Hockey Announcers: Please Help Me Understand the Game Better

Pucks screaming across the ice, players careening into the boards, opponents flipping each other and the Wisconsin Badgers Women's hockey team's two national titles have given me a new appreciation for hockey.

Understanding this blazing fast game is very difficult, however, and hockey announcers don't help because the announcers seldom explain the rules and nuances of the game.

Watching parts of two NHL Stanley Cup games this year left me no wiser than I was before I tuned in. The speed of the game may preclude completely educating the occasional viewer but a few timely, brief explanations of the rules and the play as it happens would certainly up the appreciation level.

Yeah, there is probably a website Hockey 101 or Hockies for Dummies and I could always go to the NHL site and read the rules. Reading rules and explanations of various position roles don't take the place of real-time commentary by game experts.

Tell a novice NFL football fan to read the rules for offensive line play and the fan will likely come back with slightly glazed-over eyes. If, however, you can sit with the novice while watching a game and explain the left tackle's play, the fan will appreciate the game more.

Hockey announcers: tell me why one player got a two minute penalty and another only got one minute. Identify players by name AND number once in a while; the game is too fast to always be able to read the names on the jersey. Why did the goalie leave the goal? Can he leave it anytime? Are certain players supposed to stay in certain positions on the ice?

Hockey commentators have one of the most difficult play-by-play duties in sports. They don't have the benefit of frequent timeouts. They announce a game that is so fast and furious, it's hard to believe they can motor mouth so vividly.

Sure, I could watch more hockey games and learn the game gradually. But there are so many sports and so little time, and if it's difficult to learn the game, we might not make the effort. For the casual fan, a bit more education during play-by-play of the championship series could lead us to actually watching entire games or even the entire series.