Has it Really Come to This?

"Shoot It! ... and "Shoot!" are two of the most common hockey cheers.  They come when the players are passing, passing, or holding the puck skating around, including behind the net, trying to get the best shot available when they are in possession of the puck...

The danger is, the other side is right there dogging you: poking, poking and extending their sticks, trying to regain possession and skate it down to the other end themselves.  (Remember, they are doing all this on skates... It's a fast-action sport. Not the beautiful -- but sloooow -- game of soccer, for sure.)

I've watched enough prep hockey to know that these are common chants, that you never will score if you don't take a shot in the first place, and that so often, the goal comes on the rebound -- the first player shoots, the puck deflects off the goalie or the bar, and another fast-skating player positions himself (or in a more accurate description, gets his or her body and stick there in the millisecond it matters; it's a moving game, remember, faster even than basketball...) in the right place at the right time to stuff in the rebound.

I also know that passion abounds in that game, and fans even at home can get frustrated when their players have possession, but are not taking shots.  "Shooooot IT!", like I say, is a common chant advising players, and getting your own passions out... (Much more common than, "Put the Biscuit in the Basket!" say. But I've been known to holler that one in the stands too, but people tend to turn and look at you on that one, I realized...)

But we live in gun-happy times, it seems, and mostly: a Time for Fear.  

So it does not surprise me (Okay, yes it still does...) that somebody called the cops on neighbors watching the game -- the Stanley Cup / the game's final championship, "for all the marbles" ... -- on tv, when they overhead them hollering at the tv, like we all hear here on Packer Sunday say, or any gameday when you can kind of follow the game based on your neighbors' cheers or groans of disappointment.

 America?  We're better than this.  Really.