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Guest writer (Origin story): Theresa

July 17, 2012 by Leave a Comment

WORLD EXCLUSIVE

Today’s guest writer is Theresa, a dynamo of organisation and hockey passion who has become a leading figure in the self-proclaimed Rookies and our dreams of forming a summer team. Well, actually, it simply wouldn’t happen, or have a chance of happening, without her drive.

Here, she explains how her hockey obsession began and how it survived so many false starts.

My hockey addiction: a love story

By Theresa

Theresa, about to tear it up at the Icehouse. Pic: Wayne McBride

Hi, my name is Theresa, and I am addicted to hockey.

First a bit of background info:

I grew up in South Africa. I found hockey at age 13 when I went general skating to go look at some handsome hockey boys.  I happily general-skated once a week for a few years, gaping from afar at these boys.  By age 16 I was a real “rink rat” and running the rink cafeteria. By age 18 I was dating one of these boys, and tried to play a bit of hockey myself for a half season.  My prized birthday gift was a pair of Graf hockey skates.

But I was talked out of playing hockey by the boy I was dating, because he and his friends felt it was “unladylike”.  I was impressionable back then; I listened to him.

I moved continents to North America (L.A.), and while I only took one suitcase, they contained my skates. In my year in L.A., I bought everything Kings and Gretzky at the time, though I never skated.

At age 19, I presented myself to the Canadian consulate in South Africa and filled in all the paperwork they could give me for immigration. The Canadians are pretty strict about who they let in, and who they don’t. This 19-year old upstart with no qualifications to speak of, no hockey skills, on her own dime, was hardly given a glance.  I was told in no uncertain terms that I didn’t qualify.

By age 21, I was on my way to Sydney, Australia.  In my two suitcases, was one suitcase of shoes (what else??), and one of clothing and again my prized Graf skates. I worked crazy hours and hardly skated. I can count on one hand how many times I skated in many years. I lost most of the ability to skate.

Fast forward to the near-present, when I settled in Melbourne a few years ago. That’s where I met Adam McGuinness of (among others) Nite Owls fame, who encouraged me to come back to hockey.  He didn’t seem to think it was unseemly for me to play – in fact he encouraged it!

For a work social outing, Adam suggested we all go watch a hockey game, and so I was introduced to the Melbourne Ice. And here my resistance to being involved in hockey crumbled.

In my head went around a myriad of thoughts, among others: “Wow the standards in Australia are high!  The Icehouse is amazing! I am mesmerised! I am in LOVE!!”

I knew that in all my years out of hockey, I was still madly in love with it. All of it. Perhaps it was self-preservation that kept me away from it. I could feel the pull back into it, magnetic and irresistible. I remember saying to my sister at the time: “This is going to suck me in, it’s a bit scary”.

And so it sucked me in.

I enrolled in beginner hockey school at the Icehouse, and started over again.  Imagine my awe when I found out that the Melbourne Ice captain, Lliam Webster, was also my coach! Talk about weak knees! And this other guy called Army, whom I couldn’t understand at the time because of his thick Canadian accent, also from the Melbourne Ice, was coaching me!  Army is the guy who skates over opposition defence men like a tank and scores multiple goals! Wow, I was in the company of hockey royalty!!

I went to all the Melbourne Ice games in the remainder of 2010 and in 2011. In 2012 I bought a Melbourne Ice membership and went on a road trip to Adelaide and the Gold Coast as a MI “groupie”. I will be going to Perth for the MI games in August, and of course to the finals in Newcastle in September. I have become a “one-eyed” MI fan (as fellow Rookie Wayne McBride calls me).

I attended all the IIHF world championship games in Melbourne in February 2011. It was there that I really noticed the hockey marvel called Joey Hughes, awarded the top forward for the tournament. I remember Googling him at the time and not only discovering his business NLHA, but also seeing more about his international career. I mistakenly thought at first: “Wow, there is another Joey Hughes who plays professional hockey in North America, also with a brother Vinnie Hughes!” – only to realise it was this very same person I was seeing in action in front of me.

I vowed to be trained by him, and after emailing him a few times, but not getting enough people to join me to help cover the cost of private lessons, I didn’t make it to NLHA in 2011.

In June that year, some of us started a Facebook group called “The Rookies“. We have grown from a five-person group of hockey school friends, to several hundred. We are intensely enthusiastic, intensely vocal, intensely passionate about hockey.  We are all, to a greater or lesser degree, addicted to hockey. I am one of its five “admins” who monitor and steer the group direction and activities.

At the end of 2011, I enthusiastically bought my first full kit and another pair of Grafs online, which (due to being very ill-fitting) regressed my skating noticeably.

It was in these ill-fitting Grafs that I presented myself to Joey for my first NLHA camp in January 2012. It was a group bootcamp, and more affordable than private lessons. Joey was diplomatically horrified with my skating abilities.  But he and Czech legend Martin Kutek and local hard man Tony Theobald (and guest instructors like Vinnie), persisted with me and patiently got me to skate better and faster and harder, despite my feet aching almost every time I skated. They truly took me to my next level – many of them. I love every camp and every individual class with NLHA. I get better and better and better. I even deferred my part-time degree for one semester, to be able to fit in all the NLHA camps. (Now of course, I am going to buy new skates from them, after NLHA sized me up for the right fit!)

I almost went to Poland to support the Mighty Roos in April this year, but I couldn’t get anyone to come with me! Even my husband, who has reluctantly but obligingly been dragged along to all my hockey excursions and activities, wasn’t up for this one.

Earlier this year, The Rookies secretly raised funds within our group, and surprised our coaches and heroes (and now our friends) Joey, Army and Martin, each with full 2012 Melbourne Ice player sponsorship. If we had more money we would have sponsored Lliam and Tommy and Shona too!

The Rookies are also doing volunteer work for The Melbourne Mustangs, particularly in supporting their imports. For instance this Saturday just past, we had an off-ice training day and fundraiser with three of the imports (and with import Martin Kutek from the Melbourne Ice).

We vocally and enthusiastically support anything that is Melbourne hockey and hockey school, in either of its two rinks.  We believe in “Hockey Karma” and in paying it forward.

And now we are starting to look at putting some IHV 2012/2013 summer league teams on the ice for the Rookies, with at least two clubs so far expressing an interest in assisting us, and at least two or three teams’ worth of Rookies ready and willing to commit.

Theresa where she’s happiest: on the ice with a bunch of Rookies.

