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He shoots! He scores!

June 23, 2012 by 2 Comments

The big moment: I’m in the red helmet. If you look carefully, you can see the puck just over the line to the left of the goalie. Pic: Wayne McBride

It had become something of a running joke at Dev League that I had never scored a goal. I know it’s probably hard to believe that hockey players would hang shit on one another, but it has been known to happen. Roughly 4000 times per game, in my experience.

Last Wednesday was “game night”, for intermediate, which is the traditional end-of-term scrimmage, meaning Big Cat and I were shaping up for two hours of solid game play, including the usual Dev League hour-long scrimmage where black and red teams blissfully beat the hell out of one another.

And I scored a genuine goal. Sure, it was in the Intermediate game, and sure, the puck bounced off my shoulder onto the ice and I reflex-poked the puck over the goal-line with my stick, but that’s a goal, mofos. It counts.

Big Cat gets an official assist because it was his hard, off-balance shot that cannoned into the goalie’s chest, before ricochetting onto my shoulder as I did a Holmstrom and crowded the goalface, looking for the rebound, which miraculously came.

It was such a fun moment. I did everything but stop for autographs, although I resisted the urge to ride my stick, like a rodeo horse, down the ice. Apparently, according to Lliam, you can get a 10 minute penalty for that – he had a friend in a Canadian game who got a hat-trick in the first period, and sat on the ice, using his stick to row like a canoe, and got the 10 minutes. “Why, exactly?” I asked. “For being a dick,” Lliam shrugged.

Still too many times where my legs are flat-footed like this. Pic: Wayne McBride

So I stopped short of the rodeo-celebration that I’ve been working on. Shared the moment with Big Cat, Alex, my team and then got on with things. Minutes later, as I skated along, coach Army said, with a large element of surprise in his voice: “Did you score?”

It means a lot, knowing he believes in me so unwaveringly.

Army and I have a healthy vocal dialogue going most of the time. On Wednesday, we should have received a penalty for some atrocity and I yelled out: “Oh, umpire!” and Army pointed out it’s ‘ref’ in hockey, so I pointed out he was wearing a Collingwood beanie (which he only does to annoy people at the Icehouse) and he said that still didn’t mean I could use ‘umpire’ instead of ‘ref’ and I told him to just go out there and do some umpiring (now using an affectation English accent) and he would have dropped the gloves, I’m sure, if he had been wearing any, or cared. I love hockey.

At the face-offs, Liam Patrick and I were having even more fun, trash-talking one another mercilessly. I got my stick to the puck and pushed it away, yelling back at Liam, “Did you see that, Patrick? Yet another face-off win to Place!” … Except that I had hit it straight to one of their players. At the next face-off, coach Lliam said: “You know, you didn’t win that last face-off.”

Liam Patrick v Nicko Place at a face-off. Words were occasionally said. Pic: Wayne McBride

“Do you mind. I’m trying to sledge here,” I replied happily. Which worked well until Patrick scored with a really slick first-time slapshot about 30 seconds later. Another rookie Wayne McBride was taking photos and there’s a great sequence, post Liam’s goal, where we’re both yapping insults and smiling.

And so another term ended. My third round of Intermediate and my second time around in Dev League. I am definitely getting better – we all are, you can really see it, all over the ice – even though I know what I still need to work on. In what is not exactly a shock twist, it’s mainly my skating. I was actually really happy with my passing on Wednesday – I was genuinely creative with the puck, hustled players away from it, controlled it, scored that goal, and got an assist in the better-standard Dev League game. I’m chasing the puck now, believing I belong on the ice and can be a factor (even if my attempts to rename myself “a scoring threat” since Wednesday has met with stony silence from Big Cat, with all his fancy goals). I actually think they were my best games of the term, and that one drop-in session a fortnight ago has made a difference to my passing.

… and more words, after Liam’s (very good) goal.

But in so many of the photos from Wednesday, my legs are still planted, far apart and flat-footed on the ice. Yes, there were many more photos this time where I was moving, genuinely power-skating, which is pleasing. But I really have to get my outside edges happening and I really need to move my feet while controlling the puck.

But it will come and it can happen. I’m not intimidated by the challenge – I just have some bad habits to drop. Best of all, it’s stuff I can work on in general skating, on inlines and in stick & pucks, starting tonight where there’s an unexpected 8.30 pm session.

What else would you do on a Saturday night but don rain-soaked armour and skate joyfully onto the Henke Rink ice yet again?

IN OTHER NEWS:

1. Anybody who thinks ice rinks are cold should have been with Sammy Tanner, Chloe and I on a boat, going through the Heads, last Saturday, to dive the Coogee wreck off Barwon Heads. It was 13 degrees in the water and, at 30 metres down, a lot colder than that. Fun though. Murky though the water was, my trusty GoPro captured things:

 2. RIP Daryl Joyce, a friend of mine who went upstairs to read, and listen to his beloved Cats play footy last Saturday, and passed away, just like that. Sad memorial service. Generally shitful. I’ve written before about how we all need to make the most of the life we have, right now, while we have it. Lesson learned, again.

 3. In happier news – well, sort of – a former Red Wing, Darren McCarty, and his wife have been in court, slapping restraining orders on a group of friends, or something. Strange case. Their argument is that they feel threatened by these people, which led to this beautiful piece of writing in the Detroit News:

  • “(Defence lawyer) Abood suggested the protection orders were simply an effort by the McCartys to “cut off” people they didn’t want to associate with anymore, rather than a product of genuine fear.
    At one point, when Abood asked McCarty how many fights he had been in, the judge interjected: “He’s a hockey player.”

That’s my kind of judge.

And finally, how much do I love this sequence from the Dev League scrimmage?

Bwahahahaha! (Actually, I was asking if he was okay. Lucky Lliam didn’t hear that.)

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A question without notice

June 15, 2012 by 9 Comments

So, a strange thing happened on Wednesday night in the Icehouse change room.

A friendly member of the local hockey community … unlike that prick, Nicko Place.

Walking off the ice from Dev League, I congratulated my opposition winger, Theresa, on a good game, and she returned the compliment.

Then, with a big smile, said to me: “So Nicko, are you coming to the Melbourne Ice Gala?”

The Gala is a big swanky annual sit-down dinner where the hockey community gets dressed up in formal gear (well, more formal than armour and sweaty jerseys, and mostly favouring shoes instead of skates on the dance-floor). This year is a big one because it’s to celebrate the club’s 10th anniversary.

Theresa, welcoming, ever the energetic social driver of our crew, asking me if I wanted a seat on the Rookies’ table? To which I replied, without even thinking, in a question-without-notice reflex action: “No.”

Theresa’s smile dropping. “How come?”

And I replied, honestly: “I just don’t do those kind of things.”

Which was honest but kind of blunt.

