By Ted Cox
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To be sure, the tactics of hockey stress team play and the repetition of fundamental movements in hopes of creating those serendipitous moments, and a team in sync along those lines is more apt to enjoy success than a team that isn’t. That’s why so many passes go sliding untouched through the slot in front of the net in search of a teammate who hasn’t yet moved into the proper position, and why so many goals are attributed to just those passes that connect up. That’s also, getting back to our point, why hockey players seem to be enjoying idle moments even as they play. Genius in a hockey player is the ability to see patterns developing on the ice and exploit them. That’s why a hockey player, like a writer, sometimes does his best work while not seeming to be working at all. Wayne Gretzky drifts into position behind the opponent’s net for the same reason a writer stands up and goes to the window: to let an idea simmer, to wait and see if it will congeal. But the camera is always on the puck in hockey.
So hockey on television, like a book or an article or a piece of E-mail, delivers the end result rather than the genius of creation. That’s why, for all the urgent beauty and drama of the sport, hockey highlights are so undramatic on the evening news. Hockey goals, in hindsight, are no more dramatic than a golfer sinking a tournament-winning putt. Of course the one player is going to move into position to convert the pass from the other player, just as of course the putt is going to go in; otherwise the TV sports anchor wouldn’t bother showing it. In the moment of creation, however–ah, then there is drama and beauty. While the TV camera captures those moments from time to time–especially when the coverage is done well, as on our local Blackhawks affiliate, SportsChannel–mostly they’re something only a spectator is privy to.
Deprived of injured line mates Patrick Poulin and Sergei Krivokrasov, Roenick has been moved from center to right wing and reassigned with Bernie Nicholls and Amonte. If anyone can teach him patience it’s Nicholls, a shifty veteran with a sharp profile who skates around with his head jutting forward in the manner of a ferret.
