COLUMN: Hockey players are cool
If your daughter is dating a hockey player, the prospect of having a groom with no teeth in the wedding pictures is the least of your concerns.
Their language is often crude, their hair is sometimes long, their body odor is rarely good. In other words, they’re the coolest group of guys at Utah State.
They play for the love of the game. They already passed that test by driving down to Ogden every day for games and practices before the George S. Eccles Ice Center opened in Logan in January. They also don’t receive a cent from the school to pay for tuition.
If they aren’t playing for the love of the game, they must play for the girls. After Thursday night’s game against Weber State, I left the locker room and walked into the lobby. I saw what looked like a Mary Kay convention. Girls were everywhere. If I wasn’t a married man, I would start taking skating lessons.
I still haven’t gotten to the part about why these guys are so cool. After all, the members of Kiss are crude, long haired, smelly babe magnets, but I don’t go around saying that they’re cool.
The first reason these guys are so swell is the answers they give when you ask a question. When you interview a lot of athletes they will give you every cliché in the book.
“We just worked together as a team and got the job done.”
“I just tried to do my job and luckily things turned out well for us.”
“We made some good plays and came out with the win.”
I’d had enough of these interviews to fill a notebook. Then I started talking to the hockey team.
“If we don’t kill these guys there is something seriously wrong with us.”
“I wanted to bust some of those guys’ heads out there.”
“You can see by their class … they have no class.”
Do those sound like canned quotes to you? These guys speak their mind, which is refreshing in the world of sports.
Another reason I love the hockey team is they will be so personal and friendly to you no matter who you are.
In the inaugural game at the new ice arena, I was covering the game and interviewing Aaron Burrell. Someone interrupted our interview and told Burrell The Herald Journal was on the line for him. Instead of telling me to hold on while he talked to the bigger newspaper, he got on the phone and told The Herald Journal writer to “hold on a few minutes, I’m talking to Clark from The Statesman.”
Since then, I have seen him around and every time he remembers my name and says hello.
During the last game, after I had walked out into the lobby/Mary Kay convention, I realized I didn’t know anyone there and since my wife had taken the car I was stranded. Not wanting to wake her up, I asked team captain Paul Amidon for a ride. He had no problem with that.
So a note to all of the prospective mothers-in-law for these guys: Once you look past the long dental history, questionable language, long hair and post-game body odor, you will see what I see – these guys are cool.
Clark Jessop is a sophomore majoring in broadcast journalism. He can be reached at clarkjessop@cc.usu.edu