Old South Stands
Jolly Good Fellow
- Messages
- 244
I grew up playing organized football and thoroughly enjoyed it. As many of you know, football in the South is a cultural thing, especially college football. Even if you've never played, it's a huge part of life growing up here. College football in the South comes perhaps as close as anything to mirroring the way the Canadians feel about hockey. Rare among most Southerners my age, I discovered hockey about the same time I started playing football --- and ice skated before I even knew what a 'quarterback' was. But I never got to play hockey as a kid. The Flames left, and the rinks near our house folded. I only knew three guys who played in youth leagues. Later in life I took up skating again and started to play hockey. There are some interesting comparisons that can be made between hockey and football.
It's long been written, the game of football is like two armies going at it on a battlefield. On football teams, you have officers and 'grunts'. The linemen were the privates and NCOs, while the backfield were your officers. The flankers of old (and today's WRs) were kind of like warrant officers, somewhere in-between. The QB, of course, was the general, leading it all. Everyone on the team had a bit part to play, but each part was different from that of your teammate. Like armies in war, only the officers got the glory --- and the same can be said of the backfield and defensive backs. If you were a lineman, at the end of the day you could at least say that you were on the team that won and you maybe cleared the hole for the halfback to run through and score the winning touchdown.
My experience with hockey has been very different. Like football, it also has a military dimension to it, but it's more like a squadron of fighters attacking a target. You form deep bonds with your individual line-mates. And although you have a squadron leader (usually the center), each member of the line is treated more or less equally in the heat of battle. There's no feeling like racing to get a loose puck behind the net and a teammate providing you with the extra eyes you need, calling out: "You're clear! You've got it!" Like a pilot looking after his wing-man. I can say that playing hockey is immensely more gratifying now than all my years playing football, as cherished as those years were.
It would be interesting to hear views from others who've played both sports and get their take...
It's long been written, the game of football is like two armies going at it on a battlefield. On football teams, you have officers and 'grunts'. The linemen were the privates and NCOs, while the backfield were your officers. The flankers of old (and today's WRs) were kind of like warrant officers, somewhere in-between. The QB, of course, was the general, leading it all. Everyone on the team had a bit part to play, but each part was different from that of your teammate. Like armies in war, only the officers got the glory --- and the same can be said of the backfield and defensive backs. If you were a lineman, at the end of the day you could at least say that you were on the team that won and you maybe cleared the hole for the halfback to run through and score the winning touchdown.
My experience with hockey has been very different. Like football, it also has a military dimension to it, but it's more like a squadron of fighters attacking a target. You form deep bonds with your individual line-mates. And although you have a squadron leader (usually the center), each member of the line is treated more or less equally in the heat of battle. There's no feeling like racing to get a loose puck behind the net and a teammate providing you with the extra eyes you need, calling out: "You're clear! You've got it!" Like a pilot looking after his wing-man. I can say that playing hockey is immensely more gratifying now than all my years playing football, as cherished as those years were.
It would be interesting to hear views from others who've played both sports and get their take...
