who are the caniacs?

To be fair, my hand was over my heart. It had to be, because it was holding a red-checkered paper tray with a barbeque sandwich in it to my chest. Two girls were singing the anthem in lovely harmony. I could see them way on the other side of the room, but I could see them much better on the jumbotron. It took me a minute to locate the flag, which I was supposed to be looking at reverently while I held my hand on my barbeque sandwich.

The girls sang on. "And the rockets'-"

"RED!" screamed everyone around me suddenly, making me jump.

"-glare, the bombs bursting in air," continued the girls, again unaided by the crowd. Then they finished and everyone cheered for America, God bless it, while I put down my barbeque sandwich. It sat next to a bobblehead of a Nordic-looking fellow with his fist in the air, a free gift to me upon entry into the arena.

Alex Trebek appeared on the jumbotron, which was as unexpected to me as the sudden importance of a single adjective within a song full of words. He gave a Jeopardy-style answer about the name of the craziest fans in the entire NHL. I wasn't sure about his fact-checking, but I was pretty sure I knew where he was going with this one.

Who are the Caniacs?

Everyone around me cheered again, as if Alex had just said their favorite color. Mine happens to be blue, but I'd be darned if I brought that up here, surrounded by all these rabid Caniacs, rumored to be the craziest fans in the entire NHL. I couldn't tell you for sure, because this was my first hockey game. They seemed pretty crazy, though.

I don't know anything about hockey. I said this was my first hockey game, but I meant that this was the first time I'd ever even watched a whole one. I know how they score goals, and I know a couple of jokes about fighting. As it turns out, that's really all you need to enjoy a hockey game. It also helps to know where the jumbotron is. There is useful information there, such as what to yell next. Also, you can watch the people in the stands as they sit staring dully into space for a second before realizing that they're on the jumbotron and start smiling and waving.

Hockey is exciting. It's non-stop fast-paced action, so it's got both baseball and football beat. It's still hard to score, though, so while it seems like everything is happening at once, somehow nothing is advancing. It's like an action movie with no plot. Maybe you have to understand the rules to get the plot.

A lot of the enjoyment is in the mob mentality. Every time the red team (that's us) took a shot and missed, we all went "awwwww." And then when the other team took a shot and we blocked it, we went "yeah!" I was genuinely excited when these things happened, even though I have no association with this team other than a shared base city and a newly acquired bobblehead. But I was enthralled. Why? I have no idea. I think it has something to do with testosterone, because I felt the same sort of excitement when there were fights.

About the fighting - it really is as bad as the jokes say. There were probably three tussles that night, and each one caused the fans to stand up and lean over to peer down at the action. It was the drama in the action movie.

I can't help but wonder if the fighting is...embellished. Not fake, but not exactly genuine, either. It's like everyone on the ice is looking for a fight, as if they'd gone to a bar after midnight and started yelling yo mama jokes at strangers. There's not really much punishment for it. You have to sit out for a while, but then so does the other guy, so your team isn't down a player. The referees will stop it before anyone gets too hurt. And the fans love it. They pound on the walls of your penalty box, which looks like the thing that the Pope stands in when he visits. There's even a montage of movie clips that shows on the jumbotron during the fight. Fighting is just a part of hockey.

Two of the fights were stopped pretty much immediately. But then there was that first one, where suddenly a player stopped skating, faced another player, tore off his gloves and held up his fists, street-fighting style. The other guy did the same. The refs stood back, watching, like kids on the playground who are more interested in seeing what happens than preventing anything. And then they went at it for a little while, swinging at each other until one guy was down and the refs stepped in. Apparently, if you take off your gloves, you're allowed to fight in a hockey game. It's like honor or being a gentleman or whatever else is at the intersection of testosterone and pride. It was oddly inspiring, as if this particular bout of fisticuffs were about something noble and not a guy on skates pushing another guy on skates into the wall.

I don't really advocate violence, but it seems to me that hockey is providing an outlet. Maybe without hockey, all these players and all these Caniacs would be at bars yelling yo mama jokes to strangers. It's not exactly constructive, but it's not hurting anything either. Perhaps hockey is where men can still be men, whatever that means.

I am not a man, but I have to say that our game was a great one, where we won by a goal scored in the last minute of sudden death overtime. I jumped up and cheered at that last goal. My favorite color is still blue, but at that moment, I probably could have passed for a Caniac.