A sporting first

That’s right I did something sporty, well I went to watch an Ice Hockey match. It was Jönköping’s local team of HV71 against Frölunda from Göteborg. Now if you’re like me and have no prior knowledge of Ice Hockey I’ll fill you in. 3 thirds of 20 minutes if it’s a draw after the thirds then it goes to a sudden death which is 5 mins long, still failing to find a winner it then goes into shoot outs, best of 5, if it’s a draw after that it’s next one to score. Well anyway that’s what I worked out from watching. Almost anything goes, so yeah it can get rough, even for the 3 referees, who are as much an obstacle as the opposing team.

You may think that this game is incredibly rough, and its true injuries are incredibly common however there is an elegance to it I feel, watching the players glide around the arena chasing after the puck can be quite mesmerising, especially when they are skating backwards.

Anyway back to the game in hand. In the first third Frölunda took the lead halfway through. The atmosphere inside the arena was great, obvious support for the teams but with respect for the others, applauding ood efforts on both sides. Chants almost constantly. During the second third a goal from HV71 was disallowed, I’m not completely sure why. This is when the mild fights started, the sin bid was used an awful lot. The final third was when HV finally came back to draw. 2 of the opposing players were in the sin bin and thus that left Frölong with three players on the ice. They still cut it fine though as the players were only in the sin bin for a max of 2 mins. Then it went into sudden death hugely tense time with 2 fights emerging in this time alone. Then it went into penalties. In the initial 5 it was a draw so then it came down to the next goal wins. Luckily HV’s Goalkeeper was at the top of their game and held out. Finally the goal was scored and ended the game.