We believe that while we are working hard at opening up avenues for our own development and involvement in hockey, we also try to give back as much as (and more, if possible) than we have received.  I look forward to seeing more individuals and more clubs join hands in this cause.

My renewed dreams of “making the big time” in hockey, will of course never be realised.  I have a full time job, which pays my mortgage and limits my hockey practise time.  Besides, I am now *cough* a bit older, and not really able to compete against 20-year olds anymore. And yes, I am getting back to that degree next semester because I like to finish what I started; which means I consciously have to cut back a bit on hockey.

But that does not alter my love of (read: passion for, addiction to) the sport.

I still have dreams of going on an extended leave/sabbatical/whatever to Canada. I might do a short one, a teaser, at the end of this year.

But the longer one will also still happen…

One day.

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Guest writer: Rachael Hands

July 14, 2012 by Leave a Comment

WORLD EXCLUSIVE

Our latest guest writer is Rachael Hands, just coming off a nasty knee injury, queen of the pre-skate snacks and happily a new classmate of mine on Friday nights. This story makes me wince in all sorts of bad ways … and I fully intend to privately find out the identity of the “Melbourne Ice player” in question. Rachael, you’ve been warned.

Hi, I’m Rachael and I’m a basiphobic*.

By Rachael Hands

Hi, I’m Rachael and I’m a basiphobic*.

Like any good Rookie, I’m self-diagnosed of course… Oh, and according to http://www.webmd.com, I’m also traumatophobic, which feeds into my basiphobia. This makes me more anxious and then ultimately leads to me falling on my butt during hockey lessons anyway!

Simply put, I’m attempting to be an ice hockey player with a pretty serious fear of falling over and hurting myself badly. Again.

Back in August 2011, on Tuesday the 16th to be precise, I was skating up and down the Henke rink at the Icehouse during a regular hockey lesson when CRUNCH! I hit the ice. Me being me when I fell, didn’t do things by halves either. I hit the ice very hard and very awkwardly with my knees taking all of the impact first. It was less than a split second after the initial crack of the protective gear meeting the ice that I heard the popping and crackling in my left knee, then felt this weird sucking sensation as I skidded with surprising grace (as if I meant to look like a falling tonne of bricks with arms and legs) on plastic shin guards (sans socks!) through centre ice. Having been rushed at full-tilt by a professional Melbourne Ice player I panicked, not trusting his ability to stop before he got to me; then I hesitated about getting out of his way so as not to hurt him and our chances of winning a back-to-back Goodall Trophy. The rather serious result of those normally inconsequential actions was little newbie me crashing onto the ice like a sack of potatoes. The bizarre noises and feeling in my knee joint was my Medial Collateral Ligament being torn clean in half.

That was in the first 12 minutes of the 60-minute lesson. I still had 48 minutes of ice time and I was damn well going to use them! I got up, adrenaline coursing through my veins, and with some kind of misguided steely resolve I laughed the fall off and the subsequent pain I was in to skate out the rest of the session. Admittedly when I look back on it, I didn’t just have a ‘lazy leg’ as I skated around that night, I actually couldn’t lift it. I couldn’t bend it and I didn’t do terribly much weight-bearing on it either. I glided through the rest of the session in a mass of throbbing agony. The following day (when the inside of my knee was almost the size of a grapefruit and purple) I took myself to see Nick M, my regular physio who has treated almost every injury I’ve ever obtained through the playing of sport. He had yet to see me for a hockey injury, even though I’d been in classes for a term and a bit and evidently doing well by my coordination standards! I don’t remember much of the session other than he lifted my bad leg up from the table and I cried like a baby because it hurt that much. He hadn’t even put any stress on the joint! Nick immediately ordered an MRI and it confirmed the worst-case scenario. My MCL was totally ruptured and would require the most intense rehabilitation and physiotherapy I had ever experienced in order to heal.

What followed, without giving you another blow-by-blow account, was five and a half months in a hinged leg brace, firstly locked dead straight for three months then little by little I was given a few degrees of flex in the knee joint until a second MRI revealed the knitting of the MCL was complete. After that, it was intense physical therapy (progressing from daily appointments to now once a week) to learn to reengage the MCL and the surrounding muscles correctly to prevent re-injury. I literally had to learn to walk before I could run, let alone skate! Which brings me back to my fears of falling over and hurting myself again.

I arrived at my (clearly very accurate) phobiæ diagnosis one ridiculously hot January afternoon in Nick M’s sweltering treatment room. I was being run through a series of stress tests on my knee to determine whether I was going to be able to return to skating in the foreseeable future. It dawned on me that as much as I had been bugging the indeterminably patient Nick to let me back out onto the ice since my ‘limbed bag of flour’ impression; I was actually (and very secretly) incredibly terrified of falling over and making the existing injury worse. So, like any good gen-y’er, I went straight home to google what the fear of falling was, coupled with a fear of injury and arrived at a mild case of basiphobia (a fear of walking and or falling down) and traumatophobia which is other wise known as the fear of significant injury.

I am happy to report to you, the readers of Nicko Place’s blog, that while my knee has healed to the point where my physio has begrudgingly given me his blessing to continue my hockey lessons and join a summer league team, my fear of falling and hurting myself gets more intense every week.

As the drills get harder, the edgework more extreme and the general pace of lessons increases, my fears escalate in an uncanny correlation. Since finally getting back onto the ice regularly in February of this year, I can see how far I’ve come. In a lesson at NLHA last week, I felt some complete control over my skating again. My legs were really solid underneath me and I loved every minute of it! I felt good on the ice and not like I was struggling as usual, but that pervasive nagging thought about falling and hurting myself so badly all over again kept eating away at me. For many hockey Rookies, the fear of falling and or hurting themselves disappears with confidence in their own abilities. For me though, it’s a struggle to talk myself into the fact that my knee can handle it. I still baulk at the superman/sliding drills or anything requiring me to put all of my weight on my ‘bad leg’ while it’s bent at any angle greater than straight. My coaches have been patient and very understanding but I sometimes wonder whether or not I can teach myself to ignore those feelings. So far though, such attempts have proven to be fruitless. Practising falling over on ice so I get used to it again requires discipline I just don’t (want to) have. I’d rather spend the precious little time for hockey I have available to me trying to gain some more of that elusive control on my outside edges, crossovers and joining the infamous Martin Kutek-led  ‘underpoosh’ revolution. Surely, if I practise those skills enough then I don’t need to think about forcing myself to fall over? I’ll be good enough not to, right? Or at least that’s what I keep telling myself.

