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Overwhelming … in a great way

January 20, 2012 by 12 Comments

Since my article appeared on the Detroit News website about 36 hours ago, I’ve been truly overwhelmed by the warmth and kinship flowing from Wings fans and Detroit people all over the world. The blog alone has had close to 2000 individual views in two days (not exactly espn figures but consider that a good day previously was maybe 50 views. Previous record: 198 – when I accidentally upset fans of the Gold Coast ice hockey team here in Australia. Yesterday: 1006 views. Hello Detroit!).

It’s been so powerful that my attempt to individually answer every comment has become difficult – especially with a real job and travelling north today and other pesky real world considerations.

I will try to write back to you, if I get a moment, but can’t promise. Trust that I am reading every message and smiling from ear-to-ear.

This has been the greatest experience. It’s like hooking into the mainframe of Wings Passion. From this far away, in this far-flung Wings outpost, that’s quite a heady experience. I feel very honoured.

So thank you, Detroit locals, and Detroit people who have moved but still see themselves through and through as Detroit, and all those Wings fans of every flavour and nationality.

Don’t stop believin’ and, even more importantly, respect the octopus!

Nicko

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Remembering Detroit

January 19, 2012 by 30 Comments

Us at the Joe Louis Arena.

Yesterday’s ‘Enrolmentgate’ (which led to a very entertaining 400 comments between the hockey rookies on Facebook) has been followed by the publication of a piece I wrote for the Detroit News (Now off line: SEE BELOW), explaining that my boys and I were personally responsible for the Red Wings’ now franchise-best ever home winning streak.

Believe it or not, the team has not lost a single game at the Joe Louis Arena since we left Detroit – and oh man, that was so long ago.

The response to the piece, reprinted at the end of this post, has been fantastic – and it hasn’t even been printed yet; this is just the online version. An out-pouring of enthusiasm and sympathy and humour from Detroit people and Wings fans, celebrating our trip and laughing at the story.

It took me right back to the warmth of the locals when we were in Detroit itself, in late October and early November last year. Starting with the taxi driver who picked us up from what is now Detroit’s main station (basically the equivalent of any old suburban station – because Detroit’s once-magnificent Grand Central Station is rotting away (the first picture of this still astonishing photo essay by two French photograhers), like so many other landmark buildings in that city. The driver laughed a wheezing laugh at these Australian hockey fans all wide-eyed as we drove past Comerica Park, home of the Detroit Tigers, and the Hockeytown Cafe, which is more or less the equivalent of a Hard Rock cafe exclusively for Wings fans. He started pointing out the landmarks, dropped us at the best door of the MotorCity Casino for all our copious amounts of luggage (Will and I had loaded up on hockey gear in Chicago, so we were groaning under the weight of everything) and arranged to pick us up at a crazy-early time in a few days, to get us safely to the airport – which is miles away, and which he did.

This was the kind of friendly, helpful, genuine engagement that shone through the entire stay. Sure, other cities were just as friendly; just as welcoming, but Detroit has an honesty and a no bullshit air that really adds something I loved.

Other taxi drivers yarned about the Wings’ lack of good fortune and scoring ability right then, and grilled us for our story. One drove us way out to 16 Mile (yes, 8 Mile x 2) to check out another hockey store, and waited, having an early lunch, so he could drive us back, rather than leave us marooned way way way out there.

Always, there was the common theme: “Why are you in Detroit?”

Everybody told us the city wasn’t as dangerous as it’s made out to be; just don’t stand on a downtown corner counting your money, or flashing expensive technology. So, be a smart tourist, like you would be in any other city, in other words. And mostly they were right. There were a few moments where we were approached by vagrants or found ourselves on worryingly deserted downtown side streets, but nothing more nervous than I’ve encountered in other cities, including Melbourne.

Comerica Park tigers lurk

I loved Comerica Park, as a Richmond Tigers fan – my Tigers should SO copy the massive tigers that hulk over the grandstands, scoreboard and entrance of that stadium. Your heart beats fast just looking at them.

And Will and I wandered past the Fox Theatre and into the Hockeytown Cafe. Again, there was no need for us to be remarkable, or given any special treatment, as we sat and ate the world’s biggest plate of nachos, but people were watching. Tourists in town. And saw the way we were gazing in wonder at old sepia photos of Stanley Cup-winning Wings teams; players with names like Honey Walker, Ebbie Goodfellow, Art Giloux, Wilf Starr, Gunzo Humeniuk (the name behind Gunzo hockey stores in Chicago), Lefty Wilson and Enio Sclisizzi.

