By Jay Scott Kanes
DRAGON CENTRE SHOPPING MALL, Hong Kong – Ice hockey takes some explaining in this part of the world.
Here, folks tend to think of ice as what fast-food shops slap too much of into soft drinks. Sticks are what dogs chase on remote beaches. A breakaway happens when you tote heavy groceries in flimsy bags. As for a puck, that’s a naughty English word disguised by deliberate misspelling.
Yet a few Asians play this fast-paced sport, complete with flying pucks, penalty boxes, zebra-shirted referees and Zamboni (ice-cleaning) machines. Actually, the Hong Kong Ice Hockey Association has a 30-year history.
“With the lack of funding and limited in the use of a full-sized hockey rink, our Hong Kong players overcome tremendous difficulties…,” the association says. “We believe Hong Kong has a potential to thrive in ice hockey and that our future’s bright. We’ll work very hard to promote the sport in Hong Kong and allow more people to enjoy one of the coolest games….”
In 2007, the Hong Kong Academy of Ice Hockey began too. Even so, Hong Kong and its neighbors, like Macau, Taiwan and Thailand, won’t soon topple Canada, the United States, Russia or Sweden in the Winter Olympic Games.
Dedicated players and fans often commute to Sham Shui Po, a dirty, noisy, crowded and run-down district, where they mosey along busy sidewalks to the eight-storey Dragon Centre Shopping Mall and climb to its seventh floor. There, shimmering like an oasis, they find the Sky Rink, a skating surface tiny enough to fit into one corner of a North American or European facility. It’s one of Hong Kong’s several ice rinks.
Players lace up ice skates, grab hockey sticks and slap at a tiny black disc called “the puck”. There’s a league and regular tournaments, mostly contested by Asian-based sides. Even a few celebrities may appear to join pre-game ceremonies.
Usually, hockey means six players per team at once. On the Dragon Centre’s small surface, that’s reduced to four.
This hockey has other differences too. There’s little body-checking or fighting, although tempers sometimes fray, words are exchanged and things turn too physical, forcing the referees to intervene. The nets are close enough together to shoot-on-goal from nearly anywhere. Players peer through the surrounding protective glass not at a roaring crowd, but at a smattering of sometimes-puzzled, silent spectators.
Close above, like a slumbering monster, curls a giant yellow “snake”. Actually, it’s a no-longer-used track for a roller-coaster that used to rumble through the mall’s upper levels.
Even when played by Asians in a place like this, ice-hockey’s rugged -- with crashing into the boards, hitting the ice and then leaping up again. The action’s faster than soccer, less dignified than cricket, more aggressive than basketball, wilder than rugby, less sedate than golf and more unpredictable than tennis.
Ice-hockey began in Canada nearly two centuries ago. Now almost anyone can appreciate the game, even in a tropical metropolis like Hong Kong.
“Oh, the good ole hockey game is the best game you can name.” So goes the chorus of a song popular in North America.
In Hong Kong, the game’s great too – once people realize what “chasing the puck” really means.
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