by Soup Lover XIII
This has been an explosive year for hockey. Heated Rivalry came to international attention, the Olympic Games saw Team USA defeat Team Canada, and the Professional Women's Hockey League is expanding to four new markets. Scores of new fans are discovering the excitement that I, a Canadian, have accepted as a background feature of my life just like pollen in the spring or the taste of copper in my elementary school's water.
The common complaint I hear from pre-2025 fans is that these new people don't know puck.¹ A butthurt man in an Instagram comment section will ask every woman in sight if they even know what icing is, or to name their five favourite defencemen, or the last time the Maple Leafs won the cup, or whatever they've decided is the true test of whether somebody knows puck. This kind of behaviour makes it abundantly clear that these people are less interested in fostering interest in a sport they love and are more interested in making sure that everyone knows who was there first. This posturing is an embarrassing attempt to gatekeep the sport from people who are different from the pre-existing fans. Particularly, there's an outcry against new fans who are bringing identity politics onto the ice because they came by way of Heated Rivalry and are hoping for league-wide reform to eradicate homophobia and keep abusers off the ice.
I argue that these butthurt men have a point: anyone who thinks the NHL (or PWHL) is their friend² doesn't know puck. I just don't think anyone is recognizing just how much these newcomers don't know puck. If they really knew puck and wanted change, they would be calling for the dissolution of the nation of Canada.
Yes, and I'm a Canadian who grew up quite close to one of the many towns which bill themself the Birthplace of Hockey.³ As a country, we put so much love into our national winter sport that most people don't even know we have a national summer sport (it's lacrosse, by the way). Hockey is essential to Canadian culture.