Fan profile: Shoot the Puck Guy

Shoot the Puck Guy's favourite quote

Fan profile: Shoot the Puck Guy

If you've been to a game where the home team was having trouble scoring, you've undoubtedly seen this fan.

While during the game he is usually loud, angry, and often drunk, he waits for the right moment to show off his special skill.

The enemy team is up by a goal in the third period when one of its players takes a slashing penalty. The ref drops the puck in the offensive zone and the home team wins it cleanly. The enemy players collapse around the net to protect their goalie, and the home team cycles the puck around the zone looking for an opening.

Suddenly, Shoot the Puck Guy stands up in the crowd. “Shoot the puck!” he yells through cupped hands.

The answer is so beautifully simple. While every player on the ice has likely played hockey every day of their lives since they were four, and the home team coaching staff has 75 years behind the bench between them, it took this guy who once played a peewee game with another guy who almost made the Buffalo Sabres to figure out the answer.

The fact that Shoot the Puck Guy’s hockey tactical prowess has remained undiscovered is one of the world’s great injustices. Still, like a superhero who conceals his true identity, Shoot the Puck Guy doesn’t need recognition. He’s a true hero.

As the home team continues to cycle the puck in the offensive zone, the team’s big defenseman holds the puck at the blue line. He winds up and shoots. The puck leaves his stick with great velocity, but hits the shin pad of an enemy player and deflects harmlessly into the corner.

Shoot the Puck Guy puts his hands over his face in despair. He should have known better. He was a fool to think these elite professionals could understand the game like he does. Sometimes, the folly of genius is thinking everyone else can follow your immaculate logic.

The home team collects the puck from the corner and starts cycling the puck again. Shoot the Puck Guy knows he has a second chance. He will not make the same mistake twice, this time he will be more specific.

“Hit the f—ing net!” he yells. A mother in the row ahead of him puts her hands over her son’s ears, turns back and scowls at him.

Shoot the Puck Guy is unapologetic. He didn’t want to scream profanity almost directly into the ears of a six-year-old child, but the players on the ice needed to know the importance of his message. Shoot the Puck Guy knows that sometimes the ends justify the means.

The home team player who pulled the puck out of the corner dishes the puck to the big defenseman at the blue line. This time, the defenseman doesn't bother to stop the puck. He takes a big windup and steps into the pass with a booming shot. The puck flies past two defenders, over the goalie’s glove and into the mesh of the net’s top corner. The goal siren goes off and the crowd is euphoric.

As the players embrace each other in celebration, Shoot the Puck Guy shoots a knowing wink at the mother in front of him. He may not ever sign a million dollar contract, or grace the cover of a cereal box, but he knows he’s this game’s MVP.

Someday an NHL team will scoop him up and make him a general manager, but until then he is happy to make a difference the only way he can: shotgunning four cans of beer in the parking lot before the game and shouting at players from the nosebleeds.