50 Ways for a Hockey Fan to Get Through This Summer

It has now been four weeks and nearly a full month since the Los Angeles Kings wrested the Stanley Cup and polished off the 2011-12 NHL season.

Is anyone feeling withdrawal symptoms yet?

Or perhaps you are one of those fans who, for all your puck passion, could use a break so as to save your appetite for the next season?

Whether someone has an unconditionally insatiable appetite for hockey or actually needs a diversion and a moment to recharge, there's no shortage of summer activities to suit the needs of every last NHL fan.

Choose from any one, or as many of these 50 suggestions as desired.

Planning the Next Fantasy Draft

For the NHL’s 30 general managers, it is always an offseason in name only between the draft, free agency and offseason trades.

For those who partake in fantasy hockey, it can be the same concept, as studious scouting is always advisable before assembling one’s team.

Campaign to Ensure a 2012-13 NHL Season

Given the big, bold “Thank you fans!” inscription that appeared on all 30 ice surfaces when the NHL returned from a year’s absence in 2005, now is the time to test the league’s commitment to its patrons.

Voice the importance of not missing any more regularly scheduled action and see if the commissioner, owners and players are swayed and put the customers ahead of themselves to cement a new CBA in time for September training camp.

Pursue the Cup

Whether you are banking on it appearing in your locale or intently making a trip to a Kings player's hometown, there would be nothing quite like catching a live glimpse of Lord Stanley. Or even if you are unable to cross paths with it, you can at least give yourself an authentic sense of the exhilaration of playing for the Cup by merely chasing after that glimpse.

Shark Week or Sharks Weak?

Watch the Discovery Channel’s annual look at one of the ocean’s most fearsome creatures and then decide for yourself if San Jose’s compete level does its mascot justice.

Name Game

Go to a park, look for a flock of ducks to befriend and start naming them after Anaheim players.

Or better yet, name them after characters from the movie trilogy (Charlie, Adam, Averman, etc.) or the short-lived animated series (Wild Wing, Nosedive, Grin, etc.).

Mascot Mania

If a team makes its mascot available for special appearances year round, look for an opportunity to delight the young hockey fans in your life.

More Mascot Mania

Visit a zoo and devote the majority of your time to watching the penguins, bears, mountain lions, coyotes, etc.

Maybe even try to name a few after Pittsburgh, Boston, Florida or Phoenix players.

Hockey and Hunger

Multiple markets boast a restaurant that is either partially or thoroughly hockey-themed. Two prominent examples include the Hockeytown Café in Detroit and Wayne Gretzky’s in Toronto.

Rooting for Relocation

If you are keen on seeing the NHL come to a certain city, the slower news portions of the offseason are a favorable time to campaign for that city to be the next beneficiary of expansion or relocation, when and if that may ever happen.

Campaign for the Classic

Fans in cold-weather, multi-sport markets that have not yet hosted the NHL Winter Classic can attend an MLB game or NFL or college football training camp in their hockey team’s attire.

Whether it is Minnesota, Columbus, New York, New Jersey, Washington, Colorado, St. Louis or the Bay Area, you have a reasonable shot for 2014 or later. No time like this July and August to draw attention to your sports-crazed community.

Spreading the Wealth

The new moniker may help this come to fruition anyway, but fans can help fellow fans by trying to speed up the process of the NBC Sports Network reaching more hockey-loving households.

Card Shows

Dig up any and all hockey cards you might have accumulated over time and create your own exhibit of NHL legends.

Running Themes

This could get tedious after a while, but even if it is for a few minutes at a time and recurring sporadically over the summer, a quick YouTube marathon of hockey TV broadcast themes could be fun. ESPN’s old National Hockey Night song and the discontinued original score for CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada are especially good for nostalgia purposes.

Hot Stove Grill

The mill of pertinent NHL topics never comes to a complete halt, even if those topics are not broadcast as prominently in the offseason.

Friends with a common passion for the sport can use a summertime staple to convene in a backyard and be their own panel of pundits while they wait for studio analysis to return to the tube. So why not be your own Ron MacLean for a while?

Dishing Up Creativity

While hosting a barbecue or similar casual gathering, offer special items named after NHL teams, players or other figures. For instance, an Italian entrée with a notoriously hot sauce can be dubbed John Tortellini.

Delighting in Differences

Whilst enjoying another conventional hot-weather spot, namely a local swimming pool, take advantage of the diving board and internally gloat over the fact that this activity is condoned here, but frowned upon at frozen sheets of water.

