Welcome to Hockey in real life - The section dedicated to helping you overcome real life problems and events while making sure you can remain a hockey fan.

The credit crunch.

The credit crunch seems to be the buzz word at the moment, and with the economy collapsing, the thoughts of recession looming many people are cutting back on their spending and for many people this will include things that they love, eg. Watching hockey.

We are here to help, and here’s our advice on how you can save money, yet still watch hockey live in person.

Search long and hard for cheaper tickets.
If you don’t own a season ticket, then you will often find the average ticket can cost from anything such as $20 and up, especially nearer, or on game day, and then worse still, you get royally screwed for booking fees, especially from companies like ticketmaster etc.
However. Websites such as stubhub.com offer tickets for prices as low as $5, and the costs are very low.
Stubhub guarantee all tickets, and lets face it, its better than that shady looking man who hangs around the parking lot in a long trench coat hawking dodgey tickets.

Sundays big game sold out? Don’t worry, you can still see hockey - Just look around for a smaller local team, or even a small college/university team. Heck, you might find that you even prefer going to their games instead, as they often seem more like hockey should be, with increased violence, shaky players and more than often, better seats. The merchandise is usually much cheaper too - Plus… No Gary Bettman!

No matter what you choose to do, be it last minute $9 Boston tickets, or a $1 Sunday League hockey game, or even a $9000 VIP suite, Enjoy the game.

I’m KevKev, for PowerPlayGoal.com

It’s been a whole year since the NHL and Reebok unleashed their new Rbk Edge jerseys onto the world of hockey, replacing the classic, baggier jerseys that pretty much all of us grew up with. The jerseys were designed to enhance performance, i.e. making players faster, etc, and as we all know the jerseys now look… well, slightly less baggy on the players. Now pretty much everyone has gotten used to the new uniform format.

As early as two years ago, rumours about Reebok’s new, performance enhancing and, most notably, form fitting jerseys were spreading all over the internet on places like the SportsLogos.net forum, leading to fears that hockey jerseys as we knew them would be Ruined Forever. Many of the earlier rumours suggested that players would have to tuck the whole jersey into the pants, which I can imagine now looking pretty stupid. And also, because of the idea of a tighter fitting jersey, one of the main fears in particular was that it would be very similar to Nike’s own Swift jerseys, used mainly by International teams, which also led to some people confusing the Swift with Edge.

Then came the 2007 NHL All-Star game, along with pictures of Sidney Crosby modelling the Eastern Conference jersey, when the new uniform was officially unveiled. Unsurprisingly, many hated it. And then templates of the jerseys started going around; this caused even more fear to come about as everyone assumed that every team would use that exact same pattern, again in a very similar fashion to the Nike Swift. Gone (apparently) would have been the unique uniforms that every team wore, and in would have been recolourings of the All-Star template for every team.

And then when all 30 teams officially unveiled their uniforms, they turned out to not be like that at all.

Most teams did in fact keep their unique uniform designs, while others like the Boston Bruins and San Jose Sharks took the opportunity to rebrand their selves with new logos and jerseys. While many of the uniforms are in fact template based, there are actually a number of different templates that the teams are currently using, for example, the Pittsburgh Penguins use one that has panels on the arms and on the sides of the jersey. Some fans found the use of templates slightly annoying, but that annoyance pales in comparison to another common feature: piping, which for those who are unsure are really thin stripes that separate areas of the jersey, and which for some teams are coloured, which many feel ruin a jersey’s overall appearance.

Many teams benefitted from their selected templates, and as mentioned before some teams were able to keep their own designs. Some teams changed their own designs slightly to better suit their selected templates (like Atlanta and Colorado).

Other teams, however, seemingly suffered from the transition to Edge:

• The Anaheim Ducks logo, due to it being a wordmark, was shrunk so that it would fit on the front of the jersey. Also, as their hem stripes are diagonal, they get cut off as they reach the side of the jersey due to template or material restrictions. The logo has been made bigger for the 2008-09 season.
• The Dallas Stars, either because of template restrictions or personal choice, did not keep their popular ’star striping’ pattern, instead going mainly black for the home jersey, almost eliminating green and going for a collegiate style appearance. This change in style has received mixed opinions.
• While not a horrifyingly huge change, the Detroit Red Wings had to move the captain’s letter over to the right side of the jersey, since the Wing on their logo takes up most of the space on the left side. During the Stanley Cup Final, the patch was placed directly next to the letter.
• The Edmonton Oilers probably suffered the most. They did not keep their traditional striping, instead they picked the same template as the Florida Panthers, who have a red stripe going down the arms; the Oilers did not colour this part, and their arm stripes only go around underneath the arms and are cut off at the top, giving the team a very bland appearance.
• While the Tampa Bay Lightning jerseys may look good in person, they look much different on TV. Since their black and blue are both dark colours and have been placed right next to each other, the Bolts’ home jersey looks almost as if it’s completely black.
• The Toronto Maple Leafs, for some reason, removed the hem stripes from their jerseys. This received criticism from some fans, with at least one going as far as to call it a “monstrosity”.

