How many of you here DID NOT play hockey growing up?

[Scott103]

LA-raised guy here. I can count the number of times I’ve been on ice skates on one hand, and I’ve only ever seen snow on trips to the East Coast. Needless to say, I’ve never come close to playing hockey or shooting a puck.
However, I’m a fan of hockey. Anyone else here in the same boat? I’m assuming most hockey fans are people who played growing up, but I’m wondering if there are other out there similar to me.
I also think it means I probably don’t have the insight to the game like those who’ve played before. I’ve played most of the other sports I’m a fan of (obviously nothing serious; just youth stuff or recreationally), but at least I can relate to them on some level. With hockey, playing the game is a mystery to me.

[Pengwin7]

Welcome to the forums!

Well... if you like the sport - BE A FAN!
I did grow up playing it... from age 8 until now (in men's leagues).

But I'd estimate that only 50%-75% of our member base played more than 3 or more organized seasons (this would be my personal definition of "played").
But this does leave 25%-50% of our member base that probably didn't play or only played a season or two.

If you didn't play hockey growing up, I'd say you are (ONLY) missing 5%-10% of the completeness of hockey strategy/tactics/knowledge.
However... that said...
There are several people on these forums that win the fantasy hockey leagues regularly... (that I can tell don't really know fully how to play a complete game of on-ice hockey).

[2014olympicgold]

I think being a fan vs playing hockey gap is viewing where a mistake originates from in a sustained pressure situation.

I've watched games and people are pissed at the defense for making the wrong play. But as a d-man playing hockey my whole life you can see it wasn't their fault entirely. It would originate from a lazy play by a winger for example.

D get bullied by the media for making the wrong play, but a lot of the time it's that their help wasn't there or an outlet wasn't in their proper place. Or a small mistake somewhere made it so the attacking team stayed in the zone for an extended time. Or forwards try and get cute at the blue line after long pressure and don't help the D get a change. Just small things.

I think P7 is right with the number of forum members playing hockey. And I think the number of members with "effective real life knowledge" is even lower as a lot of people stop playing hockey after high school, and times change and knowledge fades in a way.

You can watch a sport and pick up the right plays as they happen, but playing a sport (or even watching with someone who has) can make it so you see the start of issues before they happen. Also, yeah goalies are their own breed. Most mid-season goalie trades in the NHL often fail, unless it's for depth and even in that case they'll fail in terms of "we traded a pick for this guy?" (Rittich with the Leafs).

[senryu]

I've never played a single game of hockey at any level. But I've loved and followed it for a long time.

[RizzeeDizzee]

I've never skated on ice in any capacity - not even once

[senryu]

I've never skated on ice in any capacity - not even once

Man, I thought I was holding the nuts no-hockey position, but now you're the leader in the clubhouse.

[SeaDawg]

I never played organized hockey in my life. I played a lot of pickup hockey at the local rink, but my parents were far too poor to enroll me in any organized sport.

That said, even though I never played any organized sports until my teens (when I was old enough to pay the fees myself and get to and from the games/practices myself), I excelled at many sports and am a huge fan of many sports, especially hockey.

[townghost]

I won't bet on myself to do two full laps inside the rink, let alone put on hockey gear and play like 5 minutes of mid-tempo hockey. Unfortunately I was a frail and sickly child with numerous occasions of life-threatning strokes and that plume kinda ruined my life from the very beginning. Despite this my father instilled a love of sports in me and I was doing track & field in school and university, played a lot of soccer and 3x3 basketball but all is left for now is aerobic exercise and live TV sports.

[Feenom]

Never played any organized sports. Always played pond hockey in the winter and ball/street hockey all seasons. Only organized sport was soccer, grade 8 and scored 1 goal that went off my ass. Sums up my life. Loved watching hockey with my dad and uncles since I was 5. TML make me so angry.

[saucelife90]

Looking like P7's estimations need to be flipped! More guys who haven't played by the sounds of it.

My question to the guys who never played.

What/Who got you interested enough to follow along? How did you picked which team you were going to watch, and if it was a team outside of your region, why that team?

[Belexus75]

I think being a fan vs playing hockey gap is viewing where a mistake originates from in a sustained pressure situation.

I've watched games and people are pissed at the defense for making the wrong play. But as a d-man playing hockey my whole life you can see it wasn't their fault entirely. It would originate from a lazy play by a winger for example.