But, I’ve resolved (very publicly today) that for the coming term (intermediate classes at the Icehouse in addition to another round at NLHA) I will not let my fears get the best of me. I will skate and if I fall, so be it. I won’t try to fight it and stay upright; I will just go with momentum, following the quickest route straight on to the ice (a mantra coach Joey Hughes likes to drill into me every week). The only thing for me to do in order to get over the irrationality and anxiety about falling and potential re-injury, is to bite the bullet and just trust myself and of course the work that Nick the Physio has done with my knee to get me back to a point where I CAN skate. I simply have to jump in, skates first and the fear of falling be damned. That, and remember to enjoy learning to map the shortest distance down on to the ice from wherever I may be on the rink!

An intense fear of jumping is called ‘catapedophobia’ by the way… I’m just saying! 😉

*well, sort of…

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Guest writer (Origin story): “Jess”

July 11, 2012 by 7 Comments

WORLD EXCLUSIVE

Today’s guest writer is a skating beginner, “Jess”, who preferred not to give her full name because her story is very personal and very emotional.

It’s a long piece but blew me away. I fully respect her for writing so honestly about what brought her to hockey and what it has come to mean to her.

All I can do is quote Gretsky, Jess: Skate to where the puck will be, not where the puck is. And see you on the ice.

The truth of it

By Jess

An Open Invitation …

So, as I sit here with the feeling I’m possibly about to throw myself off a cliff (metaphorically of course) both with the insane notion that I could (would? should?) learn hockey and that anyone would want to know about it if I did. Firstly I’m not a writer, my spelling is horrific and my grammar worse. I get carried away and fly off on tangents so apologies in advance. (nicko note: I cleaned it up. Hope that’s ok, Jess )

If there is such a thing as pre beginner I’m that. I’m currently (as in right now, I’m typing at red lights) heading out to Oakleigh to get fitted for my first ever set of skates and I literally feel ill. I know I can’t skate, nothing I do in the 20 minutes it will take me to get to oakleigh will change that so why the fear?

I’ll get hurt: that’s a given. Ice is hard, boards are hard, being crashed / crashing into someone at full tilt because you’re such an uncoordinated newbie moron you can’t stop also hard (I imagine, anyway, having never gone full tilt. Also, sorry to the kid I did take out in my first attempt at skating). Nothing in hockey is soft; damage is certain.

But I’ve done my fair share of damage already. I’ve done martial arts for a few years, so have had the crap kicked out of me on more than one occasion (hello, the only transferable skill I have!); have fallen off plenty of horses; hell, even busted my ribs pole dancing, sober, in a class. So as far as getting hurt goes, it’s pretty ‘meh, whatever’. I think my real issue is making a tool of myself, not just a little but a lot. As I said I’m new to this whole thing it is my intention to start beginner skate school at the end of the season:

1) because it’s currently scheduled for Saturday or Sunday mornings and getting up with a hangover after a Saturday night game to attempt to balance on blades about the same thickness as a twenty cent piece is well, stupid, and

2) I like going to the away games so would miss classes often, but mainly I’m terrified someone I know will be teaching the class. I’ve met some great people at hockey: players, fans, support crew, officials and (so I’ve been told) some people pretty far up there in the VIHL, and I don’t want to look like an idiot in front of these people who have become truly important to me.

CAUTION! Overly emotional explanation ahead – men (and women who are usually me) not into emotions, feel free to skip the next few paragraphs.

Hockey has been my saving grace this past six months; my one thing where any outside pain or problem is forgotten. I have never mentioned to any of my hockey friends why they are so important to me or why I’m so protective or defensive of them, so hopefully after this they will get it.

Two weeks before Christmas, I lost my youngest sister to cancer. She had only just turned 18 and only been diagnosed in January. And as you do when things turn to shit, you go out and do “fun” things with your friends in the hope they will believe you’re ok and leave you the fuck alone.

One weekend this was hockey. After a particularly long week of hospital visits and a lot of extra hours at work, I thought hockey would be great … loud, so not much chance of proper conversation, and fast paced, so you had to pay attention, also reducing the chance for conversation and the potential for violence because, let’s face it, anyone who has had to watch someone they love waste away REALLY wants to belt the shit out of someone, anyone, and if we can’t do that, well, we may as well watch someone who can. So yeah, hockey was going to tick all the right boxes, funny thing was it did. Just not the way I expected.

I suppose this is where I should declare my allegiance, I’m a ‘Stang. An unwavering one. My first game was actually the last game of the 2011 season against the Knights and it was love at first fight. Neither team was in the finals so I guess they were both just out to have some fun and entertain (Ha! Yeah, because winning’s not important, said no-one ever) and entertain they did! Both sides were hard in, fought for every inch, ridiculously fast and quick to throw down, which I will admit I enjoy maybe a little too much. The highlight for me was an altercation between two players who had words, calmly skated to their respective benches, left their sticks gloves and helmets, then skated out to centre ice to throw down. I also have a photo of the Canberra goalie sitting in his net, making a point after getting in trouble for leaving his crease to get involved in an earlier tussle.

Admittedly, I know fuck all about hockey, I couldn’t really tell you if that was even a good game. I know pretty much none of the rules and I don’t care it. It doesn’t matter to me. I just love the game. I spent the entire game utterly enthralled, my friend equally in awe. We chatted animatedly the entire game, about the skaters’ skill, the passing, the shots, the fighting, that tall number 44 guy who was pretty hot (epically embarrassed writing that, as we are now good friends. I can only pray he won’t read this; sorry, Lev). Our excitement got us through the game and the drive home and was conversation fodder for at least the next two or three weeks for anyone who was unfortunate enough to ask what we’d been up to.

In what had been the shittest year of my life, I had genuinely managed to have had fun, and for that alone I will always be grateful.

When my sister passed away, I drifted away from people, finding it easier to just work, go home sleep, get up work. I was already one of those annoying friends who would say they would come to stuff then cancel at the last minute, or just not show up, but now I didn’t even bother to reply to most messages or I’d send a vague “I’ll see what’s on with work”.

It was the off season and my only hockey updates were the occasional posts about tryouts and training on the Mustangs Facebook page and odd comments from their “unofficial” cheer squad, The Stable, that I assumed would have made more sense if I’d been around for the whole season (now that I know them it still wouldn’t have mattered).

I was unsure if I was even going to go to another game. In my excitement after the last one, I had told my sister all about it and promised to take her, so it had kind of tainted my outlook: something I should have been doing with my youngest sister I would now be doing alone.

The Mustangs celebrate Jess joining the cheer squad.

