Given that my complete knowledge of ice hockey revolves around the movies Slapshot and Youngblood and one episode of The Simpsons, I was wondering if someone could answer a question. I was in a pub the other night which had an ice hockey game on one of the pay-TV screens. I noticed that some of the players had letters on the front left side of their jerseys. I saw a C and an A, and their might have been others. Noone I was with could figure out why - our best guess was C stood for Captain, but that was it (then we went back to watching the greyhound racing on the other screen).
Since you asked.... As DevilDave indicated, the 'C' stands for captain, 'A' for alternate Captain. Technically, only the captain or alternate is allowed to question the referee about any of his decision. The captains also act as the go-between the ref and the bench. In reality, that doesn't happen. Pretty much everyone questions the referee and the refs and the bench talk all the time. The value of the 'C' and the 'A' is mostly prestige; it has very little practical purpose. Any player, with the exception of the goaltender, can fill the roles. Which is probably more information that you were looking for... BTW - any country that embraces Aussie Rules as a sport would probably love hockey (and its just hockey, only high school girls play field hockey). Greyhound racing..? WTF, I hope you had money down on the race. .
Cheers guys Well, here "hockey" means what is played on grass (we traditionally win the gold medal in the women's Olympics tournament and fall in a pathetic heap in the men's). Given that the whole of Sydney (population about 4 million) has only about 3 ice rinks I can't see the ice version getting much following. On the dishlickers, there's no point watching anything race unless you have money on it!!! One of the great things about Australia is that every pub & bar has an online totalizator booth where you can legally bet on pretty much anything while you drink.