Our waitress, smiling, said to follow her and took us upstairs to a private room decorated in the really great Wings stuff, where functions are held after Stanley Cup wins and the like. She left us there to enjoy it and we did. Photos of Wings teams with the Cup, players with no teeth, grinning like idiots with the silverware, and a magnificent photo of hats and streamers and objects raining onto the ice of the Joe Louis Arena, post victory. The carpet was inset with the famous winged wheel. We grinned like idiots as well, albeit with more teeth.

The Hockeytown Cafe’s awesome photo.

And so it went. Phil Pierce, an executive with the actual Red Wings organisation, took time out of his crazy-busy schedule on a game day to show us around the Joe, give us souvenirs, to let us watch the warm-ups from the Zamboni race, to explain that the practice nets for the warm-ups are the actual goals from Stanley Cup victories. I gently touched the goals that were on the ice when the Wings won in 2008, the year I fell for the team in a big way.

I haven’t even got to the reaction of those around us in the stands, who were so inclusive and generous. So much enthusiasm and support for these random Australian hockey fans, a long way from home.

Why am I writing this now, instead of last November when I got home? Probably just because the Detroit News piece has brought it all back, and it’s 100 degrees F outside my office most days this week, and close to freezing in Detroit (in fact, snow is falling, according to an email I received today from Jonathon, a guy we bonded with at our final game at the Joe, who keeps in touch).

I was full of the whole trip back then, of all our destinations and adventures – and man, Will, Mack and I had adventures. But now, months later, Detroit has stayed with me and I feel the pull of that city and its people as strongly as ever.

I’m very glad I wrote that feature and that the Detroit News ran it. It’s been nice to wave hello and to celebrate this incredible Wings run with the people of Motown. Long may that city shine and even rise again.

 

THE DETROIT NEWS ARTICLE (Now off line)

Wednesday, January 18

(Tuesday, Detroit time)

Just call me Mr Streak …

By Nick Place

Melbourne, Australia

Red Wings fans marvelling at the astonishing, historic home winning streak currently being enjoyed by their team are probably wondering who to thank. Jimmy? Lids? Pav? Babcock?

Well, no. Actually, you have to thank me.

You’re welcome. But I should probably explain.

As the Wings set the home streak record today against the Sabres, I was unable to ignore the fact that every one of those wins has come since my two sons and I left Detroit.

Seriously. Since the day that we left Detroit.

But it’s worse than that. You see, I live in Melbourne, Australia. Almost exactly half a world away; about as close to Antarctica as Detroit is to the Arctic. Right now, we’re enduring 100 degree-plus days in the height of summer, as Detroit shivers through winter. In other words, I am a long way from Motor City.

Which is great for Detroit because when my sons and I travelled to Hockeytown to achieve a life-list ambition of watching our beloved Red Wings in action, the team went straight to Hell.

Don’t believe me? Get this. Our first ever Wings game was on Saturday, October 22, in Washington against the Caps. We’d been in America for a month, on a trip of a lifetime that was carefully orchestrated to ensure we hit Washington at the same time as that game.

Reading this in America’s hockey homeland, you probably can’t imagine what it’s like being a Wings fan half a world away. For the small but passionate hockey community here in Australia, seeing an actual NHL game live is a distant dream, so picture our excitement as we made our way into the Verizon Centre, surprised by how many other Wings fans were also in the capital. I’d paid a fortune for decent seats, wanting to make our Wings debut memorable. The Wings were 6-0 coming into the game and the Capitals were 7-0. We were there to salute Nick Lidstrom’s milestone 1500th regular season game. Everything was perfect.

Until the Capitals beat us, 7-1.

Hey ho. We travelled to Detroit for an even bigger life-highlight: our first visit to the Joe Louis Arena, as the Sharks skated onto the ice on October 28. I met Gordie Howe, which had me floating, and we drank in being among the Wings family of fans, at the historic Joe, having walked the decaying but magnificent beauty of Detroit downtown.

And lost, 4-2.