But Christmas came and bought with it a season pass from mum and dad and a Mustangs scarf from my cousins. Apparently I must have been more excited than even I realized for mum to have not only remembered the right team but also suggest it as a safe bet for others to get me. So looks like I’d be going to the hockey after all. Once that had been decided I started to get a little excited, which was stupid, it wasn’t even January. I started to get involved in some of the conversations on Facebook, nothing technical just general abuse of the guy who does the fixture and why the bloody hell couldn’t it be done yet? (ok, yes I did start that thread and maybe also one on why the NHL isn’t syndicated on Australian tv which STILL pisses me off!) I also started to get to know some of the regular names that kept popping up. And so excruciatingly long months later, I found myself wandering to the ice house for the first (unofficial) game, a practice match between the Mustangs and the Ice, intending to just kick back and enjoy the game as just another nameless face in the crowd … yeah, if only. I had greatly overestimated the time it was going to take me to walk to the Icehouse so ended up being one of the first few people in. A blonde chick in a mustangs scarf pointed me toward the Mustang end of the stand and I chose a seat a few rows back from the glass behind the bench. As people started to file in, a group of guys wandered in, taking the seats a few rows in front of me right behind the Mustangs’ bench. Inadvertently I had sat behind The Stable. A few more people joined the group and conversations were struck up about who was playing, who was gone and what the new imports were like. Then attention turned to who else was scattered around the stands.

One of the guys looks at me: “You’re new.”

“Yeah, second game. Caught the last game of last season.”

“Sorry we’re all rude. I’m Sam, also known as STP.”

“You’re the guy who never shows up, yeah?”

“FUCK!” (hysterical laughter from the rest of the group)

Facebook conversations had, on more than one occasion, been based on how many games STP was going to miss. More introductions were made and, just like that, I was adopted. No question of what I knew or didn’t know, no issue that I didn’t (still don’t) know any of the rules.

I was there. I yelled abuse. I screamed at goals. I was a smart-arse to STP. That was good enough for them.

As the season has progressed, that welcome extended out to the players as well. So to The Stable, the players and all the other fantastic people I’ve met at hockey, thank you.

For the fresh start, the fun and friendship, but mostly for giving me back the ability to answer: “I’m good” when asked how I am, and truly mean it.

You guys have put my life back together and I doubt any of you even knew it.

So there it is, my introduction to hockey and my secret hockey confession.

I love these guys, so I don’t want to feel like I disappoint them. That, I think, is where my fear comes from. But (ready for stereotypical hockey comment?) hockey players have no fear! So I will suck it up, walk into Oakleigh, get fitted for my skates and learn how to play FUCKING HOCKEY!!

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Guest writer: Alex McNab

July 10, 2012 by 7 Comments

WORLD EXCLUSIVE

Today, Alex McNab takes us into the hot, sordid, sweaty and potentially smelly world of girls sharing hockey change-rooms with the boys. (And with regard to her last paragraph, she totally had it coming.)

(Next up, “Jess” with a very personal, brave and heart-wrenching story of how hockey changed her life.)

It’s (only mostly) a man’s world

By Alex McNab

“Hi.”

Alex McNab on the ice.

“Hi.”

“I’d like to try on some skates, please.”

“Sure, they’re just over here.”

“No, not the figure skates. Hockey skates.”

“Oh. Oh, okay. Ha.”

This exchange took place late last year, a couple of weeks into my first term of Intro to Hockey, and people’s reactions to “I’m learning to play ice hockey” still range from disbelief to hyena laughter.

Responses of “But why?” or “That’s different …” or “Are there many girls that play hockey?” are pretty standard. If it’s unusual in Australia for a bloke to play hockey, it’s even more so for a girl. A quick head count of those in the Rookies Facebook group (my only point of reference, but surely a good one) shows guys outnumbering girls approximately six to one. This held true in last term’s class, where there were just five girls in a class of thirty. I don’t know if it’s different overseas, but in Australia we’re the minority in a minority sport.

Which is mostly pretty damn awesome.

For starters, away from the ice, there are always people willing to talk about it, hear about it and ask questions about it. You are a curiosity, and if “I play netball” isn’t much of a conversation starter, “I play ice hockey” guarantees a response, especially if you’re wearing heels when you say it.

I’ve been asked some pretty funny questions: Are girls even allowed to play hockey? Do guys go easy on you because you’re a girl? Why don’t you just play a nice, gentle, non-contact sport? Do you have unresolved anger issues? (What the …?)

In contrast, on the ice and in the world that surrounds it, gender doesn’t really come into it. Classes are unisex, changerooms are unisex, leagues are unisex. Even the gear is (mostly) unisex, which results in all sorts of strange sizing and comfort issues when it comes to chest armour. My single favourite piece of hockey equipment isn’t my skates or my stick (no penis jokes here), but my lovely girly chest armour with curved plates on the front, designed to accommodate boobs. And as far as the rest of the gear goes, a lot of smaller girls shop in the kiddie section. (Don’t laugh, at least it’s cheaper.)

Most typically ‘female’ sports – netball, dance, tennis, swimming – are non-contact, and in many mainstream sports there’s enough female participation to warrant separate leagues for men and women. So it’s an awful lot of fun to play a mixed sport where you can go hard, shove if you need to, and not worry about breaking someone’s nail.

Yeah, skating as hard or fast as a guy can be tricky when you’re a foot shorter or thirty kilos lighter, but given my current skill level, that’s the least of my problems, and at least I have a girl’s arse for cushioning when I fall.

Plus, there are some perks to being a girl-in-a-guy’s-world. Lliam, for one, is far more concerned and conciliatory when you fall over in class than he would be otherwise, and he has been known to stage whisper, during scrimmages: “Just hit them. You can do whatever you like to them because you’re a girl. Hook, trip … whatever.” As you say, coach.

And there’s some fine man candy around the Icehouse, for those who care to look. I may still be mourning the departure of the gorgeous Jacques Perreault from the Melbourne Ice team at the end of last season (and Cute Dave ceased to be Cute Dave, and merely became Dave, once he modelled club gear for the wrong team), but sometimes unisex changerooms can seem like a gift.

Alex armoured up.

For the sake of discretion, I duck into the toilets to change – topless girls would probably result more in shock, and less in celebration – but guys have no such qualms about whipping off the gear. So yes, boys, we might just take the opportunity to sneakily check you out while you’re shirtless, and we’re not going to apologise for it – think of it as compensation for the way you smell post match. Certainly, growing up with three sisters and going to an all-girls school did nothing to prepare me for the odour of 25-odd sweaty, post-hockey men in a confined space, but I’m not arguing for it to be changed.

