A Frozen Ballet
First Time, Long Time: Season 3, Episode 2
The crack of a bat as it hits a baseball out of the park. The squeak of sneakers on a glossy basketball court. The roar of a crowd. There are so many great sounds in sports, but nothing quite compares to the symphony of hockey.
So in our latest episode of First Time, Long Time, we delve into the world of hockey sounds. And behind the rich soundscape of blades carving ice, pucks dinging off the crossbar, and heavily padded players crunching against plexiglass, we discover a way to access this chaotic, yet graceful, game.
For those of us who grew up playing hockey, skating, or watching live games, any one of those sounds instantly brings us back. When I hear — when I just think of — the sounds of skates on ice, I’m a kid again lacing up my white skates at the local rec center. I’m a teenager goofing around with my friends at Boston Common.
Once, while watching a meaningless hockey game, I was reminded of a passage in Ulysses (I know, bear with me). Our hero, the young, intellectual, hopelessly lost Stephen is listening to a truly awful man drone about getting a job. The man evokes the will of the all-mighty Creator (I’m sorry, I warned you). Just then, a group of kids outside bursts into a game and the cacophony of whistles and shouts streams through the window. Stephen simply says, “That is God.”
Religion aside, I take that to mean that the sounds of children playing, the sounds of a simple game, can be a portal to something unknown. Sound can transport us into another time and place while, somehow, further tethering us to the world around us.
And speaking of children playing games, this episode also explores Nok Hockey, a delightfully simple analog hockey game. The memory of Nok Hockey has already sent half of our company down nostalgia-packed rabbit holes of summer camp and decades-long sibling competitions.
This episode features sound editor and sound designer Elliott Koretz, journalist Mari Faiello, Ari Goldblatt of the Carrom Company, and Amit Wehle, one of Aaron’s oldest friends.
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