Air Hockey Table

The air hockey table is a classic—returning those of us who were teenagers in the seventies to the nostalgic recall of aggressive clacking and fluorescent cheers on windy winter nights. In the single pub in Smalltown, U.S.A., we’d step, stamping off the slush and greeting each other—town and preppie alike. Then we’d amble to the juke box to try to speculate on the line-up, move to the solitary pinball machine to check the high score and who held it, then make our way to the air hockey table to get our nightly catharsis.

The air hockey table was one of the first novelties in my home town; how about for you? Was the innovation brought to your home town when you were a kid, or did you discover the delight of air hockey table gaming later on, when you left home, or went on vacation, or even after you had kids of your own? Was your first air hockey table experience one that involved a low-hanging light that got dinged every once in awhile when one player got especially rambunctious with the paddle and sent the typically close-hovering puck flying midair?

Was the air hockey table top surface a primary blue, and did the sound of the hydraulic sheet of air get louder the closer you leaned in for the kill? Did you ever jam the crap out your playing hand—between puck and air hockey table goal box—or get your knuckles rapped by an incoming hard plastic disk…and keep playing anyway? When it was time to switch sides of the air hockey table, did the find your game favored one particular side: did you swear, that is, that one side of the table was more favorable (as you were sure it slanted in your opponent’s favor on the other side)? When you and your opponent/buddy got bored with the game, did you sneak out a second puck and go spastic playing an extreme version of the air hockey table game?

One web master has crafted (or lifted) the slogan that air hockey is “not a game—it’s the world’s fastest table sport.” An air hockey enthusiast, among the thousands, speaks to the upgrades done on the air hockey table over the years, including discussing some new “photon” table Dynamo sends for the nationals…, while another writes to forum fellows to denounce the discrimination of titles such as “best woman air hockey player” and to determine who is—regardless of gender, race, et. al.—the best air hockey player I the WORLD.

Wow, the air hockey table has come a loooong way from my days, when it was often occupied but certainly not for any championships more involved than the best player in the bar, where, at the most, on any given night ten or twelve kids gathered to hip-slam pinball and slide-slam air hockey pucks until the weather cleared enough for the local ice hockey game to commence.