(** and yes, this entire post is a way of apologising, to Theresa, and Wayne, who is – * spoiler alert * – still to come in this anecdote…)

Outside, back in street clothes, about to head off into the night, another Rookie, Wayne (see, told you), asked the same question: “Coming to the gala, Nicko?”

“Nope,” I said. “Any night at the pub with you guys, I’m there. Not the gala.”

And off I went, safe in my suddenly unexpected crowning as the antisocial bastard of the night.

But not feeling great, despite the glory of Aimee and my “perfect” two-on-one tic-tac-toe goals during Intermediate, or some decent efforts by me in Dev League, even if I did screw up in the final minute which led directly to an opposition goal. Oops.

Anyway, doing my usual Wednesday night post-hockey thing of lying wide-awake until after 2 am, I thought about it. Why would my instant reaction to the gala be no? I love the hockey crowd, I would be happy to sit and break bread with pretty much anybody in that world. I like alcohol, a lot. Especially with friends.

So why my instant, brutal dismissal of a fun, formal night out?

It took me two days to work it out, and the good news is that it’s baggage from my past; nothing to do with hockey. In fact, it led to an even deeper love of hockey … I’ll explain.

You see, I was a sportswriter for many years, for The Herald and then The Age and Sunday Age newspapers, as well as The Age online and more recently my own company, Media Giants. I also worked for ten years, off and on, as a reporter/producer/writer for the Seven Network.

It was a great life, in a lot of ways. I covered tennis, including all the Grand Slams (Roland Garros remains the best event I think I ever covered), as well as boxing (including a lot of Jeff Fenech’s world title fights), field hockey and other sports.

Mostly I covered AFL.

And here’s where Wednesday night’s knee-jerk reaction came from.

In tennis and AFL, there are players and there are fans. Football likes to talk of itself as a “family”, but it’s not. There are those who have set foot on a VFL or AFL field, and the rest of us.

(Another warning: there’s some name-dropping ahead. I promise it is to make a point.)

In tennis, where players are told by coaches, family, everybody that they are only a peg or two down from God because they hit a decent forehand when they were 11 years old, the Us and Them is very pronounced. Think rock stars egos with racquets. I remember one story where an Australian player had her arse handed to her at Eastbourne, the women’s pre-Wimbledon event, and her furious coach decided it was time to lay it on the line, let her know that effort was simply not good enough, to really strip things down to the horrible truth … he walked into the players’ lounge and found said player reclining, enjoying a foot massage from her mummy, while her daddy held her hand and literally spoon-fed her, her agent tut-tutting sympathetically off to the side. This player was in her 20s at the time.

Trust me when I tell you that if you’re a journalist who writes that a player who lost 6-1, 6-0 didn’t play well, you can expect attitude from the player and his mates. Seriously. I’ve been there. Had the walls go up from the Australian players as a collective, because I didn’t write the usual excuses and “gee, he tried hard” crap. For all the glamour of covering Wimbledon or the French, Davis Cup in exotic locations, I was happy to leave that world. The players can’t work out why the media isn’t just an extension of their fan club, which includes everybody who makes money out of their success, and star struck fans.

The Woodies – Mark Woodforde and Todd Woodbridge: great people on and off the court.

I’m generalizing here, obviously – and there are distinct and welcome exceptions, who I’m going to name because I’d be horrified on the off-chance they read this and thought I was talking about them. So I am explicitly excluding Mark Woodforde, Todd Woodbridge, Nicole Provis, Yannick Noah, Ivan Lendl, and a bunch of the Swedish players, who generally, in my experience, didn’t take themselves so seriously, including former world No. 1s Stefan Edberg and Mats Wilander. Even Rod Laver – total gentleman, and unaffected by his astonishing record. Others were cool too; including Steffi Graf who showed a lot of poise and grace while carrying a heavy load of battling English and German tabloids.

And then there’s the AFL. I would like to think I have made some genuinely good friends out of footy, and there are wonderful people and players and ex-players who have a welcome perspective on their world.

But many do not and that’s where the Ice Gala comes in (at last). I have suffered through so many AFL functions where there are the players, and everybody else. The players place such a premium on “one-for-all, all-for-one” and all that locker-room crap that they have trouble turning it off once they’re in public, if they even try to.

Fans will approach their table at a club function and the players will mostly be polite, pose for photos etc, but their hearts are rarely in it. Their eyes are often empty, veiled. Media, fans, sponsors … we’re all a kind of annoying sideline to their fame.

And this is what I unwittingly projected onto the Melbourne Ice Gala, when Theresa landed that unexpected question.

It was only on reflection that I realized part of me had gone back to footy/tennis mode. And that was wildly unfair, because the beautiful end to this rant is that hockey is so, so, so different.

One of the reasons I love this world is the lack of pretension, the lack of egos. There’s Matt Armstrong, currently one of the top scorers in the AIHL this season, a veteran of seriously high-quality international competition, driving the Zamboni on a weekday, laughing with us rookies and teaching us with endless patience. Likewise, Lliam, Tommy and Shona, all Australian representatives but never once looking down their noses at mere mortal strugglers like us.

Joey Hughes teaching his unique philosophy and hockey skills at the very unglamorous Oakleigh rink. Giving, giving, giving.

So, I hate that I projected AFL sensibilities onto these people. I swear to remember, wherever possible, how grateful I am to be in this underground, cult-like, happy, friendly, intense world of Melbourne hockey. Solidarity, brothers and sisters. That gala would actually be a lot of fun, and I hope everybody there takes a moment to realize how special it is that the Ice players like Lliam, Army, Tommy, Jason et al, are genuinely happy to chat with fans and rookies, instead of just doing their time because they have to.

Army keeping it real in the local hockey version of an ice bath. Pic: Melbourne Ice

Take it from me, who has sailed the wider waters of international sport. This is a rare treasure.

And no, I still won’t be there … turns out it’s the same weekend that my kids film festival, Little Big Shots  is at the Sydney Opera House, so I’ll be in the Opera House green room, smiling quietly as artistic egos fill the room.

But Theresa, Wayne and other rookies, Lliam, Army and co, have a drink for me. Keep your eye out for how Ice Man manages to drink through that helmet of his … I’ve always wondered. And can he fit a tux over his armour?

I genuinely wish I could be there. Really.

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The (second last) final frontier

June 8, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Drop-in.

For more than six months, those two words have caused me quiet fear.

Other rookies have signed up for sessions, including Big Cat a long time ago, and not only survived but come back raving. For those who don’t know the term, in Icehouse hockey parlance, it’s a session where anybody can turn up and play hockey. You sign up for $20 bucks, get a white or blue Icehouse jersey, and make your way to a bench. And play. There might be 30 players at a session or 10 (which usually ends up as half-rink). The only requirement is that you have full armour and your own stick. There might be a bunch of elite players working on moves in these pick-up games, or just fellow rookies feeling their way. There’s no way of knowing.

Hence my fear.

