This is certainly not a scientific study but I think I may have found the father of ice hockey in New Zealand. His name is Walt Disney.
Every time I talk about the game with someone around here, the 1992 Mighty Ducks movie pops into the conversation. It seems like it's the No 1 reference for a lot of people.
We even have guys on our team who started playing because of that cheesy Hollywood production.
That's the case with Dunedin Thunder goalie Toby Schuck. "Just like the goaltender character, I was thrown in the net because of my imposing size," he recently told me.
It might be great family entertainment but it's so far away from the ice hockey culture I grew up in.
A hundred and ten years before my birth, students from McGill University were already ruling my hometown of Montreal, Canada. My grandfather played, my father played and my uncles played.
What can I say?
Ice hockey is more than a game - it's a genetic thing.
Unfortunately, referees in the New Zealand Ice Hockey League were born with different genes. I know I might get in trouble for saying this but I think they are the league's biggest weakness.
I've seen referees challenging their own calls, upgrading penalties after their own sanction, and forgetting about basic rules like offside or icing.
I even saw some of them interfering in a fight between two consenting grown-up men and not doing anything about 20-year-old Gino Paris Heyd getting beaten up by two opponents.
After our 8-4 loss in Queenstown, Schuck expressed his appreciation to referee Paul Scott by telling him he had just seen the worst performance by an official. Scott responded by saying he had just seen, in that very same game, the worst performance by a goalie.
While these two were exchanging compliments, players from both clubs were having a beer together in a local pub.
I found it very surprising and sportsmanlike. Something very typical of the rugby culture, I guess.
You can hit a guy all day long and still buy him a drink after the game. It's a big contrast with the sports culture we have back home where you are expected to hate your opponents on and off the ice.
This is only one of the many differences between both countries when it comes to ice hockey.
Over the eight weeks I've been in New Zealand, I've seen things that I've never seen before in my career.
I've rinks without any showers or changing rooms, disco lighting going on right in the middle of a game, not to mention team-mates playing arcade machines in the arena lobby 15 minutes prior to warm up. In Canada, an intense pre-game focus is mandatory.
I know these stories will sound very amusing to many of my buddies back home but, surprisingly, I seem to like the informality. I even feel like my Dunedin reality is sometimes as funny as the Disney movie. I'm just hoping for a happy ending, too!