Then read about the Wings failing to even score in losing 1-0 to the Wild away, and then we were back at the Joe for that OT daylight robbery against the Wild on October 29.

We had one more game to see before we had to fly back around the globe to the real world. The Flames at the Joe. By now the media was obsessed by the Red Wings’ complete inability to score more than one goal per game. Zee, Pav, everybody in attack was not so much off the boil as frozen. Jimmy was being heroic but didn’t have enough goals stacking at the other end to ward off the losses.

I was resplendent in my new Lidstrom jersey, Will was now in Bert’s #44 and Macklin, my 16-year-old, had celebrated Nyquist’s Wings debut by having his jersey made up – surely the only Nyquist-flavoured winged wheel going around in the Southern Hemisphere.

The Red Wings organization generously acknowledged our trek by giving us a tour of the Joe, watching the warm-ups from the zamboni race, and we sat right on the glass for the Calgary game.

And lost 4-1; the worst Wings performance of our trip.

The good news for all of you is that we finally had to leave. We flew to LA for a connecting flight, just as the Ducks passed us in the air, and got belted at the Joe, 5-0, the day after we’d left town.

Which, of course, was the start of The Streak, including an avalanche of goals, outscoring opponents 68-21 at the Joe, including today’s game, since being pathologically unable to hit the back of the net the entire time we were in residence. Commentators now get all nostalgic about the October days when the Wings couldn’t score. I laugh bitterly.

But you know what? The good news is that despite the remorseless scoreboards, my boys and I had the time of our lives in Detroit and at the Joe. The welcome of the Wings fans, who universally embraced three Australian wannabe hockey players from Down Under (yes, we play – that’s another story) plus the warmth of the Wings staff, and the wider people of Detroit was unforgettable. Hockeytown rocks.

All the losses? They just mean I still have to see a Wings win at the Joe, which means I’m going to have to find my way to Midwest winter at least one more time.

I promise it won’t be during the 2012 play-offs. I want us to win the Cup as well.

Nick Place is an Australian author, former sports writer, mid-40s hockey rookie and passionate Wings fan. (nickdoeshockey.com)

 

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Things you might not know about hockey …

January 4, 2012 by 5 Comments

1. Hockey stick tape is a perfect way to strap on a plastic bag to protect plaster on a wounded dog’s leg, when storms sweep into town as you’re about to go to work.

Fly Dog shows off quality stick-tape veterinary work.

Kittens and I travelled bravely to the far outskirts of Chicago to buy hockey gear, back in October, and went nuts on the multi-coloured tape, buying red, green, blue and yellow, because our hockey styling simply can’t be constrained in the Icehouse’s options of black tape, or white (and now pink).

Fly Dog the Wounded But Still Magnificent (snapped Achilles tendon on Christmas day; at least six weeks off the ice) thinks the leg looks cool. Everybody’s happy.

 2. Hockey players are dumb.

As it stands, seven members of the Detroit Red Wings roster have suffered serious facial injuries this year, mostly from pucks hitting them in the unprotected face.

There have been plenty of facial stitches, but also a broken cheekbone to defenceman Ian White and a broken jaw to Patrick Eaves, who, at last report, was still sipping food through a straw, his entire jaw wired shut.

The latest victim is an 18-year-old prospect, Ryan Spoule, who took a deflected puck to the face in an Ontario Hockey League game and has now had plates inserted into his jaw.

And yet pretty much every NHL player, apart from the goalies, continues to play without a Perspex or wire face guard. The most they’ll wear is a small Perspex visor vaguely covering their eyes and there’s even debate about that, because, you know, it’s kind of sissy. (Although at least things have moved on from the bad old – read, fucking crazy – days where even goalies didn’t have face guards, back when the world was in black and white.)

Back in the day: goalies with no face protection.

Hear me say, here and now, that I will not be seen in a game situation without a full face mask. I’m far too pretty to take a rubber puck to the face at speed, and anyway, eating through a straw for weeks would get in the way of my biscuit consumption.

3. The Winter Classic has a precedent

Over the past few years, the NHL’s signature Winter Classic game – where two top teams play an official match outdoors, usually at a baseball stadium (The Wings kicked the Blackhawks at Wrigley Field a few years ago: oh yeah!) is gaining momentum every year, with huge coverage of the Rangers victory over the Flyers yesterday.