The question of whether girls and guys wanted separate changerooms came up recently. Answer: hell no. Logistically, the changerooms are already stupidly crowded, so an additional changeroom that just four or five people would use at a time would be plain silly. I was also quietly chuffed at the responses of some of the boys: that they like the camaraderie and team spirit of changing together, and that having women around keeps them in check (pun intended, I’m sure). That it’s good to be equal, and that they’d hate us to be removed from the pre and post-match banter – even if this concern was based more on the possibility we might discuss them behind their backs …

And then the discussion descended into a debate about the merits of Bonds knickers.

Hockey isn’t exactly a glamour sport, and we sure don’t do it to look sexy, but despite this the girls I play hockey with are some of the, well, “girliest” I know: Jess, who combines her hockey with pole dancing (hello!), Aimee, who looks like a blonde Christmas angel off the ice, my sister, Scarlett, with her Jane Austen-era sensibilities, Rachael, the Rookies’ answer to MasterChef, and Theresa, the ultimate social secretary. There’s also another woman I see around a bit who sports a “Mother Puckers” jersey. Brilliant. Me? I quit moaning about the cost of skates when it was pointed out to me (by several people) that I had unflinchingly spent that and more on far more impractical footwear in the past.

We like that it’s guys and girls, all learning together. We like the social side of it. We like that we’re not treated differently, that you boys don’t go soft on us, and that we can walk into the changeroom in heels and out of it in skates.

Recently, at a Stick and Puck session, Nicko hooked me and I fell. I wasn’t wearing armour and I played the girly card. He called me out on it: “Quit whinging. I’m a feminist. If you’re on the ice, we’re equals, and you shoved me first.”

Which pretty much sums it all up.

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Guest writer (Origin story): Chris Tran

July 6, 2012 by Leave a Comment

WORLD EXCLUSIVE:

Today, rookie Chris Tran talks us through his international journey of Mighty Ducks, rulers-and-erasers-hockey and finally to the Icehouse. (Next up is Alex McNab with a sure-fire traffic generator as she talks about girls in the hockey changing room …)

My journey

By Chris Tran

Where it all began…

Where does my story begin? I’d like to say I grew up in Canada watching my dad play in the minors, learning to skate on the frozen pond behind our house and playing street hockey with the kids in the neighbourhood. None of that is true, of course. Actually, dad lived in Canada for a while in the 80’s after the Vietnam War and he was a semi-pro table tennis player, only to perpetuate the Asian stereotype.

I was born and raised in Melbourne and like a lot of 80’s and 90’s kids, my first exposure to the beautiful game was through the Mighty Ducks Trilogywhich I watched religiously during my childhood (and in my late teens when I rediscovered them).

The Tran house was ruled by: “Quack! Quack! Quack!”

Once our eyes were sore from staring at the TV screen for so long, my little brother and I would play a little one-on-one. Now our family came from humble beginnings; we couldn’t afford rollerblades or hockey sticks so we had to make do with wooden rulers and used erasers as pucks. None of that really mattered to us though and we played till our backs wore out – as it turned out, 30cm rulers were too short even for us so our games didn’t last very long.

Eventually I grew out of this phase (most likely due to someone taping over our copy of D2 with a double episode of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman). AFL and the FIFA World Cup took over and it wasn’t until 2009 that I found the sacred trilogy on DVD and rekindled my love for the game…

February 23, 2010 and beyond!

I don’t think I will ever forget this day; my first skate at the Icehouse. I had skated once before when I was 8 years old at the Edmonton Mall ice rink in Canada. Twelve years later I was hoping to pick up where I left off, secretly wishing that once I set foot on the ice I would manifest into some sort of ice skating prodigy. This…unfortunately didn’t happen.

After falling for about an hour, I realised my rentals were two sizes too big; the scars those blisters left on my ankle are there to remind me that I’m actually a size 6. Despite being battered and bruised with bloody blisters all over my ankles, I knew this was the sport for me.

Since then, there have been four terms of hockey school, torturous bag skate drills, concussion scares and long double shifts in the d-zone but nothing else has changed…The feeling of liberation and the ice cold air that hits my face when racing from end to end and the sound of the blades carving against the ice is satiating after every stride; there’s nothing else like it.

Man, I love this game!

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Guest writer: Liam Patrick

July 4, 2012 by Leave a Comment

WORLD EXCLUSIVE:

Welcome to the first nickdoeshockey entry not by me, Nicko. Instead, Liam takes us through his intro to the non_icehouse world of Joey Hughes. (Liam gets the nod as the first guest because he shamelessly mentioned my goal a week or so ago. Next up: Chris Tran, who doesn’t mention my goal, in a rookie error, but will be published anyway.)

A rookie’s journey to NLHA

By Liam Patrick

Oakleigh.  It’s the little rink that is (in many ways) the heartbeat of Victorian hockey.  It’s the ugly older brother to the shiny, sexy new Icehouse.  Over 30 years old it can be best described as in need of some TLC and at times you cant really see what is going on due to the fog, or being freezing cold when not skating or the delightful “war bunkers” that are the changerooms.  However it is where many hockey players can access ice-time – be it for training, games or the NLHA classes.

Next Level Hockey Australia (NLHA or “Next Level” – the constant catch-cry) is lead by Joey Hughes (Melbourne Ice-star, Hockey sensei, all round good guy) with more coaching from Martin Kutek (Melbourne Ice-star, master of the “underpoosh” and another all round good guy).  They also do really good pricing on gear – plus the fancy new flat bottomed V skate sharpening.  Ok, end plug.  NLHA have run boot camps and coaching clinics in the past but this Winter they kicked off a program for adults not dissimilar to the Icehouse’s hockey school.

Now, the famous Rookies group (often mentioned here by Nicko) had began to get involved with NLHA and many, many rookies immediately signed up to these classes and championed them!  Unfortunately, I didn’t.   Yes – lazy, stupid, slow.  I was most jealous when Facebook would become abuzz on a Friday night with excited Rookies extolling the virtues of this great new hockey frontier.  I had actually been fortunate enough to get to tag along to summer league team training (they needed numbers and I knew a guy who knew a guy…) taken by Joey way back in January.  I knew they would be getting some really good coaching.  I looked at my bank account, sighed, and checked what supermarket had baked beans on special…..

