15 Beer League Hockey Player Types
Updated: February 3, 2024 by Bill Burniece
But beer league hockey also brings out a kind of split personality disorder in select individuals.
This is so common that nearly everyone who plays beer league can quickly identify these players…
The Beer League Hockey Player Types:
The Pro Shop
This guy usually needs two bags to haul all of his gear. Most likely, both are Conway and Banks hockey bags.
Need a skate stone? Shit, this guy is probably toting a Sparx portable skate sharpener. Did you forget an elbow pad? What size do you need?
The Pro Shop lives for gear. He’s the first player to buy every new stick, skate, jersey, and breezers the day they’re released and makes certain that everybody in the league knows about it.
What the Pro Shop lacks in ability, he more than makes up in style.
Likes-To-Go Guy
Every beer league has at least one Likes-To-Go Guy. Ideally two, so they can find each other and try to cave each other’s grills in at every opportunity.
Likes-To-Go Guy starts every beer league game by hoovering down some smelling salts and calling his teammates pussies for not joining him. LTGG never wears shoulder pads or a cage or shield on his helmet and chirps everyone else who does.
Anger is usually the driving factor that fuels Likes-To-Go Guy. Anger at his dead-end job, his boss, lack of money, his wife, and hell – maybe even his kids. Things in his life have not exactly gone as planned and he seeks to right the world through endless chirping, intimidation, and fisticuffs.
Likes-To-Go Guy inevitably gets tossed out of the league or shitcanned by his own team only to lose the only true release, besides booze, that he has left in his miserable life.
The Haphephobe
Haphephobia is the fear of being touched.
While nearly all beer hockey leagues are no-check leagues, there is still the frequent bumping, pinning, blanketing, and stick-work involved. After all ‘rubbing is racing’.
The Haphephobe hates it all. The Haphephobe is often a transplanted inline hockey player who grew up playing in a league with wheels and without contact.
His aversion to any contact is deeply rooted and easily triggered when the other team learns of his identity. It’s a tough existence in the beer league for any Haphephobe once he is exposed since he will suffer endless misery until the clock runs out.
If pushed too far, The Haphephobe can quickly morph into Likes-To-Go Guy. The only problem is that, unlike that guy, the Haphephobe wears a full cage on his helmet.
The Black Hole
Pass the puck to The Black Hole and you might as well skate to the bench for a line change. The puck ain’t coming back… ever.
The Black Hole has just enough vision to receive a pass, but quickly goes blind (and deaf) when another teammate is wide open.
This puck hog only gets the message when all of his teammates turn the tables on him and he is left to wander aimlessly around the rink without ever getting the puck.
The Tank (AKA The Unit)
If you play beer league hockey, chances are that you have at least one guy on the team that consists of rather generous proportions. If you play in an over-40 league, you’ll likely have more than one.
The Tank usually plays D so he only has to cover 2/3 or the ice instead of the full sheet. He also comes equipped with a bad set of brakes so you’ll want to stay out of his lane.
The Tank can usually drink more beer than anyone else on the team. He usually has a great sense of humor and a thick skin from constantly being chirping at by both his teammates as well as opponents.
I’ve also heard this beer league hockey guy called The Wrecking Ball.
The Bin
You only get to spend half of each game with The Bin because he spends the other half in the penalty box.
He will tell you that the refs hate him and so he is constantly singled out despite never doing anything wrong.
The Bin’s act gets old quickly, especially when he habitually exits the sin bin and goes right back to the game action, screwing over the player impatiently waiting for his dutiful return to the bench.
The Bin definitely needs better beer league hockey etiquette.
The Jokester
The Jokester is all about shenanigans. If you have a Jokester on your team, always check your skate blades for Scotch tape before you hit the ice.
Smell something foul coming from your breezers? Remove the rotting trout he placed in your pad pocket last game.
The only effective way to deal with the Jokester is to turn the tables on him when he least expects it. When he’s in the can before the game just make a few stealthy cuts on both of his skate laces or remove his skate screws and let the fun begin.