All I could think was that I’d step onto the ice against the semi-pro members of the Melbourne Ice or Mustangs, or against Division A, B or C guns. My theory was that I’d wobble around and seriously risk hurting myself or them, by skating straight into their path. The idea of Lliam, Army, Tommy, Jason or another star AIHL player missing games because idiot rookie Place wasn’t able to turn right and veered inexplicably left was too unthinkable to think about.

Lliam Webster, my coach, in flight. Thankfully, this was not during yesterday’s drop-in.

The mail from fellow Rookies had always been that it was fine. That the really good players gave newbies space and time, made an effort to pass to them, and were really welcoming. That the games are usually fast, and your weaknesses will be shown up, but in a good way.

Even so, I didn’t feel ready for a long time. Even this week, almost two full terms of Dev League under my belt, I was nervous.

But then I had another Nico, a Frenchman and the partner of an old friend of mine, come to stay at my place and it turns out he has been playing hockey since living in Canada a few years ago. He’s followed my obsession and so brought his skates (good ones – bought for 35 Canadian dollars in 2003, damn him) to Melbourne. I saw there was a drop-in session at 2.30 pm Thursday. He was super keen. I had no reason not to, apart from cowardice.

And so, just like that, without any time to second-guess, I found myself wandering down to the white jersey team’s bench five minutes late for the session. An awkward hi to the two guys hanging out on the bench and then shit, I realised I was playing drop-in.

Everything everybody had told me was true. The bulk of the players were Division B and C, as far as I could tell, apart from goalie Mark Stone, roaming around as a player, which was nice because at least one familiar face was there to good-naturedly sledge me mercilessly as I skated past, and vice versa.

The standard was strange. Clearly, most were seriously good players and every now and then they’d turn on the afterburners on their skating, or show their stick-handling skills, but they were also relaxed, hooning around, just playing for fun, not with super intent. Which made it great for me, because if I screwed up, nobody really cared. It was kind of like being in the surf with a bunch of really good surfers, who are catching waves and enjoying themselves, showing their moves, but also out there for a laugh and to chill between sets. If that makes sense.

And all the drop-in veterans did pass the puck to me, the newbie, often, and they did encourage me at every turn, and they did tell me I wasn’t sucking, and they did give me advice – so thank you, anybody reading this who was there.

Nico was skating around for the blue team, wearing his own leg-guards, which are pieces of plastic that look about two millimetres wide, and made him look like he was some polio-stricken kid, with tiny chicken legs, among all of our usual, serious leg-padding. I scored a goal, and then he did, which sounds impressive except that most of the regulars (and they clearly all knew each other, and had strong understanding, so I was assuming they turn up each week for this session – or play in the same team) didn’t even bother having shots.

Instead, they’d work through the gears as they liked. In a second, players would go from gliding, bored-looking skating, to flying up the ice, weaving between three opponents (Me trying not to get in their way, if it was my team on the rush).

Clear on a break-away, they’d charge the net, and then instead of shooting, veer off to the boards and look for another team member to pass to. Inside the blue line, four or five sharp, crisp passes would fly between sticks – whack, whack, whack, whack, whack, before finally, somebody might have a shot for fun, or a defender would intercept. Or they’d pass it to me and I’d have a little less control.

Every now and then players wandered over to the bench, and there were no “fast changes”, just: “Yeah, I’m done. Have a skate …” and somebody would get around to putting their gloves back on.

On the bench, one guy sent texts on his iPhone, others chatted. It was like kick-to-kick in footy, but on skates. All we needed was coffees instead of drink bottles.

And yet, when a blue teamer came at me with the puck early in the session, I steeled myself, puffed up my armour, grounded my stick, challenged for it and, like a magic wand, his stick moved in a blur in four different directions, and he was gone and so was the puck; me unable to help grinning at the dazzling stick work I’d just been a victim of. I loved it.

As promised, I saw all my failings on the ice clearly, as well as some strengths. My stick-handling held up pretty well (until I got tired and made some sloppy errors late in the piece). I was still heavy-legged from Wednesday night’s class and dev league, but, regardless, my skating was nowhere near their calibre, which was no surprise really.

Interestingly, I discovered that I have a habit of stopping when not involved in play – and it is potentially dangerous. These guys, playing at their level, hardly ever seem to stop. They’re cruising, gliding, looking, looping, between bursts. So they’d apparently register where I was, skate hard and then get a surprise when it turned out I was still there. Mentally, they had obviously factored in that I would have moved by the time they got to that space on the ice. Several near-collisions later, I tried to keep moving, no matter what.

And I skated hard from end to end, whenever the puck changed possession, just for the work-out, because how often do you get that kind of empty ice time, without the pressure of a Dev League game (which have become increasingly competitive – and yes, I did suffer my first loss of this term on Wednesday night, thanks to what was almost certainly Big Cat’s best goal yet. Credit where it’s due.)

So, all the usual mantras apply, even more so, post-drop-in. Keep working on skating, and keep working on puck-handling; especially passing, as several of mine were easily picked off without getting to my target. I can se that the progression from dev league needs to include faster, snappier passing. I’m totally up for that.

But the good news is that my bench-buddies praised my positioning and my effort, and my hockey smarts, which pleased me. And I did land some canny passes, to teammates in full flight. I didn’t suck.

Which was all I could have hoped for as I popped my drop-in cherry.

Fellow Rookies, specially Dan Byrne, the champion of drop-in, were wildly supportive, as ever, at my stepping up and I can’t wait to go back.

In fact, only one frontier remains: joining a team for Summer League competition. Of which, moves are underway.

Somehow, hockey just gets more exciting.

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Old Dog. New tricks.

June 4, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Tonight, as the rain and the wind rattled an old warehouse in Kensington, I stood in a boxing ring, the canvas floor mercifully clear of the puddles elsewhere in the gym, under a leaky roof.

My hands were taped up and gloved, and I was in a singlet and shorts, sweat flowing freely. I still haven’t forked out for proper boxing shoes, so my trusty but expensive Asics running shoes were being slaughtered in the side-to-side, front-and-back shuffle of sparring.

Sam Visciglio, grey-haired, lean as a whippet, ever-encouraging, with a face that shows a lot of life lived and with flat, concentrating eyes that miss nothing, stepped back, pads relaxed, and said: “See, that hand (the left) is the cocky kid from – where are you from again, Nicko?”

“North Fitzroy,” I panted.

“- from North Fitzroy. It’s loose, it’s the right side of the brain controlling that left. Loose, creative. But this hand (pointing to my right) needs to be at your chin, in front of your jaw. That’s left side of the brain. Defend. It’s controlling the elbow tucked into your side, protecting your ribs.

Sam works on the battered face of one of his fighters. No doubt with calm, soothing words when they’re needed.

“And now, when you land that left, I want you to turn the fist so you punch with these knuckles here (index finger, middle finger). Turn on impact. Back to the chin. Turn on impact. Back to the chin.