Liam Patrick (black and green) celebrates a goal at the Icehouse, Intermediate end of term game. Pic: Wayne McBride

I entered the program 3 weeks in.  At the Icehouse I was doing intermediate and dev league.  Joey said he needed to see if I could skate and asked me to do a beginners class first then he would see where I could fit in.  I was a bit miffed “Hang on, I’m doing intermediate, I have some weaknesses, but I can skate” I thought/posted to the Rookies.  Anyway I headed down that first Friday night.

After battling a wet Monash Carpark (I refuse to call it a freeway), I wobbled my way through the beginners class feeling like the new kid at school sitting exams on day 1.  5 minutes in Joey called for us to get into “hockey stance” and promptly came and knocked me over onto my arse before pointing out where I was going wrong (feet too wide, knees not bent, head down….)  This sums up the whole NLHA experience for me – Joey and Martin can always find something you need to fix up to make yourself a better hockey player and go to the next level no matter how basic it is.  I got through the class and Joey agreed I could play game time and that he would happily take me into classes.  I was to stay with the beginners and work hard on my basics – particularly my non-existent outside edge!

The weeks went on.  I got the chance to try an intermediate class – wow!  There was a step up.  Filled with IHV players looking for an edge plus a lot of the more skilled Rookies meant the standard was pretty good.  My skills got shown up fast.  The drive home that night was very sombre as I recounted the number of times I fell on my arse, lost the puck, went the wrong way, got beaten for pace and generally just made myself look like Bambi.  In hindsight it was a great reality check and probably stopped me getting too big for my boots!  I had been recommended to repeat intro at the end of term 4 at the Icehouse, instead I skated 3-4 hours a week over Christmas and went up to intermediate.  Likewise I then went up to Dev the next term after a semi-successful crack at “intermediate dev league”.  I think I needed the wake-up call to remind me I was a long way away from being a semi-competent hockey player, take my eye off summer league and worry about getting the basics right, which were starting to get exposed.

The “term” rolled on.  I had 4 hours a week of hockey.  My non-hockey friends thought I was mad (“But its Friday night!”), my housemate questioned me when I was lying on the couch moaning and sooking the following days (rank hockey gear stinking up the laundry).  I was in heaven!  I began to see some tiny improvements – I could almost occasionally stay on my outside edge, sometimes.  I was focusing a bit more on my basics and almost executing them in Dev and game-time – the downside being I forgot about my positioning, the puck and other things that “occasionally” count in a hockey game.  I found a bit of extra time to general skate during the week to work on the latest tips from Martin and Joey.  I found having four different coaches (with Lliam and Army contributing from the Icehouse – as helpful as ever) meant I was picking up extra observations and tweaking different things (I even nailed a slapshot in a stick n puck which was exciting, if not entirely useful!).  But I still wasn’t nailing my outside edges, my cross-overs were still clunky and generally I lacked any sort of agility – something that was continually being found out in dev and gametime.

Icehouse hockey school finished.  I engaged in a great “battle” with Nicko on the ice.  It was bloody brilliant to see him score his goal.   As a reader of his blog for 6 months it was great to see him finally get a chance and he finished the job (would have loved to have seen that rodeo celebration though….), we all know how much he loves hitting the ice and how hard he works – even if we were on the opposing teams.  I managed to snag a goal myself which improved my hockey spirits somewhat.  At least I wasn’t totally useless on the ice.  I found myself skating a tiny better with the upbeat frame of mind.

Friday night at gametime was a different story.  I nearly always played D because my lack of agility wasn’t exposed as much, if anything it made attacking forwards skate out to the boards as I clogged up the “guts”.  But I still  l didn’t handle the puck cleanly, regularly turned it over in our zone, fell over (including bruising my shoulder and tailbone in one night which really concerned me as to what damage I may have done once I cooled down and was shovelling Nurofen whilst sitting on my couch) and generally didn’t contribute much more than another body on the ice.  Yet for some bizarre reason I still enjoyed every second and was busting to get back over the boards.  Hockey is a strange drug.

Finally it was graduation night.  I’d had a long day of personal disputes, girl problems, Icehouse registrations going into meltdown and then

Boarding, with Liam Patrick …

work being well, work.  I found myself wearily driving down “the carpark” to the rink not even considering, let alone focused on what I needed to do.  Joey agreed to change the sharpen on my skates as I tried a new tactic to find this mysterious outside edge and I hit the ice for beginners.  Whoops.  So now stopping was hard, I was slower, my legs hurt, my pivots were worse than my stopping and I barely felt any improvement in tracking my outside edge.  Oh and we are being assessed tonight? Good call Liam, good time to experiment – idiot.  Even by my standards I skated badly.  Maybe the distraction of cursing my own stupidity didn’t help.

After a class photo I had an hour before game-time (while the intermediate superstars strutted their stuff, I  usually spent this time consuming Masterchef Hands’ latest culinary delight).  I grabbed Joey and asked for the feedback.  “So do you want honesty or me to blow smoke up your arse” to which I replied “Bullshit, give me honesty, I’m a big boy….”Again I thought the conversation defined Joey as a coach.  I had my strong points (apparently) – I could participate in game-time ok, I could pass, I could read the play and position myself accordingly – but my skating was letting me down.  I couldn’t get to where I needed to be, I was running into people, I had no agility.  But, if I wanted to I could join intermediate, he was going to push me and expected me to work harder on that outside edge.

Challenge accepted!

I walked away feeling positive – for mine, the sign of a good coach.  I knew skating was always my weakness.  I secretly knew at times I was biting off more than I could chew and pretending I could get by. But it also felt good to know that I didn’t totally suck at everything, that somebody I hold with a lot of respect thought that I was capable of hitting “the next level”.  Game-time that night was fun, I even ventured up to a wing and put a shot on goal against people who play Prem C and A reserve hockey.  Good players, who cares if they weren’t going 100%.  I think the positive frame of mind helped.

So where does that leave me?  That was Friday night just gone.  The new term starts this Friday night.  Good, no lay off.  I am putting my finances, time and energy towards skating now.  Hockey specific skills (i.e. stick n puck and drop in) can wait.  I’m going to own this outside edge.  I’m going to become a more competent skater.  I’m going to keep up with the better players.  Ok. that’s enough self-indulgence of telling my story (Nicko, you did ask for it!).

So NLHA.  Get to it.  Please trust me, the above reads like a 15 year old emo kids diary, I know.  But at the end of the day Joey and Martin have started improving my skating and have made me really focus on it and be aware of it rather than my previous “go get puck” type of attitude (merely hoping my skating would improve over time).  I can’t speak highly enough of them (even if Joey seems to make it his mission to make me hit the ice once per class while fixing my hockey stance, knee bend or whatever other lazy habit I have that night).  Even if I stop improving now (which I hope I don’t!) the time, money and effort have been worth it thus far and I can only hope I can turn this into real improvement.

