Learn about Ice Hockey from a Canadian

29,811 views ・ 2023-05-04

Adam’s English Lessons


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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Hi, everybody.
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Welcome to www.engvid.com.
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I'm Adam.
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In today's video, I'm going to talk to you about the beautiful game of hockey, ice hockey.
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Now, I know that some of you might not be very interested in sports or in this particular
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sport, but you should watch anyway because it's good listening practice, plus some of
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the words that are used in sports are also used in everyday situations.
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In North American culture especially, we use a lot of sports analogies.
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We talk a lot about sports situations and apply them to everyday life, so it's good
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to know.
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And this is especially true for baseball and football, but those are different videos.
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Today, we're talking about hockey.
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Now, for those of you who are thinking about coming to Canada, it's really important that
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you know at least a little bit about hockey because in Canada, hockey is almost a religion.
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People love hockey in this country, and if you're living in a city that has a hockey
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team in Canada and the team is doing well, everybody will be talking about it.
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And when you go to a bar, it will be on all the TVs, and when you go to a club, it'll
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be on the TVs, and when you go to dinner parties, people will talk about hockey.
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So, it's a good idea to know at least a little bit about it.
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So, I'm going to give you very basics.
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I'm not going to get too deep into the details because you have to be a fan to follow it,
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but this will give you at least a basic understanding.
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So, let's start with the rink.
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So, that's what we call the play surface.
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It's all ice, right?
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Cleaned ice and controlled ice.
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It's called a rink, and the whole building is called a stadium, okay?
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Or even arena.
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I guess it depends where you call...
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Different cities will call it a little bit different, but stadium or arena is okay.
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The playing surface is a rink.
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Now, in...
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What I'm...
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Mostly what I'm going to focus on is the NHL.
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This is the National Hockey League.
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This is the best hockey league for hockey in the world.
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There are other leagues.
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There are leagues in Europe, leagues in Scandinavia, in Russia.
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In fact, Russia...
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The Russian league, the KHL, Continental Hockey League, is the second biggest league in the
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world.
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But, generally speaking, the best hockey players in the world come play in the NHL because
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it's the top level of the sport.
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So, an NHL rink is about 200 feet long.
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It's much narrower.
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So, if you've ever watched hockey, like Olympic hockey or international hockey, the rink looks
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much bigger than an NHL rink.
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And it is.
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NHL is smaller, which means you need a lot more skill.
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It's a much faster game.
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It's a much more exciting game, to be honest.
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But...
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So, this is what the rink looks like.
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You have the red line, which is the center ice line, and you have two blue lines, which
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are called the, basically, offside line, and you have a zone.
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You have...
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For example, depends on which side your team is playing on, defensive zone, neutral zone,
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and offensive zone.
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So, if your team is playing this way, this is their defensive zone, and this is their
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offensive zone.
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Okay.
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Now, what happens...
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At the beginning, all the players, they basically stand around the center line, and the referee
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drops the puck.
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Now, the puck is basically a round and flat disc.
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It's made of rubber.
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It's very, very, very hard because it's frozen.
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So, it's like a rock, but because it's rubber, it slides easily on the ice.
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But if a player gets hit with a puck in the face, it could be very, very dangerous.
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So, hockey is a very dangerous sport, and players get injured a lot and often.
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But we'll talk about that in a second.
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So, the game is made up of three periods.
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It's a one-hour game, usually takes about two and a half to three hours to actually
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play.
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Each period is about 20 minutes, is 20 minutes, and between the first and second period and
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the second and third period are two intermissions of 15 minutes each.
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If after all three periods are complete and the score is tied, like 1-1 or 0-0, then the
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players will play a five-minute overtime.
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And this is a sudden death overtime.
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Sudden death means as soon as a team scores, the game's over.
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They don't play the full five minutes if someone scores.
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If nobody scores after five minutes, then they will go to a shootout, and they will
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just take turns shooting on each other until one team scores more goals.
