hockey game
I liked analyzing the game’s tactics and patterns from my ignorant perspective. The production, too. From speakers hanging above pop music blared whenever the game paused, even if just for a few seconds. As soon as a referee dropped the puck again, the clocked resumed and the music evaporated. They also managed to squeeze in two performances from local country music singer, Antonio Larosa. He sounded good, but no one in the stadium seemed to care much.
This was my second time at an NHL game and my main memory of the first one, back in middle school, is being baffled when it ended after three periods, not two, or four. This time, I went in knowing a bit more, including the offside rule: players on the attacking team can’t cross the thick blue line into other team’s third of the rink unless the puck is already there. Watching the Canucks, I noticed that, right before crossing the blue line, attacking players would often fling the puck into the opposing end and swarm around it. It irked me how often they did it. I wanted them to keep dribbling. I’ve since learned that they do this because the defensive team can’t just dump the puck back out. They first have to regain possession and get it back across that blue line. Only then can they launch it into the other team’s end. Then the cycle repeats at the other end. It’s funny how
games are designedwhat are rules?
In chess, there’s a niche rule with an untranslated name that amusingly befits its esotericism: en passant. Many casual chess playes are unaware of it. It seems to exist as an afterthought, scribbled in to prevent a pawn from escaping an oncoming enemy pawn by leaping two spaces. It is itself a consequence of another weird rule: pawns in their starting position can move forward two spaces in one move. Why? To speed up the game and relieve some pawn-pushing tedium, I’m guessing.
Chess rules are clean and simple other than the two exceptions above and a third: castling. Under the right conditions, the king can move sideways two spaces, double his usual quota, towards one of his rooks and, inexplicably, in the same move, the rook can leap over the king and nestle beside it. Huh? This move seems normal because of its ubiquity. Casual players usually know it. And yet they are more baffled by en passant, which, compared to castling, is only a small deviation from the core rules.
Once we know the rules of a game, we accept and quit questioning them. We are naturally incentivized to do so, since, the better we internalize the rules, the more easily we can abide by them and get to the business of playing the game. But games are full of weird rules. In basketball, there’s a limit of how long the attacking team can have posession in the other team’s end. Oh, okay. Players on the attacking team in hockey can’t cross into other team’s third of the rink unless the puck is already there. If you say so. In soccer, an attacker must not go beyond the second-to-last player on the defensive team if they want to be passed the ball. Unless they are in their own half, then it’s okay. Sorry?
Weird rules are less weird though when you realize they’re added purposefully to facilitate certain behaviors and prevent others. This applies to laws and regulations, too. They are not corollaries of moral truth, but ways of incentivizing behavior in favor of particular goals. In happy cases, the goals are fairness and fun. But rule-makers are only trying to please the crowd when they themselves are incentivized to do so, by ticket sales, by votes, by social pressure. So next time you encounter a weird rule and you’re curious about its existence, ask yourself: who made this and what are they trying to make me do? And next time you write a rule, ask yourself: what new exploitative behavior will I be incentivizing?
to avoid certain behaviors and can end up transforming the tactics of how the game is played.