General hockey awesomeness …

Not me. Yet.

This week: nothing but hockey awesomeness.

Having tweaked a hammie being my own brand of awesome on the weekend, I haven’t really been on the ice since (although I did scuba dive at Rye Pier with a seal – spookily at exactly the same time Navy Seals were taking out Usama bin Laden; conspiracy theorists, your time starts now …)

So, one leg down, I’ve been watching my beloved Tigers win two in a row in the AFL, scuba diving, like I said, and surfing the net, just digging my crazy new sport.

Like trying not to spend every cent I’ve got on novelty hockey T-shirts, like “Jesus Always has a Play-off Beard” *, or the even better: “Jesus Saves! … Passes to Noah. He shoots, He scores!”

On the back of last week’s exciting broken-stick adventure, I started wondering what you can do to upcycle an ex-hockey stick? It’s one of those things that I was pretty sure, hockey people being hockey people, somebody will have gotten weird and creative somewhere on the topic.

And yes, they have. Chairs are a popular theme, such as this link, or this link, or even this link, even if that one is more a bench than a chair. You can sit on it, though, right?

Another option for broken stick upcycling is to make a table, which is actually very cool.

A cool hockey-stick chair.

But possibly not as cool as the concept of unicycle hockey. Although, to be honest, I’d only be truly impressed if those guys attempted it on real ice.

As I would be if Australia could take the title of World’s Largest Hockey Stick from British Columbia. Why is the Docklands precinct persisting with the stupid Melbourne Eye (codename: iFail) when this is an option? I’m available as a consultant, on a stupidly high retainer, if required, Docklands people.

My search for bizarre and fun hockey connections also introduced me to the guy pictured above. Turns out I’m not the oldest or the ugliest hockey player going around, although give me a few years and a few sticks or pucks to the face and that could change. I just hope I’m as happy as he is at that age.

Let’s face it, hockey players don’t trade on their looks, which made me wonder if it was considered enticing or a threat when there was a competition: “Score a date with a cool Hockey Player“, way back when? (These days, at least if you’re dating an NHL player, you know you’re giving up looks for a great pay cheque …)

I also happened upon this truly awesome image of an NHL game before I realised it was from an NHL-themed console game. Nice graphics. Who needs real life?

Actually, the more I think about it, maybe I should immerse myself in NHL virtual, instead of NHL reality.

I was going to blog this week about the NHL Play-offs but given the Red Wings have somehow managed to find themselves two games down, after two, against San Jose, in the second round, I’m losing my heart to wax lyrical.

Nicko play-off beard, May 3

I still believe, but it’s time my Wings got trucking, now they’re back at the Joe.

Is there a bright side to this? Only that my own Play-Off Beard is getting itchy and unkempt. Parents haven’t quite started crossing the road to keep their children away from me as I walk my hood, but it can’t be far off.

Go Wings! Beat up those Sharks so that my beard may grow.

* Kudos to northern skating champ Hotcakes Gillespie for finding that one.