“And put that cassette into your head, and hit ‘play’. It’s the cassette marked ‘agile’. I want you thinking that word: ‘agile’, ‘agile’, agile’. Footwork. Keep moving. Do you hear what I’m saying? I want you to reprogram your feet.”

“Sam,” I said. “I’m not sure anybody my age can be termed ‘the cocky kid from Fitzroy North’.”

Sam laughed, patted me lightly on the face as he does to say: “Good job”,  and called another fighter into the ring, while I went back to belting the heavybag. A cassette in my head saying the word, “agile” over and again, with my feet moving accordingly. Right fist planted in front of my jaw as the left jab snaked out. Another lesson absorbed.

I love Sam. He trains fighters alongside my mate, Mischa Merz, Australia’s very own queen of the square ring, and an old journo mate of mine when she’s not being hit, hitting people or training people to hit and not be hit.

I learn so much from these two. All that stuff about how old dogs can’t be taught new tricks? It’s not true. For starters, since Fly Dog the Magnificent did her Achilles tendon on Christmas Day (hello $3000 worth of surgery and vet bills), she’s mostly learned to obey my: “Slow! Fly, slow!” command, and she only wants to chase balls like she used to every hour or so, instead of every minute.

Likewise, the old dog that is her owner is learning new things all the time. On Mondays, Mischa and Sam teach me fundamentals that I really should know after so many years of dabbling in hitting heavy bags, floor-to-ceiling bags and training pads with endless jabs, hooks and bodyshots.

Fly Dog The Magnificent, as she spends more of her time these days, post injury: being driven around.

But no, there’s always so  much more to learn, so many bad habits to lose. Tonight, with the crazy Melbourne weather, only the hardcore trainers were there. And me. A new guy, Lee, from England is an ex-amateur fighter and knows his stuff. Was trying to punch holes in the heavy bag as he falls back in love with the sport. When we had to spar, trading body shots, practicing our defence, he was great in teaching me how to be ready to attack but able to close the gates of my elbows as required, to ward off shots to my stomach, elbows ready to defend kidney attacks.

Learn, learn, learn.

And that’s before I get to Wednesday hockey and another Intermediate Class then Dev League session with Lliam and Army at the Icehouse.

This blog has been going for more than 100 posts and I still can’t quite convey how much I learn in every session, how the improvement keeps coming. Jason Baclig, from the Melbourne Ice, said last week – when I mentioned my funk, and feeling like my improvement had flat-lined – that there comes a time where improvement is incremental, so you don’t get the big, obvious breakthroughs on a weekly basis. The solution is, of course, to keep working, and I threw myself into last week’s class and Dev League like a crazy person,  with the support and urging of Lliam, Army and my classmates/teammates. Funk, be gone.

Tonight, Sam gave me another tool for the same job. “Agility,” he said. “The perfect footwork for different punches. Imagine yourself doing it, Nicko. Imagine that you can do it. Of course, you can’t. You have to learn, but pretend you can, think you can. Agility. Believe you know how to, and work from there.”

It’s become a running joke among some of my Dev League peers that I remain a Dev League Virgin, as in: I haven’t scored a goal yet. Last week, I was agonizingly close at least once. But no goals yet.

Maybe I’ll carry Sam’s voice onto the ice this week. Believe you score goals, Nicko. Tell yourself that you’re a guy who can put it in the net. Work from there.

If nothing else, I’ll keep my L-Plates proudly on display. Talking to a long-time friend last week, we warily eyed the future; what it would be like to truly become old men. Our solution? Don’t stop learning. Don’t stop setting challenges. God knows, hockey, and boxing, do that in spades.

Nicklas Lidstrom: will be oh so missed! Pic: Detroit News

ONE MORE THING: ACTUALLY, TWO:

1. It was in August last year that that I wrote what turned out to be a contentious blog about the state of the Blue Tongues’ rink at the Gold Coast, after attending a game there to watch the Melbourne Ice. Blue Tongues fans went briefly nuts (which resulted in great readership numbers for the blog – the biggest I had until, umm, the entire city of Detroit decided to visit one day.) Anyway, the Ice just went north again and Sunday’s game had to be called off because of problems with the same rink’s ice or boards or both. I will say again what I tried to say in last year’s blog: I am in awe of the Blue Tongues’ players, that they are so good and have such a great team, while training and playing in Australian hockey’s equivalent of third-world facilities, when put up against the Olympic training-standard glory of the Icehouse. Nothing against the people who run that facility, either: how fucking tough a job is that? Maintaining and running an ice rink on the Gold Coast. Like running an outdoor café in the Antarctic. I hope, for the Blue Tongues’ sake, they can stay in the competition and with a decent rink.

2. So long, Nicklas Lidstrom and thank you for the memories. The Wings’ captain and spiritual leader has called it a day, and celebrated by being given a standing ovation at a Detroit Tigers baseball game, being hailed at a Red Hot Chilli Peppers concert and taking a full page advert out in the local papers to thank fans for all their love over the two decades of his career. Yes, he’s that classy. I only came in on the last few years of the magnificent Swedish defender’s career with Detroit but I fully understand why his teammates’ nickname for him was/is: “The Perfect Human”. Four Stanley Cups, seven-times best defender in the NHL (and in the top three almost every other year), a brilliant captain, cool, calculating, composed and a natural leader like few I’ve seen before on the ice, and possessing a slapshot from the blue line that would put a hole in an armoured tank. I am SO glad that Will, Mack and I got to see Lidstrom play in the flesh last year during our epic trip. (And that I bought a signed No. 5 jersey that is now a collector’s item, and yes, I wear it. To hell with re-sale value.)

The fact that Lidstrom has creakily called a halt to his amazing career at 42 years of age must surely sound some kind of warning bells for a 47-year-old second-year rookie, I’m sure, but I’m choosing not to put too much thought into that. Enjoy retirement, TPH. Man, the Wings are going to look different in 2012-13. As coach Mike Babcock said at the Lidstrom presser: “Embrace change.”

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Beating the funk

May 31, 2012 by 1 Comment

George Clinton. Different kind of funk.

No, I’m not talking about Kronwalling George Clinton, the Godfather of Funk.

I’m talking about how to shake off a hockey funk. Maybe even a life funk, but let’s take things one step at a time.

As I write this today, I am very much back in the game, compared to the last post, which only needed whisky and a sad soundtrack to complete the misery.

I knew I was okay from the moment my legs complained, already tightening up, as I creaked out of the car just before midnight last night, after driving home from the Icehouse. My legs are even stiffer this morning, finding every movement heavy in pedaling my bike as far as a local cafe. In fact, my whole body is aching in that awesome way that says you skated hard, took some hits, physically committed.

Battling that funk from earlier in the week, I had turned up for last night’s lesson, determined to kick myself back into a happier place. And it worked.