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Okay?
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So, that's basically the setup of the game.
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Now, the players include three forwards for each side.
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Three forwards, they're called a "center", a "right wing", and a "left wing" depending
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on where they play on the ice; two "defencemen", and one "goaltender", but usually we just
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say "goalie".
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We don't say the full word, so "goalie".
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So, six players on each side.
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So, as you can imagine, it's a very crowded rink, so you have to have a lot of skill and
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a lot of speed, and a lot of hitting, which I'll get to in a second as well.
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Also on the ice are three referees.
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Two of them are called "linesmen" because they make sure that the players don't go offside.
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It means...
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Offside means that the player went into the zone before the puck.
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That's not allowed.
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The puck must enter first, then the players can come.
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So, the linesmen make sure that happens.
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The referee makes sure that everybody's playing by the rules.
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And of course, there's a coach.
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Now, the players will sit here.
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There are two benches, one bench for each team, and this is where they make their shifts.
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So, players come on, players come off, on and off, on and off.
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Now, because this is such an intensive game, they're just going, going, going all the time,
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skating, they get very tired.
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So, a player will come on the ice, play for one minute, and then get off the ice and somebody
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else will come.
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So, usually, each team will play four lines of forwards.
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So, three forwards go on, they come off, another three go on, they come off, another three,
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so everybody can rest between shifts.
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Very, very intensive game.
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And of course, there's the coach sitting on the bench as well.
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Now, the point of this game is to get goals.
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You want to score goals on the opposing team's goalie.
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So, you can get a goal or you can get an assist.
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An assist is when you pass the puck to the person who scores the goal.
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Then you get an assist, and the players get individual points for their goals and assists.
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Then there is something called a "penalty".
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If you break a rule, if you break one of the rules of the game, then you will get a penalty.
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A "penalty" means that you will get off the ice, and you will sit here in the penalty
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box for two minutes, or four minutes, or five minutes.
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If the penalty is really, really bad, if what you did was really bad, you will simply be
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kicked out of the game, and you will go to the dressing room and wait for the game to
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be finished.
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Now, what happens when there's a penalty?
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So, one player from the team that broke the rules comes off the ice.
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That means that one team has five skaters, and one team has four skaters.
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So, this is called a "power play".
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The team that wasn't penalized has a little bit extra power, they can do...
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They can have a bit more advantage in the game.
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Power play is an everyday word as well.
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If somebody is trying a power play, they're trying to overcome their opponent.
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In business, we use this expression a lot.
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So, it's a power play move, means the company is trying to take advantage of a weakness
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in a competitor, or they're trying to overpower their competitor.
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The team that sent a player to the penalty box is now playing shorthanded, means they
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have one less pair of hands, right?
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And this word is also used in everyday situations.
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In a company that's very busy, let's say one employee calls in sick, so for that day, the
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workers are shorthanded.
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Everybody has to work a little bit harder to make up for the missing person, for the
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missing pair of hands, so used in everyday situations as well.
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So, the power play is supposed to give one team the advantage to get extra goals.
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And the point of the game is to get more goals than your opponent, and then you win the game.
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Now, if you win enough games, then you get to go to the playoffs.
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Now, in the NHL right now, there are 31 teams, 16 teams, so basically half, go on to the
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playoffs, and the point of the playoffs is to try, in each series, you try to win a best
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of seven series, which means you have to win four games out of seven in order to continue
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to the next series.
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If you continue to the next series, and then the next series, and the next series, then
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you get to the finals, and the winner of the final game of the season wins the Stanley
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Cup.
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This is the trophy that the hockey players get, and they raise it over their heads, and
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they get their names on it, and it's every child...
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Every hockey player's dream to lift up the Stanley Cup, okay?
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It has a very long tradition.
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This sport is over 100 years old.