But there is a precedent to this whole thing. Apparently, in February, 1954, the Detroit Red Wings played an exhibition match outdoors against inmates from the Marquette Branch prison. I shit you not. Red Wings v Jailbirds.

So how did that go? The Wings led 18-0 at the end of the first period and graciously everybody forgot to keep an ongoing score for the remaining two periods.

Which makes the prisoners luckier than Australia’s first ever team to contest the Winter Olympics, back in 1960. Our heroes scored nine goals in the Olympic tournament, at Squaw Valley. They conceded 83 goals in six games. When five rings are involved, everybody keeps score.

4. The Hockey Gods are bastards

Let it be known that the Red Wings have not lost a single game at home since Will, Mack and I sat through three straight losses at the Joe, in late October/early November. The team has now won 12 straight games at home, raining goals. During the stretch where we watched them stink things up, they averaged one goal per game.

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Saturday night special: Come & Die sessions

December 21, 2011 by 2 Comments

Saturday night, pre-Christmas. Melbourne is a cauldron of parties and celebrations and socialising. Anybody who’s anybody is drinking Yuletide cocktails, dancing, laughing loud at great jokes over the noise of a cool stereo.

Naturally, winner that I am, I am not at any of these fabulous parties. Instead, I’m at the Icehouse, wearing full hockey gear, sans shoulder armour. It’s only because I’m accompanied by the socially in-demand Kittens Place that I can hold my head up.

The great Come & Try hijack in flight.

And we are not alone. In fact, the Henke Rink is busy with a swarm of hockey players, most in full kit except for shoulder pads, some just in jeans and a T-shirt, gloves and a helmet, all zooming across the ice at speed, practicing their moves or slapshotting at the empty net goal.

It’s basically an expression session for everybody from Intermediate players like Kittens and I through to vastly experienced players looking to hone their craft.

Hilariously, the title of this Saturday night hockeyfest is the increasingly inaccurately named “Come & Try!” session.

Starting at 9 pm and running until 10.30, these sessions were designed by the Icehouse to give people who had never tried ice hockey a chance to wobble around in a helmet, gloves and with a stick, discovering just how difficult it is to hit a puck with a long hockey stick while skating. Imagine a large car park cleared out for only learner drivers to hesitantly drive around …

… which is hijacked by V8 Supercar drivers for high speed practice sessions.

“Come & Die” * would be a better name for anybody wanting to use this time to take their first step into the hockey world.

Because here’s the thing; a swarm of hockey players around Melbourne, forever starved of quality ice time, realised that anybody can pay $25 and hit the ice during these sessions. In an early blog on this site, I talked about showing up for a Come & Try and being asked seriously by the Icehouse staff not to wear my full hockey kit because I might terrify the newbies out there, which I thought was pretty funny given I could barely skate at the time.

These days, all such considerations have been swept away and the “rink rats” have taken over completely. A true newcomer to the sport would have to be made of stern stuff to even attempt to step onto the ice.

The session is only one referee and a hint of organization from becoming a full-tilt Drop-In hockey game. In fact, as Kittens commented to me, there were the same number of players on Saturday as at an Intermediate class, or a Dev League game, but without any order.

Near-collisions are regular, pucks are hit hard as players practice smacking the rubber disc into the boards and skaters go in all directions, often backwards and fast.

Good luck, newbies. What could go wrong?

By the way, have a great Christmas and New Year, everybody. See you on the ice or in this virtual world in 2012.

Cheers, and thanks for reading this self-indulgent hockey diary. It’s almost one year old!

Holiday safe,

Nicko

(*See what I did there? Professional writer at his peak.)

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Triumph and disaster

December 15, 2011 by Leave a Comment

“If you can meet with triumph and disaster,

And treat those two imposters just the same”

–       if, by Rudyard Kipling.

That quote is above the final doorway as tennis players make their way onto centre court at the All-England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club, better known as Wimbledon.

I’ve always loved it as a quote, since I discovered in it my misspent youth as a tennis writer. It is so fucking true. Let me be the one to tell you, humble readers, that, in life, you’re going to win big, and you’re going to lose horribly. Triumph. Disaster. They’re waiting for us all but I’m with Kipling: see them both for what they are: temporary. For better or worse.

The Dev League game last night. Will AKA Kittens in orange socks mid-ice. Ray, still vertical, behind the goals.

