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A Reality Check, in more ways than one.

July 17, 2015 by Leave a Comment

This has been a little slow coming because I got distracted by manta rays and sharks, and then by coughing my lungs up for a few weeks. But in the middle of all that, on a remote island way off the coast of Queensland with no WIFI, I had the time and space to finally finish reading Will Brodie’s excellent book, Reality Check.

Will recently wrote for this blog about his two-phase hockey life, and, as you’d probably expect from a long-time mainstream newspaper and online journalist, the guy can really write. His regular AIHL reporting over the past few years was a huge, possibly under-recognised boon for the sport and is sadly missed since he quit Fairfax.

Reality Check, by Will Brodie

Reality Check, by Will Brodie

But his best work was yet to come. Last season, he followed the two Melbourne teams as they navigated their way through the trials, highs and lows of an AIHL season. He lucked out in the sense that the Mustangs came of age, eventually winning the Goodall Cup  over, guess who, the Melbourne Ice (and yes, I realise that is potentially a massive spoiler but then again, if you’re an Australian hockey fan and didn’t know that, then you’ve been off the map in ways I can’t help you with).

So Will got a good yarn, as Melbourne’s fierce-but-sort-of friendly rival teams duked it out all the way to the grand final at the Icehouse, but it’s the wider story and the wider characters of Reality Check that stayed with me. Will’s long history in the sport means he was able to really tap into the people who have kept hockey going in this country for years. Yet he also brought fresh eyes, making him an unlikely and invaluable chronicler. He was able to have detailed, knowledgeable conversations with everybody from new fans to the game, happily getting pissed pre or post-game, through to club presidents and imports, in every hockey-playing city and town in the country. Will sat in team mini-vans, sat up late with coaches and traveled to every AIHL rink and explored the nooks, crannies and idiosyncrasies of those diverse locations. All while throwing in lines like the one about a venue being so cold it offered warnings of future arthritis in his bones.

It all made for a cracking read, and I found myself emerging with three major takeouts:

  1. We need more rinks. A lot of people have been saying this for a long time but Reality Check emphasises the point over and over again. Hockey has enjoyed a huge surge in popularity over the past five years or so, in terms of AIHL fan numbers but maybe even more so in terms of newbies taking up the sport (like the guy typing these words, for example). Already, there is a crush of new players on waiting lists to play the looming IHV summer season that starts in September or so. Winter lists in Melbourne are pretty much full. Throw in training times, for clubs from the lowest social hockey levels to AIHL sessions, Next Level classes at Oakleigh, and Hockey Academy classes at the Icehouse (both at or near capacity), drop-in, and stick-n-pucks or skating sessions, and Melbourne’s two hockey rinks are loaded beyond capacity. I haven’t even mentioned speed skaters, figure skaters or other groups who also want the ice.
    Everybody knows the lack of rinks is an issue – and across Australia, not just Melbourne. There are endless plans, endless rumours of new rinks being developed, waiting for council approval, waiting for finance … but I remain worried that by the time new ice actually happens, if it does, all those wildly enthusiastic new players currently flooding the sport will have drifted away, frustrated by their inability to join a team and play. (Or by the secondary, related problem: that because two rinks can only host so many teams and therefore so many levels of competition, wildly varied levels of skill end up in the same divisions, leading to less-accomplished players feeling overwhelmed by playing hockey against skaters who should really be a division or two higher, if only there was room.)
  2. God, there’s a lot of love behind the momentum of an amateur sport like ice hockey. Time and again, through Will’s book, I was struck by the sheer commitment and dedication and hours of work being poured into the sport by people who have kids, real jobs, need sleep, have other things they could be doing. Again, just by kicking around Victorian hockey at the low level I do, I’m aware of how much work is required and is done by friends who are on committees, or within club management teams, or chasing sponsors, or scoring games, or doing the million other jobs. It’s really humbling and those of us who are not devoting themselves to helping hockey grow in such a grassroots, practical, time-consuming way, should at the very least take a moment to respect those who are. I know I do, and even more so after reading Will’s book, with his eye for those toiling glory-free behind the scenes. In fact, next time there’s a petty squabble about whatever the tempest of the moment is, wouldn’t it be cool if everybody could step back and consider how many unpaid hours the person they’re attacking, or who is attacking them, has put in? Breathe, respect one another, sort out whatever the issue of the moment is. And move on, brothers and sisters in hockey
    … (I know, I know: us idealists have no clue.)
  3. Us Newbies should remember we are Newbies. I’ve been around local hockey since 2010, having ‘discovered’ hockey, through somehow tuning into the Detroit Red Wings, in 2008. It feels like a long time, but it really isn’t. I feel like I know a lot of people in the community now and feel blessed that I happened to start this blog, on January 19, 2011, by chance at the exact moment a whole bunch of others were also discovering AIHL competition and the then fairly new Icehouse facility. Just as the early classes run by Army, Lliam, Tommy and co were taking off. And just as the Ice went on its three-peat run, the grandstands swelling, and the Mustangs arrived. And just as Next Level Hockey was gaining momentum at about the same time. Watching some of the rookies I started with kick on, even now making it to the AIHL rosters.

