Ralph Dinger, NHL Publishing: You mean the pants? They're shorts. Right, short pants. You know it is rather silly, the game being played on ice and all. Word. But the stockings and garter belts reach to the top of the groin area. Easy, Ralph. And once they start skating, I imagine they heat up pretty quickly. Yipe! Dan Diamond, editor, Total Hockey: They used to wear quilted knickers. Oh, did they? Like football players. They wore socks to hold their shin pads. Over time, the socks got longer and the pants shorter. I'll say. For a while, in the '70s, some teams wore Cooperalls, kind of like padded girdles. Sissy boys. They wore long pants over those. Smart move. The rules no longer allow long pants. Why not? Tradition. Gotcha. That's pretty much all there is to it. In that case, why are they always whacking the goalie's pads? The pads used to be stuffed with deer hair. The hair would soak up moisture from the ice, which made the pads malleable. They'd whack them with their sticks to make them wider. You're good. It's nothing. Okay, then -- what's CCM stand for? Canadian Cycle and Motor Company. Makes sense. Bikes don't sell well in the wintertime, so they started making hockey equipment to up profits. Greedy boys. I suppose. By the way, stockings, garter belts, quilted knickers? What kinda game is this? Michael, Answer Guy's peewee hockey-playing nephew: First of all, Uncle Answer Guy, they're not stockings. They're socks. Pretty long socks there, Mike. And I don't wear a garter. I use tape. Why? Garters are for sissy boys. Darn tootin'!

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