It was the Day of the Dead yesterday. I went to look up the significance of the holiday and came upon the idea of syncretism. Syncretism is the amalgamation or attempted amalgamation of different schools of thought, cultures, or religions.
I can’t help but see hockey as some combination of, as I have written before, the physical contact of American football, the turn-taking of baseball with the marksmanship of archery, the cooperation of soccer with the generosity of basketball, all built on the deftness of tightrope walking. These all relate to physical elements of the game.
Going deeper through the lens of tightrope walking we are most apt to understand Smushkin’s hockey agility. The variety of arm movements without stick exemplify the balancing act that is performed by our hands at most if not all moments. This act is simply crippled by the game today.
Walking on a tight rope requires total momentary organization with an imagination for the next moments. Thus the most dangerous and joyful hockey game will arise when players accept through their hands, as well as impose by their hands, the tightrope that we accept beneath our feet. If the goal is to walk successfully from one end of the tightrope to another, can a tightrope walker ever hold or force one step in particular without sacrificing this goal? Transforming a particular step into the goal sacrifices synchronizing the successful walk.