    The Melbourne Ice players salute the fans after a recent win at the Icehouse. Pic: Nicko

    The Melbourne Ice players salute the fans after a recent win at the Icehouse. Pic: Nicko

I feel like I’ve seen it all but reading Reality Check, I was struck by how people like me are still newcomers to the ranks. There are many people in Australian hockey who have invested decades into the sport they love. In Nite Owls competition, I once had the joy of skating with a bloke who captained Australia’s hockey team 50 years ago, and is still out there, on a Sunday night, effortlessly gliding past a flailing hack like me. But there are also so many others, such as, in my immediate orbit, the Webster family, driving the Ice team and club, on the ice and off, and the Hughes brothers, with their Oakleigh dream and Joey’s intensity and passion that inspires so many rising players, from L-platers to accomplished skaters. Next Level has evolved to the point of having its ‘Next Generation’ program, with a lot of thought and structure behind it. Meanwhile, at the Icehouse, the classes have become more and more sophisticated so that academy students can work specifically on high level skating skills or puck-handling, or game play, or pure shooting. It’s really exciting and it’s impressive, and it all happens because of the long-term and tireless commitment of actually only a few people. Will’s book did a brilliant job of shaking so many of these decades-of-service servants of the game into the spotlight for a brief moment, while never also losing sight of the fact that the sport needs to embrace the new arrivals, the fresh-thinkers, the left-field recent converts who might just take the sport to places it hasn’t been.
This has been a rambling piece. The only point of this particular blog is to add my voice to Will Brodie’s and salute the people who have made our sport rise in Australia and are now working equally hard to accommodate the growing numbers and logistical nightmares of its popularity.
And to say to Will, congrats: he has written one of the best hockey books you or I will ever read, and tied up in a bow everything that is great and worrying and awesome and frustrating about chasing a puck across a block of ice half a world away from the hockey heartlands.
If you haven’t bought Reality Check and read it, I really recommend that you do.

 

 

 

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The ruthless bastard.

September 16, 2013 by Leave a Comment

One thing you have to understand if you’re going to play or even follow sport: it’s a prick.  It’s a heartless bastard. It’s ruthless and it’s probably going to break you, without conscience or regret.

For all the glorious moments, for all the wins, for all the friendships made and other highlights, you are going to be smashed. More than once.

Of course, this is also true of life – illnesses like cancer are random, and this morning I saw a cyclist get hit by a car outside my new house. That guy’s life just changed dramatically in a fraction of a second. But things like that are not to be dwelt on. You’d never leave your bedroom. All we can do is live life assuming we’ve got lots of life to live.

Shattered: Ice stars like Jason Baclig couldn't stop a semi turning to shit.

Shattered: Ice stars like Jason Baclig couldn’t stop a semi turning to shit.

Sport shines a light on this brutality of life, but thankfully in a way that isn’t often truly life and death. Yet the brutality remains: Melbourne Ice watching the fourpeat disappear in the puff of smoke that was a needless five minute major penalty, blowing an otherwise tight semi-final; Richmond being run over by Carlton the next day at the MCG, freezing as the nightmare unfolded in front of 94,000 people; all the AFL list players who will be called into a footy manager’s office over the next few days and told their dream is over, full stop. Or the failure can be a slow, frustrating, helpless fall. As a player gets a 50-50 chance ahead of you, and never looks back. Or you suffer a hamstring twinge in a crucial final. A puck or ball bounces this way, not that, changing everything. Or a thousand other things.

