🏒 Hockey & Winter

From the dressing room to the driveway league: the rink has its own language, and this is most of it.

deke

verb · hockey

A fake-out: show the puck one way, take it the other, and leave the defender studying the ice where you used to be. From the word decoy, and just as dishonest.

In a sentence: “He deked the goalie clean out of the photograph.”

chirp

verb · hockey

To trash-talk, creatively and constantly, from the bench, the ice, and row nine. Chirping is a skill position. Some players make the league on it.

In a sentence: “He chirped the ref, the bench, and most of section twelve.”

celly

noun · hockey

The celebration after a goal: arms up, knee down, maybe a slide across the ice. Short for celebration, judged harshly by the other team and lovingly by your own.

In a sentence: “Full windmill celly for a goal in a Tuesday shinny game. Respect.”

shinny

noun · hockey, pure

Casual pickup hockey: no refs, no scorekeepers, mixed ages, teams sorted by throwing sticks in a pile. It is the form of hockey that raised most of this country.

In a sentence: “Shinny at the outdoor rink, sticks in the middle at six.”

barnburner

noun · hockey

A wild, high-scoring game that never slows down, the kind where the goalies age visibly and the crowd loses its voice by the third period.

In a sentence: “Eight goals, two fights, one barnburner. Worth every penny.”

beauty

noun · hockey praise

The highest compliment in the dressing room: a great player, a great play, or a great human, often all three. “An absolute beauty” is a knighthood.

In a sentence: “He brought coffee for the whole bench. An absolute beauty.”

five-hole

noun · hockey

The space between the goalie's pads, and the most satisfying target in sports. Scoring there is called going five-hole, and it is bragged about for years.

In a sentence: “Five-hole, top of the third, and the rink erupted.”

twig

noun · hockey

A hockey stick, in dressing-room shorthand. Players fuss over their twigs the way chefs fuss over knives, and mourn them louder when they break.

In a sentence: “He broke his twig in the final and played the last shift in tears.”

road hockey

noun · the driveway league

Hockey played on pavement with a ball, nets made of whatever, and one sacred rule known to every Canadian kid: somebody shouts “Car!” and the whole game pauses like a parade.

In a sentence: “Road hockey final score: pending, due to traffic.”

sin bin

noun · hockey

The penalty box, where you sit for two minutes and feel shame. Every rink has one and every player has visited, some often enough to have a favourite seat.

In a sentence: “Two minutes in the sin bin to think about his choices.”

dangle

verb · hockey

To stickhandle through defenders with moves too fancy for the score sheet. A great dangle that ends in a goal is replayed forever. One that fails is replayed by your friends, forever.

In a sentence: “He dangled through three guys and hit the post. We still talk about it.”

barn

noun · hockey

The arena, any arena, from a small-town rink with wooden benches to the big city's glass tower. If it has ice and a canteen, it is a barn, and it is sacred.

In a sentence: “That little barn on the edge of town raised half the league.”

toboggan

noun · winter transport

The long, flat-bottomed sled, a word Canada borrowed from the Mi'kmaq language by way of French. No steering, no brakes, all courage: the original winter vehicle.

In a sentence: “Toboggan hill rules: walk up the side, scream down the middle.”

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Know a word we missed? Send it in, and we might add it with your town beside it.