Hockey. A brilliant sport but not for me. (Hockey - General)

Member Name: GillMN

Product:	Hockey - General
Date:	23/09/08 (111 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: I eventually left school.

Disadvantages: Miss Smith.

I just read a good review about hockey by Sympatic and I got to thinking about my experience of the game.

But first, for those of you that don't know.....

According to Wikipedia

"Field hockey is played on gravel, natural grass, sand-based or water-based artificial turf, with a small, hard ball. The game is popular among both males and females in many parts of the world. In most countries, the game is played between single-sex sides, although they can be mixed-sex.

The governing body is the 116-member International Hockey Federation (FIH).

Modern field hockey sticks are J-shaped and constructed of a composite of wood, glass fibre or carbon fibre (sometimes both) and have a curved hook at the playing end, a flat surface on the playing side and curved surface on the rear side."

I am not going to wite a long description of all of the rules for three reasons.

1. It would be a bit boring and if you are interested in the game you will know them a lot better than I do.

2. I can't remember them all.

3. I can't find them!

Basically, teams of people with a hockey stick apiece try to get their ball into the opposing goal whilst preventing the other team from doing the same. It's a bit like football with the added excitement of a custom made club each.

I know that thousands of people up and down this country and all across the world love hockey. I've watched them, on the rare occasions I've seen it on the television. All healthy looking and enjoying themselves. Running up and down with their sticks and alternating between grinning with excitement and scowling hard enough to terrorise their opponents. But so happy to be playing!
Having a great time. I envy them.

I don't get it! I really don't get it! There is something missing in me! That little genetic bit of Englishness that loves hockey has fallen off my DNA helix and got lost somewhere in a girl's school changing rooms.

I think I can safely trace my antipathy to the game to my school experience of it.

1. The ground was always frozen. My feet were always frozen, my knees were frozen (and bloody but at least they were too cold to feel the pain usually.) My teeth chattered uncontrollably and my hands were too blue to hold the bloody stick!

2. Miss Smith the hockey teacher was a sadist. She must have graduated from The De Sade Institute for Hockey Teachers and been their star pupil. Her favourite method of making sure you stood in the right place was to poke you with her hockey stick. I think if that bloody stick had ever been made to hit a hockey ball instead of one of us, it would have fainted. (I know! Sticks can't faint. Don't be a pedant!)

The worst Thing about her was that she was a cheerful sadist! She kept telling us how nice it was to be outside in the snow and saying really helpful things like "Stop looking so miserable, Hockey is a great game! Smile or you'll be in detention!" That helped me to enjoy myself so much!

3. The rules were so arbitrary. If Sophia Pigham-Smythe ran sixteen steps with the ball that was okay and 'Skilful!'. If a pleb like myself did it I was cleaning hockey boots for the next twentyseven playtimes. If Felicity Gruntan-Goreham tripped you up with the tip of her sharpened hockey stick and maimed you for life it was an "Unfortunate accident." If I even bumped into someone I was an "Unwashed homicidal maniac."

I don't think she liked me very much.

4. Inter school matches. Oh My God! The shame! We all had to play! Why??? I was so frightened of getting smashed to smithereens by our side, the opposing side and/or Miss Smith, I was a gibbering blueish wreck! Why couldn't I just cut the oranges up into quarters? Or make bandages for the losing side?
Oh no! Miss Sadist Smith had to put me through ritual humiliation every time.

5. The showers after the games. Communal showers, either lukewarm or cold water, (about a cupful each if the water pressure was high enough!)all stripped to the buff and shivering! Guess who stood and watched whilst we showered? And guess who took delight in checking if we were clean enough? I kid you not. She would be arrested if she tried it today.


The only good thing about the hockey lessons was that one girl had a glass eye. If she got bored enough, or cold enough, or if we bribed her with enough goodies from the tuck shop, she would take it out and accidentally 'lose' it on the pitch. Then we could all stop the aimless running up and down and do a bit of searching about for Jane's eye.
We could cheerfully use up about twenty minutes doing this. Jane would slip it to one of us to 'find' when she thought it was nearly time to go in. Miss Smith never knew or couldn't prove it anyway. Very useful that eye was!

I tried to like hockey, I wanted to fit in, I wasn't bad at it I just hated it.

I'm going to sit down one day and read the rules and learn them. I am going to get my hockey stick out of the loft and see if it's still a Slazenger Lethal weapon. I am going to pretend Miss Smith is bending down in front of me looking for Jane's Eye and I am going to give her one almighty smack on her arse with it.

I might be able to like hockey then.

Summary: I know why it's called 'Bullying off!'