A heavy start to a blog? Nah. All is good. Happily, we’re only talking hockey – even if the first thing I saw as I arrived at the Icehouse last night was a stretcher being loaded into an ambulance. Turns out it was a general skating disaster, so nobody I knew, but it had me wondering; especially because this was Week 10. Scrimmage week. Which meant everybody would be going their hardest.

Every other term this year, in this week, I’d been nervous, excited, fearful I was going to be found out for my lack of skills (justified), worried for my shoulder (End of Intro, second time around – fully justified), hoping I might even briefly feel like I knew what I was doing (end of Intermediate – occasionally justified) … feeling all kinds of emotions.

Last night, not least because I’d stood out of formal classes for the term, I found myself sitting in a three-hour Board meeting for my kids’ film festival while my hockey rookie buddies met their moment of game-play reality on the ice.

By the time I got to the Icehouse, and dodged the ambos, most were through it and full of their various tales of triumph or disaster; everyone eating Aimee Hough’s magnificent puck-shaped chocolate cake and with many wearing the Icehouse Rookie jerseys organised by Chris and designed by my boy, Kittens, who hilariously had “K.Place” printed on the back of his. What started as a Facebook bet is turning into something bigger; I’ll have to remember to show him that old classic film, Cat People.

Our custom jersey.

Anyway, I digress.

I heroically ate some cake, having not skated, felt my belt buckle strain, and wandered over to watch the Dev League end-of-term clash. Lots of my old classmates are now in Dev League so there were many big hellos, as Damon Runyon‘s Broadway narrator liked to say. After a huge day of what I understand to have been boat-based Christmas activities, possibly involving alcohol, a member of my original Intro crew, Ray, gave me a bone-crunching hug and thankfully announced he wasn’t going to skate, which definitely saved another ambulance call. Ray lurched to behind the goals where he grinned happily and supportively at the goalkeeper, whether a goal had gotten through, or a mighty save had been achieved. Ray was loving everything and everyone.

On the ice, Kittens and the rest were hard at it for an hour. I believe the score was 6-1 to the reds, over the  blacks, but whatever. I sat in the stands with Renee, who’d skated the Intermediate game, and started to get excited for 2012.

I realised that in my self-imposed exile to learn to skate, I’d built up in my head how far ahead everybody else must be getting. Had this idea that those doing Intermediate second time around, as well as Dev League, must be sub-NHL standard by now, – all budding Pavel Datsyuks – while I’m still wobbling around, battling to hockey stop.

Without taking anything away from those on the ice last night in the Dev League game, it was a relief to see falls, to see skates slip, to see passes miss or occasionally shoddy stick-work. Skaters wobbled.

Dev League action

Not that I wished anybody a lack of success; just that I was able to breathe out and think, ok, I’m not on another hockey planet from these guys after all.

Of course, some were flying. But that’s always been the case in every class.

And I definitely noticed that most could chase a puck, hockey stop hard when they got to it, and be ready to use it. I’m not sure where I’d be at with that.

But it was what I needed to see. I know I’m not a natural skater, not a genius, however I don’t feel like a total rookie any more. I’m definitely signing back up for Intermediate next term. I need to get back into class, skating skill or not.

And you know what? Fuck it. I think I’m up for Dev League too.

It will be a triumph or a disaster but I’m fine with that.

Or die trying, right?

Keep that ambo in the precinct. Classes start February.

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Stop, in the name of love (well, hockey)

December 9, 2011 by Leave a Comment

The hockey stop. It’s one of those annoying manoeuvres that some people seem to get in their opening five minutes on the ice while others struggle for years.

I guess I’m somewhere in between because I’m closing in on a year, as against years. And I remain determined to master the bastard.

In fact, this move has been my main focus over the past two weeks. Even on Wednesday, when the Icehouse helpfully closed half the public rink so seven people – that number again, seven – could enjoy a curling Christmas party, as everybody else – speed skaters going in second gear, figures skaters having lessons, hockey players cooling down or warming up, general skaters and newbies wobbling around – all crammed into a space smaller than a public swimming pool. But icier.

I found occasional unpopulated corners of ice where I could keep working on kicking my heels, trying to snap my skates around to a sliding, sudden stop; arms held in front, as though holding a stick in front of my chest, so that my shoulders don’t move with the stop, just my hips and legs.