Another Kind of Character Guy

Consider this a two-in-one slide. Summer blockbusters offer hockey fans a chance to go to a movie theater and try to draw parallels between the plot and the state of one’s team.

The same endeavor can be followed by reading an entertaining novel.

Slugging Spirit

If there is a child’s birthday or other occasion that calls for a piñata, plaster the ill-fated toy with the logo of a rival team. Or for those who are particularly optimistic about one’s team for the coming campaign, symbolize the turning of the page by covering the piñata with clippings, facts and figures on the team’s ill fortunes from 2011-12.

Promotional Propositions

Before all of the minor professional leagues release their schedules and set their promotional events in stone, submit your own ideas for giveaways and in-game events to the nearest team’s office.

Song Requests

Follow the world of music as new hits emerge and rise to prominence over the summer, then decide on one appropriate tune to openly suggest as the soundtrack for your team’s pregame highlight video in October.

Table Tournaments

Here is another set of two ideas for the price of one. Those who own an air hockey or rod hockey game can assemble a pool of competitors to run either a short season or an IIHF-style tournament.

Within a circle of friends, there may be one who possesses one of the two items and one who owns the other. With two months between now and training camp and three between now and the start of the regular season, there is ample time to efficiently accommodate both variations of table hockey.

Saving for Seats

Keep attentive track of your summer activities and consider a few long-term tradeoffs. That is, start setting aside a little dough that would have been spent now and instead come up with funds for some better seats at a future NHL game.

Offseason Yard Work

If you are the backyard rink-building type, it might not hurt to keep your hosing skills from rusting. The grass and the flowers on your property would gladly take on the symbiotic benefit.

Learning A New Language

With hockey being the worldly sport that it is, there is no harm in taking time to foster fluency in another tongue spoken by players or fellow fans. There is plenty to choose from with French, Russian, Swedish and Finnish constituting merely the front page of the menu.

Catching Up on Prime-Time TV

This is just for those who spent their evening hours from October to June watching games on the local sports channel, the NBC Sports Network, the NHL Network, TSN, CBC or all of the above. Odds are that by prioritizing hockey, you sacrificed a whole season’s worth of premieres of an interesting sitcom, drama or other fictional TV show.

However, there is just as much chance that some, if not all of those newly released episodes will be rebroadcast in their regular time slot throughout the summer. In other words, you weren’t making too great a sacrifice after all.

Baseball

Granted, the sport most synonymous with summer and considered the national pastime of the United States is not exactly hockey-related by nature. That might actually be helpful for fans who want to occupy themselves with another sport and take a healthy break away from the rink.

Or, if one still has a craving for puck-related thoughts, there are solutions to dig up from the diamond. Just watch a game from Wrigley Field in Chicago, Fenway Park in Boston or Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia and think of the venues as the site of the 2009, 2010 and 2012 NHL Winter Classic.

Watch a shortstop field a chopper and say, “Hey, that’s where Player X decked Player Y during the Classic.”

Indoor Concerts

Odds are the home arena for your favorite NHL team will have at least a handful of prominent artists stopping by over the summer. If you have never been to a given multi-purpose venue for anything other than hockey, it would not hurt to broaden your horizons and fill a void on your entertainment agenda.

And just imagine how ironic it will be if you return for a game in the fall or winter and hear a canned version of the work of the performer you saw and heard under the exact same roof just a few months prior?

The WNBA

Five of the WNBA’s 12 teams share a home building with either an NHL or AHL team, which means fans in those markets have another opportunity to see their premier sports facility in a different light during hockey’s offseason.

Branching out to another under-appreciated sport could even be beneficial to hockey in the United States. Simply show up to a game sporting your team’s logo and exchange enlightenment with the established women’s basketball fans on hand.

Major League Soccer

Although this would not offer the same benefit of checking in on the local NHL venue, it will offer a chance to help another league that is struggling to grab onto a perch amongst the continent’s major sports.

Bring the Concessions Home

See if purchasing and consuming products from the same establishments that provide the concessions at your local arena will help recreate some of that arena’s atmosphere.

Arena Music Dance Party

Canned music has a way of contributing to the atmosphere of a hockey game, even more so than any food or beverage item could. Playing any memorable tunes you heard at a game for yourself or for a group can help instill the vibe of that game back into the mind.

