A Fan’s Guide to Surviving the Offseason

“Is it October yet?”

No. It isn’t. And unless you’re a fan of the Devils, Rangers, Coyotes or Kings, there’s a good chance you’re missing your team right about now. Training camp is just over four months away – hold on tight.

Four months?!?!, you might be saying. Even if your team is still in contention for the Cup, there’s going to be a lapse between the end of this year and the beginning of training camp in the fall. So the question arises: how the heck do you survive this without going insane?

Here’s a few tips.

• KEEP WATCHING HOCKEY. If you can bear it, continue to watch this year’s NHL playoffs. There’s still a game on most nights of the week. Sure, it’s not the same and it might sting a little to know that’s not your team out there, but if you’re craving hockey, it’ll satisfy.
• DELVE INTO OTHER LEAGUES. If the NHL playoffs aren’t suitable to your liking, try looking at other leagues. The AHL playoffs are still underway as teams fight for the Calder Cup, and the CHL’s Memorial Cup Tournament is slowly progressing as well. This is a great way to stay connected to the hockey world and maybe even learn a little about your team’s prospects as well.
• MOVIES, MOVIES, MOVIES. There are a load of great hockey movies out there, some of which you may have already seen but others I’d bet would be new to you. Miracle is a classic 2004 film starring Herb Brooks that details Team USA’s 1980 Olympics run – it may be one of the most popular hockey films. There’s also the Slapshot comedy movies and the Mighty Ducks trilogy, but that’s not all. One I’d recommend to any hockey fan is a classic Canadian film made in 2005 entitled The Rocket. It’s available in French and English and tells the story of Maurice “The Rocket” Richard’s life. (Watch out for some NHL players who appear in the film, such as Vincent Lecavalier as Jean Beliveau, Sean Avery as Bob Dill and Pascal Dupuis as Milt Schmidt!)
• WATCH THE WORLDS. The IIHF World Championships are now past the round robin tournament. Canada and the USA are out, but Russia, Slovakia, Finland and Czech remain. Games are Saturday and then the medal games are on Sunday.
• LISTEN TO HOCKEY MUSIC. Now, hear me out. (Haha, get it?) I’ve been collecting hockey-themed music for probably over four years now: anything from songs about hockey to ones played at games, arena & organ music, team themes, etc. Somehow, that amounts to over 200 hockey songs. Whenever I miss hockey, I listen to my favorite team’s goal song or some pump-up music and it gets me going.
• READ A BOOK. But not just any book – a hockey book. Go to any local library or bookstore and you’re bound to find a bunch of great ones, including ‘The Game’ by Ken Dryden, ‘Playing With Fire’ by Theo Fleury, or ‘The Boys of Winter’ by Wayne Coffey and Jim Craig.
• RELIVE THE PAST. Even if your team isn’t winning the Cup this year, that doesn’t mean you can’t relive this past season. A simple Youtube search will result in hundreds and thousands of highlights and clips of fights, videos and saves. If you’ve got any old games on the DVR, now’s the time to break them out! Hulu also has an NHL site, located at hulu.com/nhl.