D get bullied by the media for making the wrong play, but a lot of the time it's that their help wasn't there or an outlet wasn't in their proper place. Or a small mistake somewhere made it so the attacking team stayed in the zone for an extended time. Or forwards try and get cute at the blue line after long pressure and don't help the D get a change. Just small things.

I think P7 is right with the number of forum members playing hockey. And I think the number of members with "effective real life knowledge" is even lower as a lot of people stop playing hockey after high school, and times change and knowledge fades in a way.

You can watch a sport and pick up the right plays as they happen, but playing a sport (or even watching with someone who has) can make it so you see the start of issues before they happen. Also, yeah goalies are their own breed. Most mid-season goalie trades in the NHL often fail, unless it's for depth and even in that case they'll fail in terms of "we traded a pick for this guy?" (Rittich with the Leafs).

I never played or skated myself but I been watching many team sports since 3 years old…I remember entire world cup of soccer in 82 at 7 years old…

while I agree that it’s easier to spot small details when you played certain sport, I personally think the attitude of you didn’t play what do you know, is ignorant and wrong…

what you describe above is true but not because some people didn’t play but because watching on TV does not allow you to see action develop…being in the rink or in soccer stadium allowed you to see whole picture and some one who been watching games for a while but never played the sport can make same observation as guy who played for 20 years…in fact some coaches bench players so they can watch from sidelines and develop different perspective to help them out…

at the same time even if you spend countless hours on the rink, you can’t tell mistakes if you see only 1/3 of the rink on tv…you can’t possibly see mistake on other side of the ice or a winger who didn’t get open for d man to make the pass…

[2014olympicgold]

I never played or skated myself but I been watching many team sports since 3 years old…I remember entire world cup of soccer in 82 at 7 years old…

while I agree that it’s easier to spot small details when you played certain sport, I personally think the attitude of you didn’t play what do you know, is ignorant and wrong…

what you describe above is true but not because some people didn’t play but because watching on TV does not allow you to see action develop…being in the rink or in soccer stadium allowed you to see whole picture and some one who been watching games for a while but never played the sport can make same observation as guy who played for 20 years…in fact some coaches bench players so they can watch from sidelines and develop different perspective to help them out…

at the same time even if you spend countless hours on the rink, you can’t tell mistakes if you see only 1/3 of the rink on tv…you can’t possibly see mistake on other side of the ice or a winger who didn’t get open for d man to make the pass…

This is why I said "or watch with someone who's played". Having people help point out things and explain what's going on is added info. If you watch with people who don't know, you could be going down a path of bad assumptions. Take it as you will, I see I struck a cord with you thinking I talked down to you, but if you've watched sports for yrs, I'm sure you've talked to someone who's played the sport and you've absorbed that info.

Sorry if I insulted you by saying if you haven't played a sport, or talked to someone who has, you might not pick up stuff that's not apparent. That was my point, and maybe I didn't explain it well.

[Axeman33]

I've played some sort of organized since I was four years old at varying quality levels along the way. Started out playing forward but I moved to goalie around age 10. I am currently now 52 years old and still play military beer league hockey twice a week, when I am not sailing.

[Belexus75]

This is why I said "or watch with someone who's played". Having people help point out things and explain what's going on is added info. If you watch with people who don't know, you could be going down a path of bad assumptions. Take it as you will, I see I struck a cord with you thinking I talked down to you, but if you've watched sports for yrs, I'm sure you've talked to someone who's played the sport and you've absorbed that info.

Sorry if I insulted you by saying if you haven't played a sport, or talked to someone who has, you might not pick up stuff that's not apparent. That was my point, and maybe I didn't explain it well.

I did not take it as you talked down to me at all…I just find your opinion old school and quit wrong TBH….sounded a bit as it was coming from Don Cherry’s mouth…but it was not insulting just wrong to generalize like that…

I agree that some one new to certain sport could miss small details and make uninformed judgment but saying that u need to have played or watch with someone who did to be educated about the game is just not true…it Maybe harder, longer part but you can become an expert at something just by research and watching others and not necessarily by practice…TGIF is true in alll aspects of life…not just sports

[Luffy D Monkey]

Never played, I can barely skate. Love to watch though.