How does HIMYM hold up in the hockey world 5 years later?

Lizi Norton is a fellow Minnesotan of Marshall Eriksen’s (Jason Segel). Her birthplace of Long Lake and current town of Orono are within a 50-mile radius of Marshall’s St. Cloud.

Gordi Myer shares a native state with Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor). He as born in Toledo, Ohio, and played five years of elite youth hockey in Mosby’s home metropolis of Cleveland.

As a bonus, Myer’s mother is a fellow Canadian of Robin Scherbatsky (Cobie Smulders), Ted’s initial love interest and implied eventual second wife on How I Met Your Mother.

Both current college hockey blueliners, Norton and Myer were below the recommended viewing age for the better part of HIMYM’s run on CBS. The series carried a TV-14 rating, a boundary Common Sense Media has since echoed.

During the show’s inaugural season, Norton was the right age to be one of Lily Aldrin’s (Alyson Hannigan) kindergarten students. She did not turn 14 until six-and-a-half weeks before the finale premiered five years ago this Sunday.

But whether unofficial barriers had any bearing on her late arrival to the nine-season saga is a moot point now. No later than her first year at Orono High School, she found a perfect way to unwind from a grueling day in the life of an elite student-athlete. It has since established itself as the go-to for her to “binge watch at night.”

“After watching a couple of episodes, I was instantly hooked,” the Minnesota-Duluth Bulldogs freshman told Pucks and Recreation.

“Hooked” is an apt choice of metaphor in multiple senses. No fewer than nine current collegians or professionals around North American hockey cite HIMYM as their favorite series.

St. Cloud State and Team Switzerland goaltender Janine Alder has said as much. Ditto SCSU graduate-turned-ECHL journeyman Nate Widman and Florida Panthers prospect Cliff Pu. (Until recently, Pu was in the Carolina Hurricanes system, and his since-deleted Charlotte Checkers profile listed his favorites.)

When he was in college, Brady Norrish of the Idaho Steelheads also mentioned Carrie Underwood as his celebrity crush. In Season 5’s “Hooked,” Underwood played one of Ted’s many one-off girlfriends, although Pucks and Rec has yet to confirm whether “Hooked” is Norrish’s favorite episode.

In The Show, Finnish import Sebastian Aho of the Hurricanes mentioned HIMYM, along with Friends, as a preferred stateside sitcom. It is a standalone favorite of Tampa Bay Lightning staple Tyler Johnson and Worcester Blades forward Megan Myers.

Given how stingy most team websites are about disclosing outside interests in player profiles, this group is hardly negligible. It stands out all the more given how many active pucksters admittedly or implicitly joined the HIMYM fan club after the premiere, the peak or even the finale. Moreover, all of the show’s fans in question divulged their interest after the finale.

 

The tally of outspoken HIMYM-loving hockey players also rivals that of the show’s references to their sport. While it never had a puck-centric plot like Seinfeld’s “The Face Painter,” it dispensed allusions in more moderate, though more frequent and numerous doses.

Wayne Gretzky comes up on multiple occasions in multiple contexts. Another Hall of Famer, Luc Robitaille, parodies himself by citing Robin Sparkles’ music as a guilty pleasure.

When Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) starts dating Robin, Ted recommends the 2003-04 Vancouver Canucks division title as a topic to appease her when necessary. Robin, in turn, lists “shaky goaltending and, frankly, the declining skills of Trevor Linden” as that team’s obstacles.

Clips from a Rangers-Flyers game introduce the scene where Marshall takes Lily to visit Madison Square Garden’s organist, an estranged teenhood friend of Robin’s.

On her wedding day, Robin and her younger sister pass a puck while wearing what look to be logo-less Atlanta Thrashers jerseys. A few hours (or episodes) later, in a bout of cold feet, Robin proposes following Ted to Chicago, even if it means learning to “root for the Blackhawks.”

“I think it is definitely something I noticed and appreciated throughout the show,” Myer told Pucks and Rec. “It is rare to see on an American show, so as a hockey player you appreciate it more than someone else. They do a great job using Robin to show this, because she is a Canadian.”

He added, “I definitely appreciated the Canadian slang words and accent Robin would use when she would talk or mention hockey.”

Indeed, with her Northern patriotism and Canucks fanaticism, Robin is a slightly out-of-proportion take on her portraying actor. A real-life Vancouverite who once crushed on Pavel Bure, Smulders got the freedom to be herself in character as the series gained traction. The NHL would capitalize on the hockey aspect by enlisting her as a celebrity presenter at its 2011 awards show.

As early as HIMYM’s third season, Robin was referencing such up-and-coming Canucks players as Mason Raymond. At the time, in 2007-08, Raymond had signed out of Norton’s future university to turn pro two years early.

Coincidentally, within two nights of his HIMYM mention, he was called up from Vancouver’s then-AHL affiliate in Manitoba and scored his first big-league goal.

 

For Myer, though, Lily’s big save is the top HIMYM hockey highlight of all time. The flashback scene kicks off with Marshall recalling when Robin “got all super-Canadian” after overindulging in Molson.

Sporting a Roberto Luongo jersey, Robin implicitly reenacts Game 6 of the 1994 Stanley Cup Final. “The Rangers are aboat to be sorry they ever played shinny with the Canucks,” she says before taking aim at the open apartment door.

When Lily snares the airborne puck with her oven mitt and orders Robin to stop, a potential brawl ensues. Robin pledges to give her friend “summer teeth. Some are here, some are there.”

“Great chirp, Robin,” Myer said.

That Lily halts Robin’s game fits all the more given that her hometown Rangers vanquished Vancouver in the 1994 championship. Although, she is clearly not a hockey fan, as she later mistakenly calls the local franchise the “New York Rogers.”

For that matter, while her husband hails from the State of Hockey, he never engages Robin in Wild-Canucks banter. This despite the fact that the series ran from 2005 to 2014, with most the final season taking place on a May 2013 weekend. All in an era when Minnesota and Vancouver were Northwest Division rivals.

Of that missed shot, Myer said, “Yes, it is odd for sure, especially because of how big the game of hockey is in Minnesota. I know a lot of guys from Minnesota, so I know this from a personal account. The show could have for sure used this to an advantage.”

Even without that, or even with its majority of puck-free episodes, HIMYM has quickly seized the hearts of its first all-syndication generation.

“I find How I Met Your Mother to be an incredible show that is able to capture one’s attention instantly,” said Norton. “It has wonderful, humorous episodes that I enjoyed watching with my friends.”

 

For her age group, it is largely a glimpse at the not-too-distant past. For all viewers, it dishes up generous backchecks to the previous century in the lives of its core cast.

“I have always liked the episodes where they take you back in time to before they met each other, or when times were different,” Norton said.

Even the polarizing fast-forward to 2030, when the long-widowed Ted mercifully ends his prolonged story and acts on his children’s encouragement to pursue Robin once more, has Norton and Myer’s approval.

“I was surprised that Ted did not end up with Robin originally,” said Norton, “although happy they ended up together.”

Myer was wrapping up his fifth season in the Cleveland Barons elite youth program when the series ended. He did not dive into the show until he briefly moved out of state for two gap years in the USHL. But when he did, his peers instilled an itch to stream through the reruns in a hurry.

After being mesmerized by the yellow-umbrella motif and how it led to the title figure, Myer was floored by the twist in the two-part finale.

“The guys on my team were telling me, ‘Just wait till the end. It’s gonna blow your mind,’” he said.

“And that is exactly what happened, mind was blown. I truly believe that Ted and Robin go off and get married at some point. Some people have other theories, but that is the one I like to believe.”