The Geezer
The Geezer was once called a Greybeard, but that was 30 years ago. It’s a miracle that this old codger can still tie his own skates, let alone skate.
But there he is on the end of the bench, and he never misses a game. That’s because he’s retired and literally has nothing else on his schedule.
Despite not contributing to the scoresheet, having a Geezer on your beer league hockey team is a plus since he usually has the best stories to tell in the locker room and the parking lot.
Don’t expect The Geezer to step down when it’s time. He has nothing else to do.
Oh, and if your team Geezer is always in a foul mood, he is also better known as The Curmudgeon.
The Tidsoptimist
The Tidsoptimist is every team’s nightmare because the earliest he ever shows up for a game is when the Zam is on its final lap and the lines are already set.
The Tidsoptimist has an amazing knack for representing the worst number in hockey: eleven. Just when everyone is heading out to the ice with a goalie and two perfect lines of five, in walks the eleventh guy.
Oh, and in case you were wondering what the definition of Tidsoptimist is: a person who’s habitually late because they think they have more time than they do.
If you want to help him change his habits save your breath because tardiness in this individual is a trait embedded deeper than a Tennessee wood tick.
The Clinic
The Clinic is the beer leaguer who is most likely to have a PolyGlide Synthetic Ice Rink in his basement, garage or backyard. After all, he needs it for his hours-long daily practice of his toe-drags, dangles, dekes, snipes, bar downs and Michigan moves.
The Clinic loves watching YouTube clips for new moves he can launch mid-game on unsuspecting and bewildered beer leaguers.
Sure, the Clinic gets chirped frequently but he has the game and the ego to power him through. It’s fun to have a Clinic on your team and a bitch to play against.
The Nutter
The Nutter can be any one of your teammates but is most likely the keeper.
After all, if you’re crazy enough to play goalie, your elevator probably never goes all the way up to the penthouse. The Nutter might talk to his goalposts, or he might not talk at all. The Nutter likely has strange pre-game rituals, superstitions, and beliefs if you watch his behavior.
Nobody really knows what’s going on inside The Nutter’s coconut, but you damn sure don’t want to be in his way when he finally snaps.
Anna Kane used to be married to a pro Nutter.
The Floater
Everybody hates the Floater, but the Floater doesn’t give a damn. He’s all about the glory of scoring without the hard work of backchecking or actual hustle.
The Floater usually has above-average skills on the ice; he’s just lazy as fuck.
He’ll continue to cherry-pick even if his team is up by a dozen goals. After the game, you’ll find the Floater clipping his breakaway goal highlights from the LiveBarn app to post on FaceBook for all to see.
The Lush
The Lush cares more about the booze than the actual game.
There may be more than one guy on your bench who sports both a water bottle and a can of beer. The Lush ditches the water to make more room for his PBR sixer on the board shelf.
The Lush typically has an alcohol-fueled short fuse that often morphs him into Likes-To-Go Guy.
For some reason, the Lush never seems to stick with one team for very long. I wonder why.
The Super Shifter
The Super Shifter is the destroyer of set lines. A ‘shift’ for this guy is 5 minutes long or more.
He seems to be oblivious to the fact that every player on the team pays the same amount of money in league fees and thus expects equal ice time. Not a chance.
The Super Shifter skates hard for the first 60 seconds of his shift then coasts for the remaining stretch. He also ignores the shouts from the bench telling him to get his dumb ass off already.
The Referee
The Referee believes he knows more about the rules than the zebras do and makes it a point to demonstrate this by chirping throughout the game.
What the Referee will never understand is that the real refs take joy in calling every marginal penalty against this guy.
Let’s face it. The beer leagues don’t exactly attract blue-chip hockey referees. These guys aren’t getting paid much to come out and supervise a bunch of degenerates late on work nights.
Summary
Did I miss any beer league hockey types you would like me to include?
If so, contact me at beachroulette@gmail.com and let’s give this guy the credit he deserves.
You might also like: Legends of beer league hockey
