My mother's favorite line was, "what happened to you this time?" I was forever coming home limping, bruised or sometimes had a black eye from a stick or puck. And then the next day, I was back at it again. Kind of like the "hair of the dog" so to speak.
But you couldn't keep some of us from playing. We enjoyed it that much. We lived to play and played to live. We pretended being some of the greats of the NHL, like Gordie Howe or "Rocket" Richard.
Heck, we lived in the belly of the "Original Six". If you lived in or around Boston or New York, Montreal or Toronto, Chicago or Detroit, those were the "teams" you watched and tried to emulate. Each one of us was our own game announcer when we played.
I tried organized hockey for a couple of seasons but I didn't like wearing pads and learning a bunch of rules. I just wanted to get out there and play.
You still want to play?
You really have to love the "Coolest Game on Ice." I know, for the most, part the scoring is relatively low and that, in itself, can make it boring to watch.
I remember my son, when he was about 4-5 years old, wanting to watch a hockey game on TV. At first, I didn't understand the attraction. But, by just watching it, there is a lot of action going on; players moving around the ice, the cameraman trying desperately to follow the puck.
The rules of the game can get confusing as opposed to baseball or football. After playing for 20-plus years, I still sometimes don't understand them.
But put all that aside and just observe it as pure sport and you'll see what I'm talking about. And maybe, just maybe, you could be producing the next Wayne Gretzky or Sidney Crosby or Steve Yzerman or Nick Lidstrom or...
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