Please don’t think this means I don’t like or respect the Icehouse and in particular Army and Lliam.  Most certainly NOT the case.  Every time I’m there I learn something from them as well, they taught me the foundations I am building on and they are always great fun to be around.  They are also both generous with their time and advice to improve people’s game.  I intend to participate in both as long as I have the time and money to do so!

Like all the rookies, my gratitude to all four of our coaches is limitless and we cannot thank them enough for their effort and energy!

My perfect week of hockey – some time at the Icehouse, some time with NLHA, nail my outside edges and maybe even find the back of the net.  Oh and another big win to the mighty Melbourne Ice…..

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Taking it to the roof …

July 4, 2012 by 1 Comment

Big Cat takes it to the car park roof under the wheel that never spins.

Chaos at the Icehouse last night as one of the machines that keeps the ice cold, and goes bing, and is called a compressor, and has tubes in it or some shit (What am I? An engineer?) broke and the ice melted. Oops. All Victorian comments raising eyebrows at the Gold Coast rink which is periodically shut for dodgy ice are hereby revoked.

A bunch of us hit the roof of the Harbourside car park for some street hockey instead and Jess Hough got some amazing photos with her fancy phone. Under the superstructure of the big wheel that never turns and in light rain, we smacked street pucks around and made the best of a missed night of on-ice action.

Why yes, I do play hockey. How did you know?

Toes are finally going to be dipped in the water of Joey Hughes’ Oakleigh-based school this week, so Big Cat, Alex and I loaded up all the gear that usually sits in our lockers until the Icehouse is back in action. It was kind of spooky walking through the Icehouse in darkness with nobody on the softening ice; Melbourne Ice players wandering around looking a little lost as their practice was also cancelled. We lugged our stuff out of there and into the back seat of my car, which ended up looking as though the entire Red Wings’ team’s gear had been dumped on a small Holden in Australia.

In other news, Guest Writer offerings have started to appear in my gmail inbox, which is exciting. I’ll start feeding them onto the site. Thanks for the enthusiasm, fellow skaters.

A Jess Hough panorama of street hockey on the harbourtown car park roof.

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Over to you …

July 3, 2012 by Leave a Comment

OK, so I’ve come up with a cunning plan.

I WANT YOU! Nobody wants this to be “The face” of Australian hockey. Do your bit …

I have a lot of fun writing this blog, and I remain humbled and stunned by how many people have tuned into it. But, here’s the thing, I’m not the only guy learning hockey in Melbourne.

This may come as a shock, given the self-indulgent nature of many of the nickdoeshockey posts, but I am one of maybe hundreds of rookies feeling their way into the sport.

So I’m throwing open this space to you.

I still plan to write for the blog, as usual, but I’m inviting anybody within the hockey world – from Melbourne Ice players to an intro newbie – to contribute. Because of some boring but real logistical issues, I have yet to be able to dive into Joey Hughes’ Oakleigh crew, although he has kindly invited me along, so maybe some of the NLHA rookies could bring us a taste of that world? I’d love to include footage or thoughts on a road trip with a professional team. Playing amateur hockey in Canada, compared to Australia? Being a woman in a mostly male world, especially in the locker-room? Playing or watching hockey in other Australian states? Somebody who’s broken a collarbone, talk us through that journey … the list of possibilities is endless.

My only demand is that you buy into the wider-life feel that I mostly try to include. Be creative and use this platform to express yourself. God knows, I’m usually too open about emotions, fears etc, so don’t be shy. Ideally, I’d also prefer you don’t rant about elements of the sport you hate, or people you dislike…unless it’s funny. This is a forum to celebrate hockey, after all.

But I’d love to include a wider array of voices than my own.

A while ago, one of the rookies, Daniel Mellios, created a video around one night of Dev League, and it was fantastic. See it here.

Keep it coming … you can provide words, video, poetry, photography: whatever medium best works for you to express your take on our sport and our collective pursuit of the puck.

If nobody responds, then I’ll just keep doing what I do, but I reckon there’s room in this crazy world of ours for more voices than Nicko Place. Let’s hear them.

Email any contributions to nickolaki@gmail.com.

(The fine print: There’s not much and it’s obvious: no racism, sexism or other nasty -isms. I reserve the right to publish or not publish material.)

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And so, here we all sit (again) …

June 29, 2012 by 6 Comments

Bring back the Glaciarium, at Southbank, Melbourne. And 12 more rinks, while we’re at it.

And so here we all sit, trembling and sweating over our computer keyboards … which is not what you’re thinking.

It’s ticking towards 10.40 am on Enrolment Day and all over Melbourne, hockey rookies are terrified they won’t get into the Icehouse classes.

The fact is that the system is horrible, even if the Icehouse staff are endlessly friendly and try their best. Every term, we all spend this day not getting any work done, wondering what the ominous words: “Waiting lists are now full for this class” mean, and terrified that we’ll miss the magical moment when the Icehouse website clicks over to “click here to enrol“.

Ice hockey in Victoria has a fantastic problem, when it comes down to it. It is becoming far too popular for its own good. Big Cat and I seem to have hooked into the sport, right in line with the zeitgeist, when a whole bunch of other people also tuned into the brand new Icehouse, and the success of a crack Melbourne Ice unit, and whatever other factors have pushed the sport to this tipping point where too many people want to learn, compared to the amount of class time available.

The big question: who will win the lotto and click their way into Dev League for the next term?

Joey Hughes has set up Next Level Hockey at the old Oakleigh rink, in an attempt to offer other opportunities, but how the sport’s officials must wish rinks in Footscray, Ringwood, and even Bendigo, hadn’t closed down over the past couple of decades. I say we knock down the ABC Studios at Southbank and go back to the days when the magnificently ornate Glaciarium stood there. But this time with glass boards around the rink, so we can karoom each other off them in Dev League.

I once bought a magazine for a joke in one of those Smith Street flea market stores that all seem to have disappeared lately. It was a “Man” magazine from the 1950s; an Australian forerunner to Playboy, as far as I could tell. I gave it to Jay, one of Big Cat’s mates, for his eighteenth birthday, because he’d become a man now, and was ready to look at racy photos of women in pre-Sixties bikinis and one-pieces that left a great deal to the imagination, covering most of the torso.

