How to play hockey! OMG!

Pirate asked me to explain how to play hockey! Gosh, for me, that is like asking me how to explain breathing! But, I can do this!

How to play hockey....
Get a bunch of guys to play on the road in front of your house. eight to ten kids is enough, more is better. Place a couple of easily moved objects down about a body width apart to form the "net", backpacks full of school books are good. Place two nets, one on each end of the "rink". You will also need sticks of some kind that you can tape "blades" onto....foot long thin boards which stick out at an angle at one end of the stick which you can use to bat the rubber ball around. We used to tape broken sticks from our older brothers teams together to make a whole "customized" stick for ourselves. Divide up into teams, and try to knock the rubber ball or old torn up baseball into the "net". One player is allowed to be the "goalie" for each side, and he will try to stop you from getting the ball through his "crease" and into the "net". Under your pant legs, you stuff magazines held onto your shins with sealer jar rubbers (if you can still GET sealer jar rubbers!) or elastic bands....that will serve as shin armour. I used inner tubes cut into rings, or else "hockey tape", a black gooey version of surgical tape.

Make the rules up as you go along, don't hit the other guys enough to leave too many bruises, (remember, what goes around comes around) and have a blast! When a car comes up, it will stop. The goalie yells out "CAR!", play is stopped, the backpacks are moved, and the car moves carefully through. The backpacks get put back into service and play resumes.
Have a blast!

Of course, as you get older, you might start skating. Inline skates on concrete, or ice skates on ice. Inline hockey hurts more as you slide along the concrete.....You can learn a few more rules, join a league, and play on an actual ice surface. The speed gets a lot higher! You get together in actual "teams" and "play position", play for 3 periods plus OT, and of course,
you have a blast!

In Canada, Saturday night is "hockey night in Canada", the name of a CBC show which is VERY popular. I have seen weddings end early so the guests could catch the game! The game of hockey has defined Canadians as much or more than baseball has defined those south of the 49th parallel, providing a powerful and much needed unifying force.
The NHL, (the National Hockey League) went on strike last year, and the owners locked them out for an entire year. This has caused untold misery among fans who don't know what to talk about when they go out to a tavern for a pint. Now that the season is "on again!", the angels are singing, Molson Brewery stock is up again, wives can get together with other wives and complain (commisserate? celebrate?) about being hockey widows and all is right with the world.
More ice hockey info is below.
http://www.fitness.gov/ice_hockey.html
http://www.firstbasesports.com/hockey_glossary.html
and this from the wikipedia....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_hockeyIce hockey, known simply as hockey in Canada and the United States, is a team sport played on ice. It is one of the world's fastest sports, with players on skates capable of going high speeds on natural or artificial ice surfaces. The most prominent ice hockey nations are Canada, United States, Russia, Sweden, Finland, Czech Republic, and Slovakia.
In all there are 64 members in the International Ice Hockey Federation. As one might expect, its worldwide popularity is concentrated primarily in locales cool enough for natural, long-term seasonal ice cover. It is the official national winter sport of Canada, and it has a strong enough following in certain regions of the United States (notably the Northeast, the Northern Midwest, and Alaska) that many Americans consider hockey to be a "major sport" in their country as well, although some Americans from other parts of the U.S. dispute hockey's inclusion as a major sport. The parts of North America which have the strongest followings of the sport are often called "hockey country".
While most of the countries mentioned above have their own professional ice hockey league, North America's National Hockey League is considered the world's premier professional ice hockey league and attracts almost all of the world's elite players.