The Red Wings’ Dan Cleary rejected a pay rise offer from Detroit several weeks ago, and the Wings made a call that they couldn’t afford to pay him more. So they instead chased and won the services of a couple of other A-list players, Stephen Weiss and Daniel Alfredsson, eating up the cash set aside for Cleary. His agent got to work and Cleary pretty much had a handshake deal for $8 million over three seasons with the Flyers, much better than the Wings had offered, assuming he brained them at the Flyers’ training camp. But he never got there. Cleary loved being a Wing so much, he couldn’t go. He headed instead to where the Wings were gathering, at Traverse City, and begged the Wings management for a deal, any deal. He’s signed on less than $2 million, a hefty pay cut, just to be a Wing. He’s even going to have to wear No. 71 instead of his old No. 11, just to be a Wing.

Dan Cleary: battling fate, to be a Wing.

Dan Cleary: battling to be a Wing.

Which is great news for him* but bad news for the other forwards also trying to make the team. The Wings now have 17 players jostling for 14 forward spots, including sublime young talents like Gustav Nyquist and role-players like Jordin Tootoo and three won’t make it. They all deserve to, for different reasons. But three won’t be there.

Because, see, sport doesn’t believe in the word ‘deserve’.

I was talking to a guy at the Icehouse who has been on the border of making AIHL teams for several seasons. He’s so close, so so close, but hasn’t yet made it. He totally deserves a chance, but he might not get one. Because, if you remember, sport doesn’t believe in the world ‘deserve’. Unexpectedly, given my lowly standing in my chosen sport, I found myself turning into Old Father Time and pulled on my old sports journo hat while we were chatting. Because I’d seen it before in lots of team sports (AFL, cricket, field hockey, for starters). Some make it. Others don’t. It’s up to you, I said. Nobody cares if you make a team, apart from you. It’s harsh but it’s true: you’re the only one who truly, desperately cares.

So do the work to make a team. Or don’t.

This is something I know a bit about: it’s something that is also true in my novelist life. The one piece of advice I have repeatedly given aspiring novelists is this: the world doesn’t give a shit if they write a novel. Including me.

I don’t care.

I know … inspiring, huh?

But it’s true, and I am not immune from it. The world does not care if I write another novel.

Or if JK Rowling never writes again.

Or (insert the name of any author, or wannabe author, anywhere).

Plenty of people are writing manuscripts. Books will emerge. Will one of them be a Nick Place novel? Shit, I hope so but really, who cares apart from me? If I wasn’t writing novels, I’d have more social time, more time for my partner and kids, more time to concentrate on the job that actually pays me, more time for hockey training … I’ve had five novels published in 10 years. That’s pretty good going. The world owes me nothing.

But if I hadn’t had any books published in the last decade, so what? The world doesn’t care about that either. I have good friends who have written fantastic manuscripts that never found a publisher. I’ve read them and they absolutely deserved to get published. But didn’t.

That’s the way it is, and I’m ok with that.

Here’s the fact: I’m the only person in the world who truly cares if I write a sequel to ‘Roll With It’ – currently available in all good bookshops and online 😉

My publishers no doubt have many writers throwing crime manuscripts at them and I’m sure many are decent. They’ll be fine. People who read my book and liked it are not exactly lying awake at night, sweating on whether book two of ‘Rocket’ Laver’s adventures will ever show up. If it doesn’t, the world keeps turning.

Gustav Nyquist: deserves to be a Red Wing. Absolutely. But will he be?

Gustav Nyquist: deserves to be a Red Wing. Absolutely. But will he be?

As I said, my kids and partner know how much I love being published, but it’s only me who truly cares, bone-deep, to my soul, whether I can keep writing novels. And even when I finish the latest manuscript, it might not get published. No guarantees.

All I can do is write. Write the best manuscript I possibly can and then present it to the publishers or to the world. Do very single thing I can to make it a book worthy of seeing a bookshelf.

And so it is for the guy on the brink of an AIHL team. It’s entirely in his hands what happens from here, until he can’t control it, if that makes sense.

He can sit and wonder if a club will take a chance on him in 2014, even though they didn’t in 2013. Or he can work his arse off, and make it bloody hard for them not to pick him, just because he has gotten that much better.

It’s very pure, when you look at success or failure like this. Your job is extremely straightforward: do whatever you can to rock the world.

Way way way down the hockey food chain, a bunch of us are sweating and straining and trying to get better as summer season looms. Are you going to be competitive? Do you want to play? Do you want to earn a spot on the first line?

(To repeat: nobody actually cares whether you’re on the team, or on the first line. Except you.)

Personally, I’m loving being back in a team environment, this time as a Brave.