Actually, the anti-funk campaign had started at least 24 hours before. In fact, from the moment I wrote it all out in that last post, I switched into: “OK, whinge over. Time to skate” mode. On Tuesday, my son Mack decided to show off his brand new hockey stop in the opening minute of Intro class, completely lost his edges and cannoned into the boards, taking some poor guy’s legs straight out within him. Boom! In a game, it would have been a misconduct penalty for roughing, 2 minutes easy. The coaches, Army, Tommy and Shona, all cracked up (“Place!”) and looked up to the stands where Big Cat and I were helpless with laughter. I felt hockey moving through my veins. (The guy who got taken out quietly moved a few steps to his left or right every time Mack approached from then on.)

All day Wednesday, I was thinking hockey. I had a big lunch, loading up for the night. I had a rest before heading to the rink, recharging. Couldn’t concentrate on playing pool because I wanted to be out there (which is a coward’s way of saying Big Cat beat me.)

At the Icehouse, I even went for some retail therapy to exorcise the funk, buying  new black Easton body armour that makes me look like the Dark Knight if I ever have my jersey dragged over my head in a fight (unlikely).

Actually, now I think of it, how cool would that be, in the NHL? Two players get into a fight; one player dislodges the other’s helmet and finds that under that helmet the player is wearing a Batman cowl. Oh my God, I’m fighting Batman! (Hmm, I’m not only digressing but I’m veering back towards the Avengers hockey team post. DC Heroes v Marvel Heroes as hockey teams … discuss)

My new armour is much lighter, and slightly smaller, but still seems to do the same job, which rocks. I can finally get a jersey over my head without it snagging on the various bits of foam and padding that jutted out of my old, bulky armour, but I probably don’t look quite so broad across the padded shoulders these days. I can live with that.

Me in my new armour:

Post-pool and pre-class, Big Cat and I had a general skate, to get our legs moving, but I barely raised a sweat; just feeling the skates under my feet. Time ticked slowly. We got dressed way too early. Finally, it was Intermediate class.

I was kind of scared because I’d discovered a week ago that coach Lliam occasionally reads this blog, and so he knew about the funk and had promised to help. “You can solve all the problems of life?” I asked, blinking.

“Um, no,” he said, running away fast. “Just hockey funk.”

Turns out, as a guy who has played for his whole life and around the globe, feeling like you’re flat-lining in developing your skills, or just losing your hockey mojo, is something he has gone through on his journey and knows about.

And so he and Army were there, from the jump, urging us on through stepping over sticks and gliding on one skate, tight turning and Superman-diving to the ice, tight turning and skating backwards (“Both feet, Nicko! Both feet!”) and a final tight turn to bend knees all the way to the ice while skating. Tricky but fun drills. Times three.

And power skating drills, which are my favourites – just belt up and down the ice as fast as you can; me working on my Army-instructed technique to bring my skates close together at the end of each stride for extra push. I’m definitely faster as a result.

Feeling the funk lifting as I puck handled around cones, as I sprinted two laps after each drill, as I sweated and worked and sweated and worked and worked.

I wrote last time that I wasn’t tired after last week’s class and Dev League. Clearly hadn’t worked hard enough. As my group waited our turn to sprint up and down the Henke Rink last night, somebody advised that we needed to pace ourselves and I thought: “Screw that. No pacing myself tonight. Skate ‘til I drop.”

George Clinton’s band, Parliament, back in the day. Oh yeah.

And I did, so that by the time I joined the black team for Dev League, coached again by Lliam after a few weeks on red with Army, I was already feeling it.

Dev League was great as usual. Our team won, something like 7-2, and it’s amazing how much better at playing genuine hockey we’re all getting. People holding positions, making the right passing decisions more often than not, handling the puck with genuine skill.

I panicked with the puck on my first couple of shifts. Found myself controlling the puck in traffic but only throwing it forward, instead of trusting my ability not to be knocked off it and try to carry it or at least use the puck creatively.

Back on the bench I mentioned my panic to Lliam and he said: “OK, this is how you beat the funk. Do what you’re good at. Don’t worry about what you’re not good at … just concentrate on what you know you do well.”

So, there’s a poser for you … luckily I had a full two shifts before I left the bench, to try and work out if there’s anything I do well, that I could concentrate on? Well, I thought, I’m hard to knock over and I’m not bad at battling for the puck along the boards. At my best, I pass well; can think with the puck and find a teammate in a strong attacking position. So, OK, do that … and skate. Skate hard.

And so I did. Managed to weave through a couple of opponents in centre ice, controlling the puck, and pass to a teammate charging the net. I only do that occasionally but it’s a thrill. I won the puck more than once. Even beat Big Cat pointless in a one-on-one battle, which is rare enough to deserve documenting. Suddenly, I was having a ball, and even happily absorbed a huge collision with a teammate as we were both single-mindedly defending a puck lurking dangerously in the opposition slot. That one actually hurt but I was smiling as I checked my body was still working and skated off towards our goal, straight back in the game.

As always the hour ticked to a close way too fast. As the cursed garage door rolled up to reveal the Zamboni, I was ready for more and my legs were still holding up.

Until I got home, and cooled down.

Which was when I knew I’d achieved my goal.

And wrote down what’s required for anybody battling hockey or life funks:

1. Buy armour.

2. Concentrate on what you do well.

3. Play music, loud. In fact, stare the funk down and put on some Parliament, Funkadelic or P-Funk, with George Clinton.

Take that, funk.

And thanks, Lliam, and Army, as well as Chloe´, and all my hockey classmates, for nursing me through it.

Filed Under: Ice hockey Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Things I don’t know

May 29, 2012 by 2 Comments

The Mustangs’ mascot: real horse or not?

There are many things in hockey, and in life, that I do not understand.

Off the ice, the list is probably too long to attempt; certainly on a blog that at least pretends to be about hockey. Life decisions people make, randomness of life and death, how the Kings and Devils have ended up contesting the NHL Stanley Cup final, why some relationships work and others don’t, laughter and exploration versus the daily grind, contractual discussions instead of pure creativity, whether the Melbourne Mustangs’ mascot thinks he’s a real horse?, choosing to live within tramlines versus leaping into the jungle … yes, be afraid, I’m in one of those moods.

On the ice is, as usual, simpler. I know the things I don’t know, if that makes any kind of sense.

Better, hockey players who do know what they’re doing can spot what I don’t know from 40 skating paces. At a recent stick & puck session on the Henke Rink, a Canadian called Brian skated over and gave me a bunch of tips. They were all gratefully received. They were all brilliant. They were generously offered.

Reflecting on one tiny piece of advice that immediate helped my backward skating in ways Big Cat had been trying to tell me for months (another thing I don’t know: why is it easier to receive observational criticism from strangers than family?), it occurred to me that I remain so green; the sheer mechanics of skating are not yet mastered, more than 16 months – and 100 blog posts – into the adventure. Will they ever be learned? Will I ever step onto a rink and skate with muscle memory, with instinct? I still feel like a P-plate driver, having to consciously concentrate to change gears or work out when to merge lanes.

