- The majesty of the skating and the puck handling is that they are executed in an atmosphere of violence (Sports Illustrated 03/29/93)
- A game played 3 inches above a sheet of ice while balancing on a piece of metal 1/16 of an inch wide (attributed to Derek Sanderson)
- The most impressive aspect of hockey is the speed of transition. (Ralph Wiley, Sports Illustrated, 01/16/88)
- It is a game of skill and ritual, played in an unforgiving environment. Everything in hockey is either fast or hard, and in some cases both. The sticks are hard, the ice is hard, the boards are hard….
- The pace is so quick that players must be replaced every 45 seconds so they can catch their breath. To watch this frenzied, whiplashing game is to sit with the sense that something is always about to happen out there, a goal, a fight, an irreversible mistake….for a goal to be scored someone must make at least a small error, and the intensity of a hockey game is so great that, given the limits of human concentration, a small error is bound to occur. On the ice every good player hopes to be the one to take advantage of it, he prays not to be the one to make it. The greatest players seem to sense error a second or two before it happens, but in positioning themselves to pounce on it, they risk making a far greater gaffe themselves. (Norman Boucher, Boston Globe Magazine 01/10/88)
January 14th, 2004 |
Misc.