My personal opinion on the whole thing is that it was probably just the NHL’s attempt to grab some more fans with seemingly stylish uniforms, with the ‘performance enhancing’ stuff being nothing more than part of their marketing campaign.

But let’s face it, aside from the problems that some teams had, the unveiling wasn’t as bad as everyone thought it would be. And who knows, maybe a similar change will take place within the next 30 or so years and start the same kind of panic all over again.

If you, the fan, are still worrying about how the Edge jerseys will fit, I personally recommend reading our review.

Welcome to the definitive fan - The online guide from PowerPlayGoal.com to the types of fans who you’re likely to meet (or not meet) at a game.
Some of these fans clearly have a true passion for the game, others, well, they are just there for something to do.

Fan Type #3 - The Gamer

More than likely to own at least one NHL game

Bio:
Im sure you have been to someone’s house, say your best mate’s house; taken a look at their collection of games that sits on their shelf, seen an NHL game and said “Oh cool, you like hockey”, with the reply “Nah, just the games - they are fun”.
This type of fan ticks me off. Mostly because the ones I have met or heard about often have absolutely no clue on how the game plays, and are often confused by hockey if you even try to make them watch a real game.
Back to the scenario, you reply to your no longer best mate, “Oh right, well shall we have a game anyway?”. To this, your enemy will reply with either a sure, or try to bamboozle you into playing another game which they have knowledge in - Possibly something like Viva Pinata or perhaps Kung Fu Panda.
Say they actually bite the bullet and load the game up - you then ask “What team do you play as?”, to this, they reply that they play as either one of the two teams set as default (eg. this season Pittsburgh or Detroit), or my favourite - The All Star team.

On questioning their team choice, they reply that the team has a 99 stat, and that they can always win with them - providing the have the game set to rookie. They then proceed to play on - faking knowledge about hockey, repeating what the commentators say to make themselves sound like they know hockey - and you watch him get angry because he can’t declare fisticuffs every 2 seconds. By the end of the first period, they say “Oh my hands are tired” or similar (excuses, your score’s currenty 7-0, your whomping them) and they quit the game to the menu. At this stage they say “Oh look, I made a creation of myself, and a custom team”, and you’re then shown a fully statted player “Because its awesome” along with a full stat custom team, similar to the All Stars as descrbed above.
Characteristics:
Notably male - aged 11 through 22
Favourite Team:
The All Star team, or last years champions. Yes, I know someone who said that the All Star team was their choice.
Other:
These players aren’t contained to hockey alone - they can be found buying FIFA, NBA, MLB games and my favourite Madden - They get confused, play it a few times and many will trade them in, possibly providing a good bargain in the used section at Game Stop - though to be honest, true fans pre-order NHL.

I’m KevKev, and this is PowerPlayGoal.com

…Apologies for the awful pun. But I’m sure you’ll forgive me as that was nowhere near as bad as the logo you’re about to see. This team is the Port Huron Icehawks, a recently formed franchise that plays in the IHL. Okay, so they picked one of the most generic names for a hockey club ever (We get it. You play Ice Hockey. But that doesn’t mean you HAVE to shove the word ‘ice’ at the beginning of your team’s name). That minor flaw in the team’s identity more than makes up for their horrible logo.

This has to be one of the worst sports logos I’ve ever seen. I don’t mind teams that go for a cartoony image, but when it’s looks more like an overly detailed cartoon drawing with gradients in places and less like a sports team’s logo, that’s when I can’t stand it. Plus that looks nothing like a hawk; they have much smaller beaks than that. It looks more like a cross between a vulture and a parrot. And what’s with his facial expression? I’m pretty sure that an ‘Icehawk’ can pull a more intimidating face without showing off his great big teeth which shouldn’t even be there anyway.

Moving down a bit, we have an unnecessary wordmark. A hockey stick would have been fine, but no, they went for a tacky, gradiented wordmark. And as if the team’s name wasn’t generic enough, they even picked the ‘Impact’ font, which comes pre-installed on most Windows PCs.