Zambonis Karaoke/Cover Party

Any hockey enthusiast ought to have the complete collection of what is likely the world’s only hockey-specific band among his/her CD collection, iTunes, etc.

If a local eatery has an open mike or if one’s circle of friends includes those who can competently cover the group, opportunity knocks to share these unique songs with fellow puckheads.

Recreational Research

Want to know more about your favorite players or team for no other reason than the sake of knowing it? (E.g.: How did the New Jersey Devils nickname come about?)

Why not spend the hours you would ordinarily devote to watching those players and teams reading more about their background?

Trivia Games

If you arm yourself with enough knowledge from the previous activity, you can assemble a group of friends to test their own knowledge of the game you all love. That is, be your own Alex Trebek.

Hockey Books

The two-plus months between now and the slated start of NHL training camp equal ample time to pick up something along the lines of Ken Dryden’s The Game or the late Jack Falla’s Saved and read it cover to cover. This author managed to finish the latter all within the month of August 2010.

NHL Video Games

How many times during a season does a fan need to be reminded not to waste too much fervor over a matter that is out of one’s control?

Well, now might be the right time to take up the kind of NHL action that the fans can and do control.

Golf

Why not pass the summertime the way so many players do?

Hockey-Related Museums

Those who already live in the area or are planning a vacation might consider a visit to the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in Minnesota or any number of multi-sport museums across the continent.

Trips to NHL Cities

Everyone knows that there is more to Montreal than just being the home of the Habs, to Ottawa than just being the home of the Senators, to St. Paul than just being the home of the Minnesota Wild, to Long Island than just being the home of the New York Islanders.

If you have the opportunity to go on vacation and acquire firsthand knowledge of an NHL city’s non-NHL specifics, you can then tune into a game next season and have a new-found appreciation for the exterior shots that lead into or return from commercial breaks.

Canadian Comedy

The Great White North has given the world more than just hockey. It has also given us, well, the Great White North, courtesy of SCTV.

Olympic Basketball

Watching a conglomeration of NBA stars represent Team USA in London ought to help spawn a few cravings for more NHL player-based action in the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi.

Olympic Soccer

Watching the U.S. women’s soccer team vie to reassert its stature at the top of its game ought to help spawn an eagerness to watch the U.S. women’s hockey team pursue the same goal in Sochi.

Lacrosse

Arguably the most popular secondary sport for hockey players, particularly those still aspiring to the college and professional levels, is itself a professional spectator sport now.

Major League Lacrosse has eight teams and is regularly televised on ESPN2 and the CBS Sports Network. Some telecasts are even called by a familiar NHL voice in Joe Beninati.

The 2012 MLL season will run through the final weekend of August with the semifinals on Aug. 25 and the championship game on Aug. 26, less than three weeks before NHL training camp is slated to commence.

Rollerblading

The innovation that conveniently translated ice skating to any accommodating indoor or outdoor surface is a go-to offseason activity for players and fans alike.

It’s just too bad Roller Hockey International and Pro Beach Hockey, once fixtures on the ESPN networks, went out with the Clinton administration.

Hockey-related Television Episodes

Countless classic TV series available on DVD include at least one puck-centric episode. Whether you own them or rent them, you ought to find enough to sprinkle throughout your summer schedule.

Hockey Movies

Miracle and Slap Shot are the two titans of the slim hockey sector of Hollywood, but they are only the co-pilots of a decent roster in their field. Depending on one’s taste, there is a reasonably quantitative selection of other flicks to bring the sport to one’s living room over the summer.

This author recommends Slap Shot 2: Breaking The Ice and Mystery, Alaska, if only for their respective cameos by Barry Melrose. In addition, Goon was just released within the last year.

The NHL Network

Whether it is showing offseason news coverage, a documentary pertaining to the sport or a replay of one of the best games from last season, this channel will be sure not to break its 24/7/365 cycle of hockey programming.

Fans with digital cable or satellite television in need of a puck fix can always count on the NHL Network.

Summer Leagues

If all else fails to hit the spot, odds are there will be some sort of live ice hockey action in the area. Even if it is just high school-aged players keeping in shape or a recreational league (which might spell a playing opportunity for those who are blessed with basic skating ability), it is an appropriate appetizer for those raring to watch the professionals do their thing again.

In this department sits another summer destination with the annual Hockey Night In Boston. Entering its fifth decade of operation, HNIB is a collection of summer tournaments featuring a host of promising male and female collegiate prospects.