AMERICA’S NEW SPORT

Hokitika Guardian, 10 February 1930, Page 2

AMERICA’S NEW SPORT

HOOKEY IN ASCENDANT

SAN FRANOISOO 1 , December 26

•Ten years ago ice hockey was virtually unknown as a popular sport in the United States, for then a tew colleges that made it a minor sport, and a few North-western cities had borrowed the game from Canada, where hockey flourished since the memory of man... Elsewhere had the casual visitor to Uncle Sam’s domains stopped any American sport follower on the street and asked him how he liked last Sunday’s hockey game, he would probably have been greeted with a blank stare. But to-day, in the middle of a season that runs from Novqmber to April, thousands of excited enthusiasts pack Madison square Garden in New York, and the expansive rinks in Boston, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and some thirty other American cities where the sport has been organised on a large scale. Last censon, throughout the United States, it is estimated that approximately 20,000,C00 people paid to see hockey games. In Canada, of course, it is considered something like high treason not to be a hockey enthusiast, and it is no uncommon sight to see a long queue of men and women waiting for the sale of tickets to open just prior to ft big game between two rival cities.

More than half a million passed through the turnstiles in New York alone last year to see the local teams —the Run gars of the American Lea. gue and thp Americans of the National League—play on the ice. Those are the two major Leagues of hockey, and there are a score ot minor Leagues, So far as organisation goes, the game parallels professional baseball.

GAME WIDESPREAD. Besides the National and American Leagues, there are semi-major aggregations such •as the California Professional League, the American Association, and the California League, which have relations with smaller Leagues,’ these being farms for young players. As proof of the money in the newest branch of commercialised spurt it is;only necessary to consider the fact 'that two years ago the franchise for the Pittsburgh Club could have been bought for about 3000 dollars, but to-dny the directors of that organisation would frown on an offer of 50,000 dollars, so great are the profits of a season.

Cost of admittance is rising as the club gains in popularity, and a visitor is taxed for a seat anywhere from three shillings to 14s. Thq onlooker gazes down on a sheet of ice one inch thick, some 180 feet long by 80 feet wide, which approximates the unofficially accepted standard dimensions for the field of play. At the opposite ends of the rink are netted goals, three feet high by about four feet wide, ; The objeot of the game is for the players of opposing sides to smack a hard rubber puck into that goal with long sticks ourved at the end. The puck is three and a half inches in diameter and weighs seven ounces. When a player is hit with the puck in its forceful flight (it travels at a speed of some 60 miles an hour) “the subsequent proceedings would interest the recipient no more,” until consciousness returned.

Each goal is defended by a goalkeeper, who is permitted to wear enormous shoes, wide exterior pads, and heavily ribbed gloves, the shoes making his feet look as though they would oblige him to put his pants on over his head, All the players wear skates and gloves, and their legs are padded inside their socks, but only the goalkeeper uses the exterior padding. The referee also wears skates in this game brimful of excitement. ' A GAME OF FURY. The teams lino up on opposite ends of the ice—six men to a side, with the goalkeeper in front of the net; in front of him are two defence men, backs; in front of them, two forwards, or wings, and in the centre of of the ice another forward, or centre. At the sound of the whistle the puck is dropped between the centres . and the battle begins. Furious skating, dexterous manipulation of sticks, sliding of the puck here, banging of it there—with speed unprecedented by any other sport. The men charge one another, while the referee skirls and scurries around, watching for foul play, extra rough stuff, or offside. Tt is magnificant spectacle of speed and daring, for a false move may send a man clattering to the ice, head first, and ice is nothing desirable to strike with any part of the human frame. With such a lively sport there is bound to be occasional too-enthusiastic banging of an opposing player’s head with a hockey stick, and the offending player is promptly banished from the game for terms of minutes, depending on his offence. No substitute is permitted, as in American football and baseball. A penalty, therefore, can really penalise, and the other side with more players has an opportunity of scoring while the offending player is absent from the ice. Once a team had three of its players simultaneously banished, and the remaining three had to play . against six of the other side. They were massacred, as they deserved to be for exceedingly rough play. The game occupies three 20-minute periods, and if one side has not achieved victory by then, an extra ten-minute period is played. . There may be extra per-

iods after that in the event of a tie, but as a rule there are not, excepting in major league championship games for the Stanley Clip of Canada—when a game is played to the finish no matter liovv long it takes. There i.s a record of an American and Canadian team taking nearly five hours to decide superiority—playing until well after midnight.

CANADIANS WIN FOR U.S. The Stanley Cup, the winner of which is recognised as the world’s champion hockey team, was given by Lord Stanley, a former GovernorGeneral of Canada. It is at present in the possession of the Boston Bruins, a redoubtable hockey aggregation that rode roughshod over botli Canadian and American opiiosition last year and carried home the cup to the City of Culture, but a curious sidelight was that shortly after the game ended the winners from Boston went home to Montreal in Canada for their vacation, for almost without exception the champion team are all Canadians. Very little was said of this in the newspapers of the United States, but Canada did not overlook the fact.

Most of the leading teams in the United States are composed almost entirely of players born in Canada, where they learned the fine points of the fast game on Canadian rinks and in the schoolyards when they were boys. As a consequence Canadian expert players are in great demand in the United States of America. Commercial value of a championship, which is the only available way to measure the heart of sightseer interest in the sport, is illustrated by the fact that the Boston franchise, which could have been secured —like (nost hoc,key franchises—for about 3COO dollars a few years ago, could not be bought for a million to-day, when three hundred thousand customers are piling through the Boston turnstiles each season.

The forty-four, game season is brief enough to provide ample excitement, and it is a curious but natural fact about this bracing sport that it is played with more terrific energy than any cither, not excepting American football.

PLAYERS WELL PAID. The players that shine are paid about as well as baseball talent. Stars of the game like Cling Johnson and Dunk Monroe rate 10.000 dollars for the four-month season, which is a splendid remuneration, as the training grind is proportionately limited. The baseball season is practically twice as long as the hockey spell. Of course, it is much more risky than playing on bases. There is a club doctor always on hand at a hockey game, for frequently a player lays groaning on the ice for minutes until he recovers from a nasty spill. This is what the American spectators delight in, for avowedly they are out to see blood. The The radio broadcast plays a prominent part in the developing popularity of tne game in the United States, and it is amusing to listen to the average American broadcaster, who sometimes goes into a paroxysm' of excitement when the game gets lively or a team is about to score a goal, In the six years it has taken the jgame to 'develop fq’r two solitary teams in America—Seattle and Portland—to a network of ice-hockey shows which stretch from Tulsa in Oklahoma to Lo 3 Angeles in Southern California, and on up to Nome in distant Alaska one way and Portland in Maine the other some good America players have been developed, although brilliant Canadian talent is more general, as already stated, for Canadian boys are practically weaned on skates, having plenty of natural facilities for using them during the long and stiff Canadian winter.

The advent of hockey to the United States has had a disastrous effect upon the one-time king of Yankee pastimes —baseball—for it is recognised that already hockey is the most popular game in America, leaving baseball far in the background. With the next season it is expected that hockey will have gained the whole nation in the ranks of boloster.s for the typically Canadian fast sport for it has the action unparalleled by any other branch of sport. This is the feature that more than anything else appeals to the average American sport lover.