I had, before heading to France, been strangely flat about the looming season. I put it down to being depressed about the way things went down at the Jets, but I think that was only part of it. I finished last summer believing absolutely that I would skate like a maniac all winter, do power skating classes, get better, much better. Really learn to skate. And hit the 13-14  summer as a more lethal, genuinely competitive player.

Instead, my stupid knee flatlined me, as endlessly documented on this blog (which should be called nickdoeskneepain.com), so that I only now feel like I’m even vaguely getting back to being able to skate at full pace. I lost my window, while I nursed and nursed this left knee joint, which nobody can diagnose, let alone fix.

But does sport care? No, no, it doesn’t.

Did I deserve a better winter? By now, you know the answer.

I’m getting on with it. I’m skating. I even played footy for the first time in nine months on Sunday, welcomed back by my Bang brothers, and surviving my first kicks.

I’m going to be ready for summer and I’m going to enjoy my hockey again, with a fun team and the right attitude for a social competition.

And I’m going to finish a manuscript that simply cannot not be published.

Do the literary gods care if that happens? Nope.

Do the sporting gods care if that happens? Nope.

Do I care? Oh Hells, yeah.

So watch me go.

( * btw, I’m happy Dan Cleary is still at Detroit, in case it read differently. He was a really solid player last season, especially in the playoffs, and how can you not love a player who wants to play for the jersey like that?)

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

Channeling the Geebung

May 2, 2013 by 2 Comments

One of my favourite Australian writers ever is Andrew ‘Banjo’ Paterson, and probably my favourite of his poems is ‘The Geebung Polo Club‘. I used to be able to recite it by heart and even now I can get chunks of it. The first stanza goes a little something like this:

It was somewhere up the country in a land of rock and scrub,
That they formed an institution called the Geebung Polo Club.
They were long and wiry natives of the rugged mountainside,
And the horse was never saddled that the Geebungs couldn’t ride;
But their style of playing polo was irregular and rash
– They had mighty little science, but a mighty lot of dash:
And they played on mountain ponies that were muscular and strong,
Though their coats were quite unpolished, and their manes and tails were long.
And they used to train those ponies wheeling cattle in the scrub:
They were demons, were the members of the Geebung Polo Club.

It’s sounding familiar already, if you’ve watched Wednesday night dev league this term, especially the lawless 10 pm session.

The poem goes on to recount what happens when the wild Geebung bush boys and the gentile Cuff and Collar team from the city finally go at it in a landmark polo match:

Now my readers can imagine how the contest ebbed and flowed,
When the Geebung boys got going it was time to clear the road;
And the game was so terrific that ere half the time was gone
A spectator’s leg was broken – just from merely looking on.
For they waddied one another till the plain was strewn with dead,
While the score was kept so even that they neither got ahead.
And the Cuff and Collar captain, when he tumbled off to die,
Was the last surviving player – so the game was called a tie.

Artist FJ (John) Beeman's depiction of the Geebung v Cuff & Collar showdown.

Artist FJ (John) Beeman’s depiction of the Geebung v Cuff & Collar showdown.

Yep, there can be no doubt. The Banjo, way back in 1893, was channeling the Icehouse on a Wednesday night. You only have to look at me, hobbling a little as I go about my desk job today, the shameful opposite of Clancy of the Overflow. Last night, I got a nasty whack to my good knee (yes, I now think of my right knee as my ‘good’ knee, which is a worry in itself), and my right arm and lower back and neck are all sore.

I’m not complaining; not at all. But man, dev league has stepped up this term, with regard to intensity and danger.

The knee got bruised in Game 1, when an opponent lost an edge and crashed into me, just as I was pulling up after a whistle and therefore was relaxed, unprotected. Thank the Gods of hockey for armour. I was suddenly taken out and hit the boards, a metre or so away, in an uncontrolled fall, which is how I have seen fellow students break collarbones. So I accepted a sore knee, gladly, and kept skating. The guy who had accidentally taken me out was genuinely apologetic, too, which was nice.

But as I said, it’s second dev league (the 10 pm class) that has become really willing. Pretty much everybody out there has done quite a few rounds of dev, and played summer or winter hockey, so we all know what we’re doing enough that the coaches don’t really bother to coach us much. I’ve suggested to Matt Armstrong that he should stop calling it development league and instead call it: ‘Army’s Happy Scrimmage Club’.

