bunch" of fighting players, through swinging, smashing sticks that, in noise and movements, resemble a threshing machine,—a desperate jump, or a block of the puck, at the expense of a sore punishment, to score or save a single goal, and the risk must be run.
The cringer, the man who waits outside of a scrimmage until by chance the puck slides to him, the man who fears an opponent, is not a hockey player. It is, of course, scientific play on certain occasions, to wait until the puck is shoved out of a crowd, or from the side, but reference is made, above, to the time when a "dive" is needed. Even if a man knows that an opponent is mean, unfair, this should be but a poor excuse to fear him, because the referee is on the ice for the protection of all the players.
A hockey player must necessarily be strong physically and constitutionally. If his muscles be well developed, well trained, and his constitution weak, so violent a game as this will do him an irreparable injury. Hockey is so fast, so trying on a forward player, who is rushing continually, from the opening to the closing of a match, that, in order to play without out hurting himself, he must be in perfect condition. This condition means both the state of his health, and the condition of his mind and muscles.
Training for the game of hockey is the simplest, perhaps, of any, and consists for the most part in careful practice.
Nothing prepares a player for the opening of a hockey season, so well as a thorough course in gymnastics. This to do properly, it is necessary to make use of every appliance that the gymnasium affords (except the heavy weights), because the game of hockey, calls into play every muscle that a complete gymnasium developes, which is attested to by the stiffness in every muscle, after a good, hard game. Exercises that aid in enlarging and hardening the muscles, in the arms, back, chest and stomach, are specially recommended. The legs are quickly brought into condition by skating and walking.
In developing the wind a punching bag is the most efficient exercise, Skipping, too, is most beneficial, because it develops the muscles in the legs and increases the wind.
It is, perhaps, advisable to give up smoking. A cigar or a pipe occasionally can cause but little injury to a man, but cigarettes are decidedly injurious. The following extract, borrowed from a newspaper, illustrates the above:
"This was actually heard in the Cracker district of Tennessee:
"The mother shouted from the door of the cabin behind the trees,—
" 'Yank Tysan! Zeb Tysan! what yu'uns doin'?'
" Two little boys raised their kinky heads over a barrel three hundred yards down the mountain:
" 'Foolin',' was the reply.
" 'Be yu'uns smokin'?'
" 'Ye'um.'
" 'Be yu'uns chawin' twist and smokin' cob-pipe?'
" 'Ye'um'.'
" 'Thet's a'right. But if yo' let me kotch yo' smokin' them cigareets, I'll gi' yo' the wust lammin' yo' ever hed in yo' lives. Yo' heah yo' ma?'
" 'Ye'um.'"
As smoking even in ordinary life is, to a certain extent, an injury to a man, it is not necessary to further mention it.
Alcoholic drinks, with the possible exception of an occasional glass of porter, should be strictly eschewed.
Warm baths taken too often, or indulged in for too long a time, have a strong tendency to render a man weak and slow, and even a dip every morning in cold water is injurious to a man in training.
It is said that more graves are dug with the teeth than with the spade. If this be true, a hockey player should be careful to eat only digestible foods, and in a manner that will not injure his digestion.
A hockey player who wishes to put himself into the pink of condition, should, difficult as it may be, avoid eating pies and pastry of any description. All trainers advise against the use of these.
Practice makes perfect.
The rule that is applied to other things, stands good in hockey.
It is wrong to imagine that a great deal of practice will make a perfect player out of any man, but careful, assiduous work will enable a person to approach the degree of perfection to which his powers, as a physical and a thinking athlete, will allow him to attain and will make perfect that man who has the qualities necessary to a perfect athlete. Besides strengthening his muscles, increasing his wind, helping him in his confidence, sharpening his eye, training his judgment, adding to his speed, practice assists a player, on each occasion, to become proficient in the necessary art of stick-handling, and to regard himself and the other members of his team, as one well lubricated piece of machinery.
It is difficult to lay down rules regulating the manipulation of the stick. What there are of them, are few and undefined. The stick should be held in both hands. The right hand should hold it firmly at the end of handle, and the left lower down, according to the reach of the player, because, even if most plays are made with both hands on the stick, there are times when it is necessary to use only one, in which case, holding the stick as above, the right hand, is already in place without any change.
The stick should be held in both hands, because in that position a man is always ready to shoot for the goals or to pass the puck. Besides, he can check better, dodge better, resist a heavy check more easily and sustain his position on his skates more securely, when he has the stick thus held upon the ice.
Stick-handling, like confidence, coolness, strength and speed, is acquired by practice, and by practice alone.
The more you play the sooner you will become an adept in the art, and the better you can handle your stick the more effective a player you will be, because stick-handling is one of the essentials of the game.