Monday morning, 6:25 am, your alarm flies off and you automatically hit the snooze. You are awoken once again 10 minutes later and realize its time to go. Outside your window is a whiteout of snow surrounding your barn. So you hop outta bed throw on your trackies and a tee and get outside to start the car. You get outside and you immediately get your scraper out to wipe the car. It feels like minus 45 degrees with the wind chill. For those of you who do not own a car you wait patiently for a teammate to pull in and honk his blower. On the way to practice you muck a couple pop tarts or maybe a bagel and throw back some fluids.
The barn is an igloo. The ice is crisp the air is fresh and your gear is frozen. You throw on your gear, tape your socks, lace up your wheels, throw on your bucket and get out there. You look at your twig only to realize that It needs a tapejob, but there’s no way thats gettin done. You float around for a little until your drill sergeant steps on the pond. You soon run through a series of drills, standard, never altered drills, that you do every week for the whole year. Your legs feel heavy, your mind is weak, but its still the game we love, the game we cherish. You thrive for it, this is what its all about. Your second line center turns the corner on a one-touch passing drill, but your first d-man cant make a 5 foot simple pass. Drill sargeant blows his whistle and immediately lays into your first rounder. "Holy *@#$" he says, "are you guys @#*$'n retarded?…’endboards’ he concludes. As you are bagging back and forth with your coach ripping his lungs apart, a thought flashes through your mind. ‘What in the hell happened?...What happened to this beautiful game I once loved, what happened to the kid inside me that would do anything just to get some ice.’ Well fellas, that is a stellar question, and there is a very legit answer for it…..Realistically, hockey is not the same game it used to be. Think about it, What happened to minor hockey, away tournaments, hotel hall rumbles, 6am practices that you didn’t mind at all……scrimmages, shootouts, your pops coaching your team, backyard rinks, road hockey, easy practices, pucks, going topshelf, being the best player on your team, robbing your best bud in practice cause you know his move, no systems, just playing hockey. What happened to all the unbelievable coaches you had that inspired you coming up through hockey?
The game is disintegrating as we speak. Hockey, to me, is no longer a very fun game. The things that surround hockey….the boys, team showers, team deuces, roadies, tossing bombs, throwing back ol' stories, chirping, team music….these are the things that are just unreal…but the GAME itself is fading in my heart. These days you are seen as an item, just another piece of the puzzle in a lying GM’s mind. Hockey is created by politics. Hockey involves politics. Hockey IS politics. Your coach is mostlikely a decent guy off the ice, but on the ice, he is one of the bigger assholes you have ever seen. He screams often and points you out often. Most of the time you want to lay into him and shove it up his ass for once. Practice is a deathtrap, especially on a Monday. If your weekend is under .500, than forget about it. Everyday practice is strenuous, and everyday practice is the same. Games, for those who don’t play, are just plain embarrassing. Playing 3-4 shifts in front of 4,000+ people is not a pretty sight. For those who don’t play at all, even more respect is due. So, most of the time the players who don’t play much or don’t play at all is because they are not good enough, right? Wrong answer. Most of the time the players who don’t play much or don’t play at all isn’t because they’re not good enough, its because theirs so much shit that goes on behind that curtains, that you have no control over how much you play.
Think about a different life. Think about playing lead guitar in a band in front of 25,000 strong in New York. Think about rescuing a baby from a burning fire in a 100 pound suit. Think about teaching 10 year olds. Think about sitting in a cubicle in front of a keyboard staring into a computer all day. No matter how bad this game is becoming, it is still what we love. True players know what its all about. They know that they wouldn’t want to be anything else but a pro player. However, the game itself, is slowly growing into something that truthfully I would not want to ever witness. It has transformed from the game of the players hearts, into the game of MONEY. Let’s take it back. Do everything in your power, wherever possible, to keep the old game alive. Stay positive, and always remember, you are still the same 5 year old who laced up his first blades in front of his Christmas tree and flew outside to rip around in ‘em on the backyard pond. Once a player, always a player no matter how much garbage piles upon this lovely game of hockey.
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At least its not baseball basketball or football. You want a real sport, do fencing. that will always stay true to the sport