Lliam Webster and Tommy Powell turned up last night, as bench coaches, back from the world championships in Croatia, and yelled constructive abuse as we battled up and down the rink, but there were still far too many hits than there should be in a learning game, not to mention blatant tripping and other atrocities. Nobody was playing dirty hockey; just intense – and I was as guilty as anybody, accidentally tripping someone, and also forcing a huge front-on collision while skating fast to defend, when my opponent didn’t veer as I’d expected. A game of chicken on ice gone wrong. We both went down hard and my chin is still sore where my helmet dug in on impact. Thank the Gods of hockey for armour.

Welcome to your home ice, Mustangs ... (see below)

Welcome to your home ice, Mustangs … (see below)

So I’m creaking around today but feeling alive. Had a shot somehow hit both posts and not go in. Screwed up a penalty shot, to Lliam’s well-vocalised dismay. Inexplicably skated like somebody who hadn’t been on skates for three months, although I’d played for the Nite Owls on Sunday in a 5-0 win that had one of my veteran teammates shake hands with me afterwards, saying: ‘Well done, lad.’ Lad! Another Owl giving me skating advice that, while completely well intentioned, might have resulted in last night’s proppiness, as I found myself doubting my stride, how I move. Or maybe I just shouldn’t eat a large burrito before playing? Something wasn’t right. I wish I had time for a general skate between now and Sunday night’s game to regain my legs. Ah well. The learning curve continues. Endlessly continues.

And, as a final note, I did have a win last night which means I’m travelling better than my beloved Wings who suffered a probably inevitable emotional letdown, after such a brilliant run to sneak into the play-offs, and lost Game 1 to Anaheim yesterday. Gotta bounce back in Game 2 tomorrow, or it could be over as fast as it began.

And I’m also going better than the poor Melbourne Mustangs, who have training tonight at the Henke Rink and will be greeted by giant, larger-than-life posters of every Melbourne Ice player, lining the rink. Having the three massive scrolls celebrating the Ice’s three-peat AIHL triumphs wasn’t enough, apparently. The Ice player posters look seriously impressive, but I’d hate to be a Mustang skating onto the rink tonight. All the Icehouse needs is a tiny sign, to the right of the last poster, saying in small letters: ‘The Mustangs play here too.”

It’s lucky the gee-gees have such a cool horsey mascot. They’ll be fine.

Life-size Lliam Webster with a larger than life Lliam Webster, and friends.

Life-size Lliam Webster with a larger than life Lliam Webster, and friends.

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

I heart hockey because …

August 9, 2012 by 11 Comments

By Nicko

From the past few weeks, in no particular order:

1. Tonight (Thursday night) at the Icehouse. Mustangs v Ice (Mustangs home game). A few rookies somehow get hold of the “Spotlight Room”, AKA the VIP Balcony. Hilarity ensues.

The Four Horsemen of the Mustang Apocalypse. Full respect.

Mostly, we’re in awe when we look down and see four Mustangs fans wearing their jersey with the names: “War”, “Death”, “Pestilence” and “Famine”.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Rookies unite in a gasp of Whoaaaaaaaa!

A little later, I wander into the bar and chat with a Mustangs fan who is also a Red Wing. He’s impressed by my prized signed Lidstrom jersey. It’s only when I go down for a coffee later in the second period that I see him again, glass-side,and realise I had been chatting with Death.

So I chat with Death some more. He explains that they’d wanted to get “Ice Suck” as their names on the back of the jerseys but the Mustangs president had frowned and shifted in his seat and said no, we don’t want to offend the Ice. Death and I agree, in hockey parlance, that’s kind of soft.

Anyway, there were four of them wanting jerseys, somebody had the brilliant idea … the Mustangs president frowned, shifted in his seat … “I’m not sure we can put ‘Death’ as the name on a Mustangs jersey …”

Thankfully, he lost the argument and the horsemen ride. Respect.

Just then, a Mustang rush happens right in front of us, the puck beating Denman and finding the top corner.

The orange fans go wild and I learn another valuable life lesson: Never chat to Death mid-game. It can only go badly for your team.

I go back to the balcony and the Ice dominate from that moment. Lliam scores a couple of scorching goals. Army drives home a bullet. Jason Baclig is back from injury and firing. 6-1 to my team.

Death and I shake hands after the buzzer. War stops by to say hello. We head our separate ways into the night. I love Thursday evening AIHL games.

 

2.    Oakleigh rink. A Friday night. Freezing, foggy, dilapidated, wonderful. Intermediate class in full swing, apart from me, still on the Ice from intro. Alongside me, Martin Kutek, Melbourne Ice defender, is sliding across the Oakleigh ice with both arms outstretched, pretending he’s an aeroplane … the idea being to lean your body and find an outside edge. This is my homework … I’m four years old again. I love it.