And finally, moving down again, we have yet another unnecessary feature: the icicles, which going by the colours look more like deformed blades which have stabbed and are covered in gradiented blood (The designer has quite a fetish for gradients, don’t they?). Even worse, the ice looks partially like a 3D graphic, a big no-no in the world of sports logo design. I mean, yes, some logos may have been designed in a way that gives them, for lack of a better term, a pseudo-3D effect, for example the NHL’s current Conference logos, the Ottawa Senators primary, and also, while not a logo, the New York Rangers jersey numbers.

And as for the hidden message mentioned in the title, take a closer look at the ice. If you are keen-eyed, you should be able to spot the word ‘KINNEY’. Some of you may now be asking “What does Kinney mean?” or “Who is Kinney?” etc. Those are good questions, and here is your answer: Larry Kinney. He is the team’s owner, as well as the owner and CEO of Datapak Services Corporation.

An owner putting their name into a team’s logo is something that’s never been done before, and for a very good reason: it’s completely stupid. It would be like the L.A. Kings having ‘Anschutz’ hidden in their logo, or the Boston Bruins having ‘Jacobs’ hidden in theirs. Half the time, the casual sports fan doesn’t give a rat’s arse about who owns the team, so why bother hiding your name in there?

Please Mr Kinney, get rid of this horrible thing. You can keep your team’s stupidly generic name for all I care, but at least give your fans a nice logo to look at, without adding your name in there.

It’s been over a year since Reebok’s new style NHL jerseys were unveiled, so I decided to finally get myself an RBK EDGE Anaheim Ducks jersey, just to see what it was really like. Initially I was sceptical about buying it because I wasn’t too sure how it would fit compared to the old CCM replicas. I originally ordered a Medium, thinking that my normal Small size would be too small, and it turned out to be too big. So I sent that back and exchanged it for the Small size, having to wait a few more weeks until it finally arrived this morning.

Just so you know, this review is going to be completely unbiased, so I’m not going to sulk and rant over how the Edge jerseys have “ruined the NHL forever” (like traditionalists), nor am I going to go into any performance enhancing drivel that certain others tend to bring up (like the NHL, Reebok, and Sidney Crosby), partially because this isn’t the authentic style jersey, and partially also because it’s probably a load of bollocks anyway.

First of all, the visual differences. On the player, the authentic variant of this jersey looks more form fitting than its baggier predecessor. However, the difference isn’t too great, and after a while we all (or at least, most of us) got used to it. Other changes include the bib-like part at the bottom of the back of the jersey, similar to what baseball jerseys have, then the ‘dreaded’ piping that separates some parts of the jerseys, and which for some teams are coloured seemingly for the sake of it, and finally, the NHL shield at the collar, and the so-called ‘jock tag’ at the bottom left of the front of the jersey, which is seemingly the NHL’s desperate attempt to be more like the other three major sports leagues, particularly the NFL.

Other differences, which are more noticeable when you’re holding it yourself, include the fact that the materials used are much thinner and lighter, and even more so on certain parts of the jersey, than the old CCM replicas. The much lighter material that makes up the back of the jersey is so light that I can’t help but think that I’m accidentally going to rip it while trying to put it on one day, or if it gets caught on a door handle. Also, the arm and body length is longer than on the old jerseys, meaning that if you have shorter arms you’ll need to tuck the ends of the sleeve in just so that it doesn’t get in the way of your hands.

A major concern with fans before the jerseys were unveiled, aside from all teams using a same, singular template league-wide (which turned out to be nothing more than mislead, inaccurate information) was that the jerseys would be too tight and uncomfortable to wear. That however, is mostly untrue. This jersey I have is actually quite comfy, and doesn’t feel entirely different from the old jerseys, aside from the arms which are, as mentioned above, longer and slightly less baggy than the CCM replicas. However, there is one problem; that being the only really tight part of the jersey which interferes with the overall comfort level: the collar.

Unlike on the old jerseys, with which you could easily slip your head through the collar, you now have to struggle just to get your head through it, as demonstrated in the photo below.

This, to be honest, is my biggest problem with the jersey. What’s even more of a pain is taking the jersey off, when once again you have to struggle to get your head through it, which can prove to be even more difficult than it is to put it on. As far as I’m aware, most teams have different collar styles, so I’m not sure whether this issue applies with just the Ducks jerseys, or for any of the other teams, except for some like Buffalo, Colorado and Nashville who use the same style as Anaheim.

Pros:

• Very comfortable to wear
  
• Aside from the sleeves, not much different than the old jerseys
  
• Some may prefer the light material used
  

Cons:

• The even lighter material is too thin, and feels easy to tear
• The collar is a pain in the arse (may not apply for some teams)

Overall: It’s very comfortable to wear, just as comfortable as the old jerseys, however I highly recommend trying them on before buying, especially in case you need to try out the different sizes, and make sure you can get your head through the collar.