My lack of knowledge and lack of success in certain areas has played on my mind a bit this week, and tested my self-confidence on and off the ice. I went for a general skate yesterday and was okay; trucking around a happily mostly-empty Bradbury Rink for half an hour or so in a hastily-snared gap between real world commitments. As I moved, I felt underwhelmed by my skating and it occurred to me that hockey-me is flat-lining a little at the moment, just getting through Intermediate class in a serviceable manner, and being respectable in Dev League without doing much that is startling.

Flatlining … but not dead.

At our last Dev League, almost a week ago, my most notable contributions were a solid collision with another skater as we both went for the puck and smacked heavily, and me being the only person on the ice who apparently saw an opposition goal go into the net, hit the back of the net and stop well inside the net, until I fished it out and passed it to a teammate so we could skate back to the middle for the face-off. Instead that teammate took off, thinking it was an attack, and the game continued with only me and a couple of others – no doubt, whoever scored the goal – saying: Huh? Worse, our guys got a goal at the other end, before Dave, the ref, asked me point blank: “Did that go in?” and I answered well, um, yes.

My teammates hated me for being the only witness for the goal, I could tell, but I wasn’t about to try and pull off a sporting robbery in 10 pm Dev League among friends and anyway, I’ve always been in the Adam Gilchrist camp of play sport as you play life, with honesty and honour. Sometimes, honesty is even better if you know you could have gotten away with something.

The Red Wings show how to properly celebrate a goal on the ice. Actually, they’re celebrating just winning a Stanley Cup a few years ago but, you know, same thing, right?

Don’t get me wrong; I don’t want to sound all lofty. I can be as big an arsehole as the next bloke (unless that bloke is Tony Abbott) and have done my share of dodgy acts. But when Dave asked me, straight up, did I see the puck in the net, I wasn’t going to lie. My coach on the night, Army, only half-heartedly berated me, and on the other bench, coach Lliam could be heard haranguing his players for not celebrating a goal to the point that the ref knew it was a goal.

Which brings a side note: we all remain very quiet on the ice. I’m always struck by how little our players yell at one another or try to get the energy up and communicate by voice. It’s like we’re in a maths exam, while earnestly skating around. Apart from at face offs, where you might find yourself opposed to a mate, on the black team, who you didn’t see, pre-game, so you smile, say hi, ask how their week was going, then smash into them, sticks flying, as the puck shoots towards you. I love hockey.

The good news is that the goal didn’t affect our red team winning, which rocked because I have yet to be on a losing team in five weeks of Dev League being organised into distinct, competing teams. I’m the talisman, if not particularly effective on the ice itself.

And if you think I’m being unnecessarily harsh on myself for last week, let me say this: I wasn’t particularly tired after two hours of hockey, and wasn’t sore the next day, which can only mean one thing: I didn’t go hard enough. I’m not writing this blog to bullshit myself. Most Thursdays I can hardly walk, in a great way. Hopefully, tomorrow night when we armour up, I can leave it all on the ice as I should.

I made it to a fair chunk of the Melbourne Ice action on Saturday and Sunday (two emphatic wins) between also attending my first-ever NRL game, watching the Melbourne Storm win, and heading along to the MCG with my oldest friend and his son, and Big Cat, to watch Richmond somehow beat Hawthorn by 10 goals. Plus we fitted in “This American Life” at the Cinema Nova – on again this weekend and really good, if there are any tickets left – and ate out several times and had Blood & Sand cocktails at Collingwoodworld, which is always a good thing, and got to the gym, and spent time with my girl and her son, and more. No wonder my novel isn’t getting written and I’m not getting time on skates or inlines to master backward crossovers.

Something I don’t know? How to fit all the elements and emotions of my life into, well, my life. I guess that’s a good problem to have, in a lot of ways. I’m not bored.

Filed Under: Ice hockey

Meme me …

May 23, 2012 by 1 Comment

Just saying …

Filed Under: Ice hockey

The 100th post. Blow the horn.

May 21, 2012 by 1 Comment

A recent highlight from 100 posts-worth of hockey life: Aimee Hough’s brilliant shortbread version of Rookie Nicko, number 17. (She made them of all the Rookies. It wasn’t creepy)

Well, holy crap. The century. Nickdoeshockey‘s 100th post.

I’m not sure it’s strictly good hockey form to wave your stick in the air like a cricket bat; to point it at your teammates in the dressing room.

But I’m going to do it anyway. Because I want to share this moment with you, and thank you for reading and celebrating this crazy ride.

It was on January 19, last year, that I logged my first post on this sketchy attempt at writing a personal diary of my looming hockey adventure.

“Let’s start with the pain,” I wrote.

With me landing badly in my first ever skating class, then being accidentally taken out by a Columbus fan and feeling proud that I’d taken one for the Red Wings.

Genuinely not sure if this blog would last more than two or three weeks if I copped a really bad injury.

And yet, here we are. Me still major-injury-free (touch a lot of wood), still chasing the puck and adventure, and my little project now recently clicked past 20,000 individual users, enjoying upwards of 150 individual readers every day, sometimes over 300, from Australia, the USA, Canada but also from Turkey, Brazil, Taiwan and three today so far from Albania.

I often wonder if these people have stumbled here, looking for “hockey player eaten by shark” or some other bizarre Google search? Or maybe hockey’s reach is as great as it should be, and somewhere in the United Arab Emirates (10 readers in the last seven days), a loyal Red Wings/Melbourne Ice fan is settling over coffee and a screen?

The biggest day so far was 1,126 readers – spookily on January 19, 2012 – even I didn’t realise that was the one-year anniversary until now, writing this – which was the day I had an article published in the Detroit News (no longer online) and the Motor City’ online community came calling. That entire episode remains the highlight of the 100 blogs, with a brilliant exchange of messages between my little Melbourne outpost and Hockeytown, as the Red Wings enjoyed a fools’ gold home-winning streak and we all celebrated everything great about Detroit, which is a spectacular city, no matter how faded and desperate outside of the creaky Joe Louis Arena.

The jury is very much out on whether I can get back to Detroit for the Winter Classic, scheduled for New Year’s Day, 2013, so the blog has mostly since been about everyday life and hockey. Intro classes have turned into Intermediate and then into Dev League and now the adventure creeps ever closer to joining an actual Summer League team and playing for real. I’m excited, really excited. Hopefully that comes through in these posts.

A guy called Patrick, taking umbrage at my “Violence of Vinnie Hughes” post a week ago, mentioned that this site was self-indulgent and well, yes, guilty as charged. Strangely, as the readership has increased, I’ve worked hard to hold onto that personal angle. It’s not only rampant ego as much as I don’t want nickdoeshockey to become just another online news or opinion site for the Melbourne Ice or the Red Wings. God knows, there are enough of those around and some spectacularly good ones (a big shout out to The Production Line, Winging It In Motown and Nightmare on Helm Street, for example).