Of course, I bought it for the articles and was stunned when one turned out to be fascinating. It was a story about the growth of ice hockey in Australia – yes, way back then. Even more amazingly, the writer concluded the piece by declaring that ice hockey could be a successful minor sport in Australia if it could build stadiums seating about 3000 people in each city. You know what? Sixty or so years later, he remains completely correct. On Sunday, Melbourne Ice will play the Sydney Ice Dogs in front of a sold out crowd of 1500 or so at the Icehouse; with all 1000 seats packed in the one grandstand facing the Henke Rink. In those stands, hockey students will ask one another: Did you get in? Which class? Did you have to sign up for the death shift of 11.15 pm-12.15 am Dev League, just to get a spot?

To be fair, it looks as though the ice was pretty crowded at the Glaciarium, back in the day.

So much wild enthusiasm, so many rookies wanting to learn, to skate, to join summer league teams, to become hockey players … and all of three blocks of ice in all of Melbourne. And a great chunk of that rink time devoted to speed skating and figure skating and curling and general skating.

Open for registration already (as I endlessly hit refresh on the Icehouse store) are 15 categories of speed skating classes. Intermediate 1, to choose one at random, has nine separate classes within it.

I love watching the speed skaters and am on friendly nodding turns with the ones who are always present at general skate, looping lazily around the ice like the giant bull rays that circle endlessly under the Lorne pier, or along the Queenscliff dock when I go diving.

But really, how many speed skaters are there in Victoria?

We are loaded to the gills with 30 or more participants in every hockey class (except the 11.15 pm Dev League which is a career-killer for anybody with a job).

Figure skating too, although I concede there are an awful lot of girls doing that instead of ballet.

I guess the stronger Olympic disciplines get some kind of priority at the Icehouse, which is technically Australia’s winter Olympic training venue.

But it’s a shame, for us hockey rinkrats, us rookies who want to play for fun and laughter and competition and fitness and the social circles and all the other reasons that those not aspiring to unlikely Olympic success play for. We remain on the borders of the Icehouse thinking, no matter how many stick& puck sessions and drop-in scrimmages they schedule, usually at 6 am or during office hours.

Damn, I wish I’d discovered this sport when I was a uni student – except that I never was; I started full time as a copyboy at The Herald newspaper at the age of 17 and worked full time ever since.

Damn, I wish I’d discovered this sport during my childhood in Canada, where frozen lakes and rinks in every suburb would have fed my young craving. Except that I was born in Melbourne’s suburbs and Burwood wasn’t known for its quality ice in Gardiners Creek.

Sigh, I guess, like the other rookies, I just have to fight for whatever ice-time I can get.

10.54 am …

Refresh. Refresh. Refresh.

UPDATE: The site finally opened for registrations at about 11.44 am. We all pounced. It crashed. No idea if I’m sitting out next term or not. This is truly pathetic, Icehouse. For the record.

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Tumbleweeds. Crickets. Horses eat one another. Somewhere, a dog barks …

June 28, 2012 by 2 Comments

Remember all that freaky stuff in Act Two of MacBeth? – oops, sorry. The Scottish play?

Horses eating one another? Something about an owl handing a falcon its arse*? I seem to remember my high school English teacher patiently explaining that old Shakey was setting up that unnatural things were about to happen, getting the audience on the edge of their Globe Theatre seats.

The crappy non-hockey view at our crappy non-hockey apartment in Coathanger City. Pic: Some rockstar-looking guy.

Well, last night was a similarly unnatural evening. A Wednesday night without hockey. Classes finished with last Wednesday’s Game Night, and here we were, rookies without an ice date.

It was as horrific as you’d imagine. I had been in Sydney since Sunday, doing the meetings thing, and saying hi to a few good friends who live in the shadow of the Giant Coathanger. I’d taken a guitar north, to give back to Katey, who had lent it to me a year or so ago, and so felt like a (completely fraudulent) rock star, wandering out of the airport and around Sydney lugging a guitar case. (No, dear readers, I can’t play guitar for shit.) The good news was that the faux rockster act seemed to work at the very tall apartment block we were staying in and I got an upgrade to the 73rd floor, which is not far off the highest point in the city.

So life was good until Wednesday, when I flew home (now guitarless and therefore status-down) and hit a hockeyless Melbourne wasteland.

I won’t bore you with the gnashing-teeth details of my desolate evening. The welcoming hug from my gal after days apart. The offered glass of great red wine. The dinner cooked for me. The laughter. The foot rub. The cool French music (Melanie Pain – look her up. Ex-Nouvelle Vague) … any hockey player knows that none of this could possibly console the absence of two hours of bruising intermediate and dev league action, right?

Tomorrow is enrolment day, which remains probably the most traumatic day of the entire hockey calendar, pre-term. It’s the day where all of Melbourne’s hockey students have to poise, finger twitching, over their PC for hours, waiting for the Icehouse to open registrations for the next term. There are nowhere near enough spots for everybody who wants to do the classes, let alone dev league. I’ll be finger-twitching for myself, Big Cat and Mack Nyquist, the third member of our future all-Place line (eat your heart out, Hansons).

And then what? Keep endlessly trawling Red Wings fansites and Detroit media for any news about free agency breakthroughs or other good news to somehow offset the unbearable loss of Nik Lidstrom, Brad Stuart and maybe Tomas Holmstrom? Play some street hockey with Big Cat and Mackquist? See if Alex is up for a puck lunch, where we whack pucks at one another in the office car park? Go to the gym? Box? See if I can remember how to run 6 km or more? Maybe even break the back of the second draft of my detective novel, which is currently handing my creative arse to me even more than an owl to a Shakespearean falcon*?

But alas, no hockey classes until the week of July 16 or something … and so there is time to be filled, especially on a Wednesday. Brendan Parsons beat me to publishing a photo of the bizarre Edmonton Swastikas, so that’s one diverting Google-search out of the way, damnit.

But there are plenty of other Google-inspired ways to kill time in a non-hockey week:

What does it mean when your team’s coach is Mike Babcock, and a Detroit schoolkid called Michael Babcock gets invited along to the Wings’ prospect camp?

Why doesn’t the Australian media get to report local sports officials saying things like trading a future hall of famer was my greatest screw-up ever?

Did the makers of the film, “The Gay Blades” envisage that their hopefully timeless classic might take on a different hue by a new millennium?

Why did this picture end up in Google images on a “Gay Blades” search?

How did anybody survive before helmets? (and how beautiful is this photo?)

OK, I’ll stop. Better take my inlines down to Lorne on the weekend. I’m getting antsy.

* My words, not Shakespeare’s.

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