The older I get, the nuttier (no pun intended) the world gets. I’d like to think I am open-minded and believe there are few absolutes in this thing called life. (Perhaps it was my upbringing – ie. one of my father’s sage chestnuts was that when it came to pie, there was no such thing as a bad pie vs good pie argument, but some pies were simply better than others.)
God vs no God, take your pick. Beatles vs Stones, too close to call, Rye and Coke vs Rye and Ginger, now there’s a nutter, Leafs vs Habs…well, let’s just stop there and acknowledge that figuring out absolutes can be a slippery slope.
But, there are some absolutes, at least in my mind. Car rides are better with music, the Leafs are not a play-off team, and when playing hockey, on ice, with full equipment, full equipment implies wearing a cup. Now I’ve seen the odd hero get to the rink with his cup nowhere to be found in his bag of gear and decide he’ll chance it just this once. But that’s akin to finishing the last 3 holes in the back 9 in a hurry as the lightening gets closer and closer – it’s simply an objective assessment of risk vs reward.
All that being said as pretext, in one of my Friday afternoon shinny games a few weeks back, I bumped into one of the young guns near the boards in front of my bench mid-game. It was more like me doing an old-guy stumble/fall down for no apparent reason and I happened to make contact with him. It wasn’t a big hit, just normal shinny contact. Weirdly, the poor bugger winced big time (no cage over the face for this cat, and I can let that slide also – few absolutes being the theme here) and then made straight for his bench, doubled over. I felt bad, but the play continued and he seemed to play on a few minutes later.
After the game, I was in one room and he in the other. I asked some of the guys in my room what hurt I had layed on him? There were a few chuckles as they disclosed that my bump had caused him to hit himself right in the berries with his own stick. And yes, as this was disclosed, no less than 3 others, myself included, asked for confirmation that he was wearing a jock. (Think something along the lines of “He WAS wearing a cup though wasn’t he???” with an appropriate degree of incredulity and alarm). Alas, he was not wearing a cup. He must have not had his in his hockey bag just this one time (see above).
The conversation then got weirder. As we speculated on whether he had just forgotten his cup, one cat a bit younger than I offered up that on his son’s midget team of 15 year-olds, only about half wear a jock. Silence…but not for long. WTF? Mon Dieu, but why? This is an absolute, on a very short list of absolutes!
He said the reason they don’t is because “they safe it chafes them”. Silence. Longer than the aforementioned one. Then as hockey players do, we wrapped up this topic by dousing it with humour, seeing no need to understand root cause, first principles, freudian influences, yada yada.
One bloke offered up that chafing may indeed be bad, but at least it is a little action down there, which several other cagey vets present agreed was getting mighty infrequent as each season passed. Another suggested that rather than having to choose between chafing and impact damage caused by cold vulcanized rubber travelling at high speed (geez, just listen to this trade-off when assessing how bad can chafing be?!), one could find a compromise and perhaps slide a little peanut butter on to one’s cup to ease the chafing and yet keep the jewel’s flawless. It could be a marketer’s dream – “the Peanut Butter Cup”.
Rink Tales 