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This cup was there from the beginning, so if you're a hockey player, a professional
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hockey player, this is your ultimate goal, to get this cup and bring it back to your
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city and make everybody proud.
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They also say that this Stanley Cup is the most difficult trophy to achieve in all of
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sports.
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Harder than baseball, harder than basketball, harder than football.
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You have to win 16 games in the playoffs to win the Stanley Cup, and this is a very difficult
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thing to do.
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Now, in terms of equipment, basically everything happens on ice, so the players are wearing
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ice skates, they're using sticks, and they're playing around with a puck.
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Now, if you watch a game, you'll see that these are all very big boys, right?
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But they have a lot of padding, because if the puck hits you and you're not protected,
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you don't have padding, it's very, very painful.
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This puck is like a rock.
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Also, sometimes the sticks fly around, so if a stick hits you and you don't have padding,
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it could be very painful.
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Also, the skates, the blades, the metal blades of the skates are very, very sharp.
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It has happened, not once or twice, but quite a few times, that a player falls over and
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the skate goes up in the air.
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I remember there was one game where a skate cut a goalie in the neck, and he was, like,
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bleeding everywhere, and he almost died, but he was okay.
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But it's a very, very dangerous sport.
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Now, around the rink, these are the...
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Basically, the walls of the rink are called the boards, and there's big pieces of glass
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so the puck doesn't fly into the stands and hit the fans.
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So, one of the things they do is they body check.
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A body check means that you hit your opponent to try to get him off the puck, or to slow
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him down, or basically just to help your team get motivated.
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So, there's a lot of ways to get injured.
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Now, even with all the injuries, and that's a hard sport, it's a long season, 82 games
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in a season, these players, some of the top players make, like, 10 or 11 million dollars
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per year to play this game, which is very little when you think about football players
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and baseball players, and soccer players especially.
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Baseball players can make 20, 30, 40 million dollars a year.
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So, 11 million for the top player in hockey, not so much.
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Okay?
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Now, if you enjoyed some of this stuff and you were a little bit more interested, the
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best way to learn is to watch a hockey game.
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And if you watch a hockey game, especially on Canadian television, there's always somebody
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called a color commentator.
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Color means, like, the actual color, because he adds color to the explanation.
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The color commentators explain everything.
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And I know that for a lot of people, it's very difficult to follow the puck on the TV
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screen because it's so small.
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The more you watch, the easier it becomes to see the puck, understand the rules, see
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what's going on, learn who are the best players, etc.
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And if you're wondering who the best player is, like, the GOAT, the greatest of all time,
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he doesn't play anymore, he's retired, but it was Wayne Gretzky.
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He was a Canadian hockey player.
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He was the best.
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He's still considered the best ever, but of course, he retired, now there's other very
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good players playing this game.
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Now, personally, this is my favorite sport to watch on TV.
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It's a great sport once you understand it.
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I know a lot of people love soccer.
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Soccer personally puts me to sleep, because you can play for, like, two hours and nothing
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happens.
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No goals, no nothing, and everybody's on the ground crying because somebody flicked them,
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right?
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So, I don't really understand that.
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But hockey, fast, tough, great game.
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I highly recommend it, especially if you're coming to Canada or some of the...
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Obviously, in the States, they play a lot.
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In some cities, nobody cares.
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In other cities, like if you go to New York or Boston, they're very proud of their hockey
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tradition, so you should know a little bit about hockey there as well.
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And that's it.
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Like, again, I don't want to get too deep into it, just give you a general understanding
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of the game.
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If you have any questions, please go to www.engvid.com and you can ask me there in the comments section.
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There's also going to be a little bit of a quiz to make sure you understand some of the
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points I made here.
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And that's it.
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I hope you liked the video.
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If you did, please give me a like.
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Don't forget to subscribe to my channel and ring the bell for notifications.
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And come back, I'll give you some more explanations of other important cultural aspects that go
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along with the English aspects you need to learn.
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Okay?
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Until then, bye-bye.
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