This is just one of the roughly eight million pieces of advice or teachings I have absorbed re the hockey stop. I’ve watched untold videos, spoken to skaters who clearly know their stuff, watched smartarse hockey players stop on one foot, or backward hockey stop or just go from 100 kph-zero in a nano-second, next to the boards.

It’s clearly a matter of feel and I continue to probe away at that sliding, hopefully horizontal, full-skate edge that becomes solid enough that I can dig in, really dig it, and not either feel my skates slide out, or stop dead so that the rest of me keeps going, sans ankles. I just need to dare to fully commit, and I’m determined to hockey stop on both sides. Many players are great on their preferred skating side, but wobbly on the other. I want to Jedi-stop both sides. Aim high, right?

In Chicago, a local player, John, who saved the lives of Will and I by driving us away from the mean streets of west Chicago to Gunzo’s hockey store and then back to where we were staying, admitted he took three or more years as a kid to truly perfect the hockey stop. That gave me hope (apart from the well-established fact that I’m no kid).

Even talking to the coaches, Lliam and Army, has left me strangely confused; as to whether the weight is on the front leg or the back leg, or both legs. It’s a pimped-up snowplough, yet the back leg plays a role. One of my Hockey Rookie mates, Chris, gave me a crucial tip when he managed to convey that I wasn’t getting my front leg perpendicular enough to my body (something Will, admittedly, has been trying to tell me for months), and I definitely need to snap my heels, so I don’t curl into the stop. Or do I?

One thing’s for sure: I need to keep wearing elbow pads and a helmet while I nut this one out. I actually haven’t fallen in two weeks, while working on the hockey stop, which either suggests I am tantalisingly close, or I’m not committing hard enough for death-or-glory stops that will solidify the move. Like the bastard that is the pivot, I certainly still can’t hockey stop at speed. From a cruisy pace, I’m not far away.

I’m close enough that I can feel how much fun it’s going to be when I finally get it. I reckon it’s the coolest move on the ice.

Tonight (Friday), a bunch of us were invited to train with one of the summer league teams, at about 10.30 pm. I am choosing instead to join my band of Giant and ex-Giant desperadoes for a night of drinking and shenanigans, throwing out any chance of Hockey Rookie of the Year. A price has to be paid sometimes.

And what the Hell, in honour of this quasi-Christmas party tonight, let’s get in the mood with the mighty Paul Kelly, and his anthem. Sing along, peoples.

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Unsightly upper lips

November 22, 2011 by 4 Comments

Ty Conklin showing how to rock a mo.

It goes without saying that hockey players need no encouragement to grow ridiculous facial hair. I have discussed the tradition of the play-off beard elsewhere in this blog and many NHL stars consider the art of shaving to be reasonably optional and certainly a long way behind taping your stick (not an euphemism) as a priority.

So Movember is a popular month among the icy set, with even Red Wing Henrik Zetterberg shaving back his now standard beard into a moustache that makes you pray that Zee either goes straight back to beard, do not pass Go, or shaves completely to look like he did as a fresh-faced rookie, as soon as December 1 ticks over.

Having said that, I was quietly disappointed that not a single Red Wing made a Puck Daddy list of the best Movember moustaches so far in 2011. Even Ty Conklin, the Wings’ second goalie, didn’t make it with his fabulous mo, pictured above. A travesty. As we Wings fans like to say: “Conk-blocked” again.

This also seemed like a good time to post a link to a list of the greatest hockey player moustaches of all time.

Just another hockey player ... Dennis Maruk

I have spent this month raising a small amount of money for charity with my own upper lip horror (donate here: it is for a good cause, including me shaving the bloody thing asap, having attempted to save male lives and proven my point). I have been truly shocked by how terrible I look with a mo. I never thought I’d look good but, man, this is one fashion statement that should be banned permanently, unless your name is Inigo Montoya (who I was recently likened to, in my one bright moment of an otherwise embarrassing month).

The good news is that on Sunday, when I skated, I was wearing my new helmet from Chicago, including a face mask, to somewhat hide the growth. Had such a good time, despite making a return to the Bang! footy that same morning so my legs were heavy before I even strapped on my new skates.

