
When you’re watching these games at home, it’s often easy to forget that the players are saying words to each other on the ice. Your friendly neighbourhood broadcaster, of course, doesn’t pass those words along to you, because nobody has the budget to pay for the on-the-fly censorship that society would necessitate.
Post-production, on the other hand, gives us somewhat of a look at what happens between the players when they hit the ice, including these four great moments from the Penticton Young Stars tournament:
Bargaining, by Cole Cassels
It’s not hard to tell how this conversation began; Cole Cassels had something happen to him and felt that the referee should have done something about it. After the play, he decided to let the nearest zebra know how he felt.
A referee will never reverse or add a call just because you complain to him; you’re undermining his authority, and even if you appear to be right, you’re making him look bad. What you can do, however, is make friends for the next shift, so if something happens again, they might a bit more lenient. Make it count, Cole:
“Why do you think I was saying hi to you? I wouldn’t call it on myself”
heavy sigh. Classic rookie mistake, Cole; that won’t get you in his good books. I’ll bump you up to a B+ for the chirp, though.
Goon Squad, by Jake Virtanen
After Jake Virtanen took an attempt at ending Connor McDavid’s life in Vancouver’s lone loss to the Edmonton Oilers, the young phenom’s teammates were not amused. Virtanen had to deal with at least one member of the opposition getting in his face at every whistle, and when even Ethan Bear (a kid with has fewer penalty minutes in his WHL career than McDavid had last season) got into the mix, he had enough.
“Feels good to be McDavid’s tough guy, eh?”
He’s got a point. The Oilers are going to have to learn soon that this isn’t 1982 anymore and you can’t just support Gretzky with a Semenko. Today’s generational talents have learned to fend for themselves; Sidney Crosby has been pushing back against those who push him since he was an early teenager. McDavid will have to do the same as he gets used to the league, lest the entire Oilers gets distracted every time someone throws a hit.
S*** Happens, by Hunter Shinkaruk
When you’re five 5’11 after stuffing risers under your skate blades and bribing the NHL.com guys to pad the stats, you’re going to get yourself into some trouble when you enter the boards with somebody who is legitimately tall. This was the case when Hunter Shinkaruk had a puck battle with 6’3 Mason Marchment, and it ended with him clipping his enemy in the face with a high stick.
He could have just skated away and let him angry, but given his father Bryan’s love for getting sweet, dirty revenge over the course of his NHL career, Shinkaruk poured water on the situation with two words:
“Sorry bro”
Hey, it may not be Shakespeare, but it got the job done. Besides, when every other phrase you say is “atta boy (nickname)”, this is a marked improvement.
Bait and Switch, by Jake Virtanen
Sometimes, the best moments come completely by accident. In this case, Jake Virtanen was already at the point where he, once again, had pissed off an entire hockey squadron, and you could tell that the Jets were looking at just about any excuse to get back at him.
Here, you see Virtanen utter a couple of words, causing Axel Blomqvist to immediately perk up, stare him down, with his arms at the ready to drop the gloves at the ring of a bell. What could Jake have possibly said to piss off a guy who averages about 25 penalty minutes a year?
“Subs, let’s go here, eh?”
Okay, so he said “let’s go”, which I suppose is hockey’s way of saying “do you want to f***ing die?”, but Subs is very obviously a call-out to Canucks defenceman Jordan Subban and is probably not something you could ever abbreviate Axel Blomqvist into.
Unless, of course, the Jets winger thought that Virtanen was such a jerk that he was going to fight his own teammate and was just getting ready to break it up.
I’d pay to see that, actually.
I’ve embedded the full video below. What’s your favourite moment in it? Which future Canucks would you most like to hear mic’d up for a game?