Column: Despite success, field hockey still boring

After going to one IU field hockey game, I quickly realized it wasn’t for me.

Let me preface by saying the team does have a decent record so far this year, going undefeated after losing the first two games of the season at Duke 4-0 and at Drexel 2-0.

The Hoosiers now sit at a record of 5-2, stringing together five straight wins after the 0-2 start.

It’s not that the team isn’t talented, because it is. It’s not that the team doesn’t play hard, because it does.

The problem is that going to an IU field hockey game, in my experience, is just not entertaining.

I am pretty sure I dozed off at least three times. Not to count one that ended with drooling. That’s not a good sign in relation to entertaining the fans.

On paper it would appear that a five-game winning streak in which the Hoosier field hockey team only allowed two goals would be a good thing, but dig further. The numbers don’t seem nearly as impressive.

During that trip to North Carolina where the Hoosiers fell to 0-2 to start the season, IU failed to produce any offensive success, getting skunked in both the game against Duke and Drexel.

Keep in mind that both teams were nationally ranked at the time, with Drexel ranked No. 17 and Duke then ranked No. 10 in the nation.

Since then, that five-game winning streak came against a series of teams with a combined record of 9-27, including the Robert Morris Colonials who are the only team above .500 that the Hoosiers have beaten all season. The Colonials sit at a record of 5-3.

It was tough to watch. So tough, in fact, that it was difficult to do the research needed to put together this column.

That experience was not something I was happy to relive.

Have you ever heard the saying, “One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn’t belong”?

That was exactly what it was like to watch the Hoosiers play against Ohio on Saturday. Never before have I watched field hockey and felt like something didn’t belong.

Field hockey is already one of those sports that can easily be forgotten due to its combination of field sports, such as soccer and football, with a game like hockey. Maybe that’s what didn’t belong. Are we playing a field event, or are we playing hockey?

It was quite confusing.

It reminded me of youth sports.

Often times in the younger branch of youth sports, the players participate in a thing called “bunching,” which is where a cluster of players from both teams “bunch” around one another in an attempt to make a play.

Watching this team was just like that. It was like watching a lot of Division-I athletes bunching like children.

There is no other way to describe the experience except to simply quote a line from  a popular 1990s television show, “In Living Color.”

Channeling my inner “Men on Film,” I can only express my experience with the two simple words that made that skit one of the most viewed and repeated in the show’s history.

How did I feel about watching IU field hockey? “Hated it.”

No worries, though. The Hoosiers luck should continue Friday when they take on the 4-4 Miami (Ohio) RedHawks.

If you go out to the game on Friday, bring a book and expect to watch the Hoosiers walk all over the .500 RedHawks.

­— pdolly@indiana.edu
Follow columnist Pat Dolly on Twitter @MinReport_IDS.