I prefer to just keep doing what I started: a diary of my hockey adventure, with strands of life outside the rink creeping in. The whole thing came from two colliding moments: my friend, Richard laughing when I told him that I was planning to take up hockey, looking raised-eyebrow at my then-45-year-frame across a coffee table at Lorne and saying, with no room for argument: “You simply have to blog this.” Which hadn’t occurred to me, so thank you, Richard.

The second element was one of my favourite sayings: “Find the thing you like most in life and then let it kill you.” I kid you not, I silently repeat that line to myself often as I stalk towards the Henke Rink, in my armour and skates, wielding my stick. The Australian bushrangers had another way of saying it, in the 19th century: “Die with your boots on.” R.I.P. Ben Hall and Flash Johnny Gilbert, who lived, and died, under that banner.

Celebrating an Ice goal against the Mustangs last Thursday night. Pic: Alex McNab.

I am very aware that hockey has come to symbolise this as my wider approach to life. At my wake, whether it’s next week or in 40 years, I want everybody laughing, shaking their heads and toasting that Nicko Place had a genuine fucking crack at life. And yes, with columns for wins and losses.

Hockey does symbolise so much.

Like life, hockey is action, fear, philosophy, learning, “you know, science”, teamwork, camaraderie, set-backs, heart-break, pure joy, community and so much more.

I can’t believe that 16 months ago, the concept of me as a hockey player had such wet paint on it. How much I didn’t know. Reading that first post feels so long ago and yet, it really isn’t.

What does astonish me is how much has been packed into my life over that 16 months, on and off the ice. As well as my development as a player – from being literally unable to skate, to now playing dev league and feeling like a genuine, if still very green, potential Right Wing – life off the rink has been a rollercoaster.

In the time of the blog, I have travelled to the US (with my boys for the first time) to see Datsyuk. Lidstrom, Zetterberg, Helm and the rest of the Red Wings play live, even if they lost; been to Hogwarts in Florida; had my heart broken, bounce, stumble and soar; achieved a life dream by diving (twice) with the magnificent manta rays off Lady Elliot Island; kept my company afloat after dastardly treacherous bastardy by a major client; had a novel I’d been working on for many years accepted, and to be the first of a series, and moving me out of one genre with four published into a whole new crime-writing field; had friendships rise and fade; watched my beloved Tigers gradually but distinctly get better as a football team; seen Macklin, my youngest son, join Will (aka Kittens, aka Big Cat) and I on the ice as a player; met a French girl I’m trying to impress who laughs instead of sighs when I let hockey take over my life and return, creaking and sore. And God, so much more. That’s not even close to covering the dramas and emotion. Is every 16-month period like this in my life? I’d never tried to chart it before.

And then there’s life within the walls of the Icehouse. The world I’ve stumbled into and the people within that sphere.

Where do I even start? I’m not going to get all mushy. You can do that for me by indulging me in a simple test. Take a deep breath and think of all the fucking amazing people you have met through your involvement in hockey.

You might be in Minnesota or Melbourne. It doesn’t matter.

I’m not just talking about the Rookies, our self-titled band of ragged, diverse, wildly enthusiastic students who started at the Icehouse, under Lliam and Army’s tutelage last year and have soldiered on, through triumph, disaster, injuries, frustration and elation. I’m talking about Melbourne Ice fans, Red Wings fans, fans of every other team, my work-street-hockey puck-lunch partner, Alex, the amateur Chicago player who saved Will and I in a dodgy section of that town, the wise-cracking crew at the South Pole end of the Henke Rink on Ice match days, the friendly staff of the Harbourside Hotel, the ever-patient partners of the Rookies, and the Rookies crew who turned out in dodgy weather at Albert Park on Saturday to hit pucks together, off-ice. The list goes on and on. Even an inspired fan who riffs at an NHL game on my random thought: “Hockey Player eaten by shark.” (Click on the clip below. Trust me. You really want to.)

What a brilliant community and what an amazing sport.

Will this blog last another 100 posts? Who knows and who cares. Skate to where the puck will be, not to where the puck is, as Wayne Gretsky once said.

The 16-month journey just gone stands alone as one of the greatest times of my life. Thanks for sharing it with me; especially you, Big Cat.

And now let’s hit the ice for wherever this thing goes next.

Giddyup.

(Update: All of this made me think of the final Calvin & Hobbes cartoon when Bill Watterson retired. Dunno why but any time you get a chance to salute Calvin & Hobbes is a good moment. The boy and the tiger’s final stand, their philosophy, feels right for this moment …)

Calvin & Hobbes: the final cartoon. By Bill Watterson.

Filed Under: Ice hockey Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Backwards is the new forwards

May 11, 2012 by 2 Comments

Intermediate was fun this week. Lots of stick-handling and puck-moving drills.

The only nasty moment was when we had to practice backward-skating defending. This is a tough drill, because a forward takes a puck and skates as fast as they can along the boards. The struggling defender (let’s call him, say … “Nicko”) has to attempt to backward skate at the same pace from well inside the defensive blueline to the red line at the centre of the rink before he can pivot and try to back-check/stop the attacker from having a shot at goal.

For people who are really good at backward skating, the drill is an exercise in closing down the angles, and forcing the forward into the boards, or at least contesting the puck head-to-head. For someone like me, it’s an exercise in just trying to skate backwards as fast as you can, while watching somebody coming at – and usually past you.

Luckily, this is okay because I’ve had a revelation over the past few weeks. I’ve realized that while I may still be crap at certain skills, I’m a lot less daunted by them.

In my first time around at Intermediate, late last year, I can remember feeling something approaching dread when certain drills were announced.

“Oh God, not pivots/transitions/backward skating,” the little voice in my head would sigh. I would always have an honest crack, but I knew I was going to fail, and badly, before I began, because I simply wasn’t good enough on my skates to even attempt some of the moves. It’s why I spent the summer trying to just get better at skating.

Thomas Tatar versus all of America, at the world championships.

And you know what? I’m no genius, but that plan might have worked.

Backward crossovers remain a mystery to me, and transitions are still very hard, but I’m much more willing now to actually try them. I feel like I have a better sense of where my feet are supposed to be and what my legs should be doing, where my weight should be, even if I can’t always make it happen in reality.

So, this week’s backward skating drill was in this category.