 3. A Wednesday at the Icehouse. I’m skating along, in the Intermediate warm-up, tapping a puck along.

Rookies invade the balcony for the Mustangs game.

Suddenly, my puck is gone. Ice star Lliam Webster has magically appeared to my right, controlling a puck.

The following exchange takes place:
Lliam: “What happened to your puck, huh? What happened to your puck?”
Me: “What happened to your face?”

Do AFL stars coach midweek and have exchanges like that? I doubt it. I’m five years old again. I love it.

4. Dev League and I’m gliding through the defensive blue line, concentrating hard, past the opposition bench. My legs are splayed apart, camped on my inside edges: my bloody annoying bad habit when gliding.

On the opposition bench, a player who shall remain nameless goes to yell: “Hey Place, my girlfriend can’t spread her legs that wide!”

But then decides such a sledge would be uncouth, and not befitting the noble, fine game of hockey where nobody ever cusses or cracks an inappropriate joke.

Plus his girlfriend, Tamara Bird, would kill him if she found out.

We’re teenagers again. I love it.

5. Watching the film, “Goon”. Crazy violent but funny.

Goon: crude but funny.

One scene:

Film’s hero gets called into the manager’s office.
The manager: “My brother has a team up in Halifax …”

(Jump cut to:)
A hockey locker-room, post game, with a bunch of bedraggled looking hockey players sitting around. In the middle of the floor stands a manager, hands on hips. Angry.
Halifax manager: “You know why you’re losing? BECAUSE YOU’RE SHIT!”

(Jump cut back to the manager’s office.)
The manager (still talking): “…Anyway, he has this player …”

“You now why you’re losing …?” becomes an instant catchcry in the Place household, right alongside “I’m so sorry I broke your rule, giant bat.”

6. Dev League. A backhand shot of mine finds its way through a forest of sticks and legs and skates, pings off the inside of the goalpost, Nate the keeper unsighted and beaten. Stays out. So close.

Later, the puck is at my feet and the goal is half a metre away but there’s no way through the sticks and Nate’s padding. So close.

Later, Big Cat pings a hard shot at a gap, it rebounds, I’m there but my shot catches a deflection and ends in the side netting of the goal. So close.

We lose by a goal.

7. The Red Wings yet again prove themselves a team to love by officially signing draft pick Tomas Jurco to an entry level three-year contract, which means he will play in the feeder team, Grand Rapids, this season, and is a strong chance to make his debut for Detroit.

Big Cat and I have been following Jurco since he was a kid and his mad skills showed up on youTube way before he was drafted by Detroit. Big Cat was slightly deflated when he discovered there is only one day in age difference between them. Jurco, having been playing for a little longer than my boy, can do things like this:

8. A puck spills loose down the boards. Miraculously I am closest to it, defenders all going the wrong way. I turn, I skate hard, I almost get the shot at goal in before I’m mown down by faster skaters, back-checking.

How not to skate: Flatfoot Place strikes again – this is an extreme example of the bad habit I am working desperately to break. (Slowly getting there. Slowly)

I curse. It sits with me. In the rooms, a teammate says breezily: “You need to learn to skate faster.”

I take deep breaths. This is something I am aware of.

I get home by midnight and, as usual, can’t sleep before about 2 am. Something is gnawing at me but won’t quite come to front of lobe.

In the morning, I wake and it is there: In starting that breakaway, chasing the loose puck, I didn’t crossover or attempt a tight turn. No, I  turned, slowly, creakily, on both feet. I didn’t put a foot forward for a fast outside edge turn, or crossover to grab speed as I turned and chased the puck. I lost metres in that lack of manoeuvring, right at the start of my attack.

In class, or general skates, I can now mostly do crossovers, and tight turns, especially anti-clockwise.

But they’re still not instinctive, and that’s a problem.

Eyes only for an escaped puck and a free run to the goalie, these moves do not happen, are not my muscle-memory way to grab the speed I need. Or short steps, or whatever else would have helped.

A good realisation. Something I can work on. Interesting. Notes to self …

9. It’s now late on a Thursday night and the hockey week isn’t even close to over. Tomorrow night is NLHA training at Oakleigh; direct, meaningful drills and maybe a little philosophy with Joey Hughes. Then an Ice game on Saturday. (And one on Sunday, but I have footy.)

And so my hockey world continues to spin in its orbit. What’s not to like?

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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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