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by Baxter Holmes/The Daily OKLAHOMA CITY –— The hit sent the opposing player skywards, and for an interminable amount of time, he seemed airborne. It’s just a shame there weren’t more fans in attendance to see.
The Sooner faithful at Saturday’s OU-UCO hockey game was sparse at best. Chants of “O-C-U! O-C-U!” rang throughout Blazers Ice Centre, OU’s home rink.
It begs the question: Why hasn’t OU hockey gathered a respectable crowd of faithful fans?
It’s a valid question considering the team is good. OU has 27 wins in 33 games and is ranked No. 4 nationally in the latest American Collegiate Hockey Association Poll.
OU has other sports that are well-deserving of fans such as gymnastics, softball, baseball, soccer, wrestling and football. Yet hockey has many of the same dynamics that make football a staple sport south of the Mason-Dixon Line.
The hitting is fierce, as much or more so than in football. Every few seconds, players bash opponents into the boards. The constant rattling of Plexiglas when two or three players collide causes more than enough excitement to get adrenaline pumping. This coincides with the ever-building anticipation of a fight, which is often met.
The speed is second to none; it’s widely considered the fastest team sport in the world.
Fans are closer to the action than in football or baseball, and in some arenas, basketball, too.
And when the execution of precise passing and skating along the sheet results in a goal, it’s poetry. But Oklahomans are first and foremost intimate with football, and that will never change. Their second love is basketball, and then baseball after that.
Socially speaking, hockey is a Northern sport, one loved by Canadians and New Englanders with no foundation in the South.
Just as soccer, the world’s most popular sport, has never taken strong roots in American society, hockey has never gained much fanfare in the South. Perhaps it’s the egocentric view of Southerners to not accept any substitute or alternative to football, basketball or baseball.
Saturday was the first time I’d ever attended a hockey game. Everyone else in the OU community still has the chance to do the same at one of the team’s final home games Friday or Saturday night. Tickets are $5 for students, and the rink is only 15-minutes away.
If you like speed, hitting and seeing the Sooners win (translation: all the things that OU football offers), then you’re sure to enjoy yourself. Baxter Holmes is a journalism junior. |