OK, yes, I suck at backwards skating. It’s a difficult thing to work on in the hurly burly of a General Skating session – I watched a fellow rookie (no need to name names) smash a poor little girl while practicing backward crossovers on Tuesday night … nice work, Alex McNab, you thug – or a stick & puck, where you wobble into the path of good skaters. I really need to get on my inline skates more, for backward work). On Wednesday, I almost battled a puck away from a decent forward skater at one point. Mostly I just tried to build actual speed while pushing backward. Shrug. The journey continues, and for the most part, over the past fortnight, I’ve caught myself grinning between drills from the sheer fun of being on the ice. A journo mate of mine, Fairfax sports writer Will Brodie, wrote a great piece this week about his childhood playing hockey, and the rise of the sport in Australia (look at the old pics of Blackhawks junior teams – gold), and I think Will nailed it with these paragraphs:

Most people who play hockey will tell you that it’s the most invigorating game they have ever played, and don’t ever doubt them. Most sports fans who see a game say they will be back.
For sheer sensation, its hard to beat – with only ten players (plus the two goalies) it has the intimate involvement you get from basketball, but there is contact, so eluding an opponent is everything (the Canadian word for baulk is to ‘deke’), and in the confines of a rink, if you can deke a defender ‘out of his jockstraps’, you can set up a goal-scoring opportunity. The puck feels just the right weight, an ideal object, and your stick is totemic – part pet, part tool. A play where two or three passes combine to set up a shot is an enacted purity of satisfaction.
As a spectator sport, it is hard to beat. Fast-paced, aggressive, but played in a compact arena, you can sense the options available to a player at the same time as he is executing his choice. In hockey there is less of a gap between the thought and action, and between rushes of potential drama, than in almost any game.

Amen.

Dev league was also fun this week, although Kittens, Morgan and I had to share our line with other skaters, meaning we all had to miss occasional shifts. This sucked, because it meant we never felt like we had a settled line (it’s amazing how quickly you come to want that) and, worse, it meant sitting out shifts, when we already had to wait three shifts for our line to come around again.

Alex McNab laughs after killing another defenceless child.

I want to be out there every shift, or at least every second, so it was difficult to sit patiently, watching the game, cooling skated heels.

But that whinge aside, it was a fun session. I did a few good things, including a couple of shots at goal, had some battles for the puck, and enjoyed a couple of times where I controlled a puck in dangerous climes inside our defensive blue line, turned and delivered measured passes to the sticks of teammates.

We’re all getting a lot better at holding our correct positions, especially with Lliam’s coaching from the bench, which remains entertaining, given his penchant for hurling waterbottles at the ref. He also takes the time to preach position to us; where you should be at all times. This can be a mystery in the swirl of a hockey game. Check out the picture above, from the current world championships, where Red Wings prospect Thomas Tatar appears to be taking on the entire USA team on his own. But there are actually systems at play, zones a wing should cover, as opposed to the centre or a D. Lliam is working hard to make us understand our jobs, and I’m drinking the knowledge.

That aside, I think the most pressing, truly urgent issue coming out of Wednesday nights is how I survive Thursdays, when I’m exhausted after so little sleep.

I can’t sleep before 1.30-2 am, post hockey, and the get-a-kid-to-school hack can start at 6.30 am. I was a fucking zombie yesterday. Perhaps I just need to be a hockey player and harden up?

Filed Under: Ice hockey Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Mullets, Tigers, scattered Wings and future dreaming

May 7, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Pavel Datsyuk enjoys his off-season, getting maybe a touch careless with a high stick while playing for Russia. Pic: Gettys/Detroit Free Press.

There’s a fundamental difference between supporting the Detroit Red Wings in the National Hockey League and barracking for the Richmond Tigers in the Australian Football League. And it goes way beyond the teams’ dramatically different (but both way cool) colour schemes.

Detroit is all about winning, where any year that doesn’t bring a Stanley Cup is met with blinks of disbelief and then the disgruntled shaking of collective heads, by management, players and fans.

Richmond used to be like that, in the 1960s and 70s, but over the past 30 years has sunk so that expectations are much, much lower. Put it this way, Richmond has made the finals twice since 1982, while Detroit has made the play-offs in 26 out of the last 28 seasons, including a ridiculous 21 years in a row, including the season just completed.

Right now, all is quiet in Detroit, as a result of the Wings being uncharacteristically bundled out of the first round of those 21st-straight play-offs by the uppity Predators; Nashville out-winging the Wings by being hard and tough and skilful and uncompromising and just frickin’ wanting it more. My guys looked slow and flat and out-psyched and out-muscled. Yes, I am still steaming about Weber’s Ultimate Fighting head-slam of Hank Zetterberg but – deep breath – it’s now history.

Talk has turned to whether the Wings can snare a big name Unrestricted Free Agent in June, and whether any of our very promising draft picks can make the next one, two or three steps to move out of the minors, into the Wings roster and then into serious Stanley Cup-contending form?

In my opinion, we need to pay attention to hair. Last summer, the Wings drafted a big-bodied defenceman with a ranga-afro, Mike Commodore. Wings fans tried to love him, even after he refused to wear the number 64 in honour of the old video console, but then he was in and out of the Wings line-up and eventually traded for not much more than a couple of free beers and maybe a book shop voucher and is now plying his trade with Tampa Bay. (Big Cat Place remains as filthy about this as I am about the Weber hit on Zee. We’ve had a lot to seethe about lately.)

The Tigers also badly needed a big body after the 2011 season and got one in Ivan Maric, a ruckman with the best mullet hairstyle going around in football and maybe in sport.

Big Ivan Maric: bringing mullety goodness to the Tigers. Pic: The Age.

In fact, after Ivan dominated (46 hit outs in the ruck, 20 possessions) yesterday’s game against Port, which the Tigers won, the Richmond coach, Damien Hardwick, was moved to say: “He (Ivan) still has some areas he can work on, mainly his hair, but other than that we move on. He seems to be getting better the longer the mullet.”

Of the Wings stars, an early start to summer has meant a chance to compete in the IIHF World Hockey Championships, Division 1. This is the main stage of the world titles that Australia recently competed in. Zetterberg, Franzen, Ericsson, Filppula, and even prospect Tomas Tatar are all among those playing. The Wings’ goalie, Jimmy Howard, made 40-odd saves as the USA beat Canada, so at least he’s hit top form a month too late.

Pavel Datsyuk is playing for Russia, and seems to be enjoying not being in official NHL competition and therefore not having to worry about trying to win the Lady Byng, the NHL sportsmanship award. At least if the picture above is any indication. He scored Russia’s first goal and they won …

All I care about is that Datsyuk, Zee and the rest have months to gear up for the 2012-2013 NHL season. Hopefully he’s joined in September’s training camp by a few of our better prospects who surprise everybody by being fitter, stronger, bigger and hungry, ready to be genuine NHL stars. Plus a big name or two from free agency, to add extra two-way grunt up forward. And ideally even Nik Lidstrom, fit and eager for at least one more brilliant season in D.

They Wings gather in September for training camp. By then, I will have spent an Australian winter belting up and down the ice at the Icehouse and Oakleigh, getting ready to join the Rookies, my very first actual team, in summer league competition. Plus I hopefully will have watched big Ivan and the Tigers continue to build into something resembling a genuine finals prospect over the next couple of years.

Is that too much to ask?*

* Don’t answer, re Richmond. I know the answer is almost certainly yes.

 

UPDATE: Ivan Maric wallpaper now available. Respect the Mullet! … click here.

Filed Under: Ice hockey Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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