I hadn’t worn full armour since my last game, at the end of Intermediate, back in September, so it was fun to feel padded up and ready to rock. I spent a lot of the Stick & Puck session practicing passing with Will, watching rookies land hard on their butt, or having ineffectual shots on goal as the goalies eventually took pity and gave me some helpful hints. (“Hold the stick lower with your left hand, for extra flex and power.” … the next shot hit him in the throat. Thanks, mate!) and then an hour of General Skate, just zooming around. I really feel like The Bastard That Is The Pivot is edging closer to reliability, at least when turning left. I’ve stopped trying to step through it, and just twist on my left skate, like an inliner. Even at something above the slowest skating speed possible, my balance is holding up. Mostly.

The hockey stop remains elusive but I’m even starting to feel that. Of course, Will screeches around, stopping on one foot, winking to pretty girls. pen ever-ready for autograph signing, as I blunder around. Can’t wait until we’re allowed to officially “board” people in games, even if we’re on the same team.

Anyway, this is a long game and I’m still skating, and smiling, even if you can’t see the smile because of the curtain of fur. Once I shave this caterpillar below my nose for better aerodynamic windflow, I’ll be unstoppable. Just you see. (Eight days, and counting.)

The Horror. Day 22.

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Playtime for the Sporting Gods, Part 2

November 15, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Red Wing Darren Helm slots a nice goal, now we're gone. Pic: Detroit Free Press

Writing from America, a couple of posts ago, I pointed out that the Sporting Gods had enjoyed messing with the boys and I as we sat, somewhat bemused, through four straight Detroit Red Wings losses. Covering six games, including away games, the lengthy losing spell was the worst streak in quite a while for the Wings and was even more bizarre because the team, which bristles with world-class forwards, managed only a measly six goals in those six games.

When we arrived at the Verizon Centre in Washington DC, for our first ever Wings sighting on October 22, Detroit was 5-0 after a brilliant start to the 2011-12 NHL season. They lost that match to the Capitals, 7-1.

Then lost to the San Jose Sharks, in our first game at the Joe Louis Arena, 2-4. Then lost to the so-so Minnesota Wild, 1-2 (utterly robbed in overtime), and then finally managed to put in an absolute stinker against the Calgary Flames, while we were sitting in dream seats, right on the glass, losing 1-4 and being booed off the ice by the Detroit fans.

As mentioned previously, I didn’t actually care that much. It was so much fun to be there and to be watching the team live, that the losses were annoying but not devastating. Yes, I would have loved to have belted out “Don’t stop believin’” but the fact we didn’t just leaves some wriggle room on my Life List. I guess I’ll simply have to somehow return to Detroit and watch some more games … sigh.

What’s been truly funny – and I genuinely tip my Red Wings beanie (bought at the Joe) to you, Sporting Gods – has been what’s happened since we packed up and headed for LA and then home.

The Wings promptly beat the Anaheim Ducks, 5-0, in the first game after we vacated the Joe.

Then backed it up with a 5-2 belting of Colorado. Then beat Edmonton, 3-0, and finally beat Dallas, 5-2, on Sunday. Defender Ian White showed the commitment that has seen the team roar back by diving in front of a Dallas goal-bound puck and stopping it with his unprotected face. One broken cheekbone later, he’s out for maybe seven games, but he protected the lead when it mattered. Full respect.

Our crappy seats at our last Wings game ...

Tomorrow, our time, the Wings play an away game at St Louis and I have no reason to think they won’t rattle home 9 or 10 goals.  We are half a world away …

The Wings are back in it, as one of the form and most feared teams of the competition, with some kind of early claims for Stanley Cup contention.

Me? I’ll do my bit and bunker down in Melbourne, a long long way away, working on my pivots and other moves, trying to improve my on-ice balance and waving flags that I am no longer on-site at the Joe. As long as Will, Mack and I don’t go anywhere near the Wings, they’ll be fine.

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I’ve made a huge mistake.

November 10, 2011 by Leave a Comment

So, I arrived back in Melbourne mid-morning on Monday on the red-eye from LA. Feeling strangely not too bad.

Went for a run at about 5 pm, to keep creeping tiredness at bay until a decent sleep hour. Also drank some wines at dinner, which was a rookie error or a veteran sleep-well move, depending on your take. I slept.
Ran again in the heat on Tuesday, to start warding off those American carbohydrate extra pounds.

Testing my new Reeboks at a General Skate in Chicago, October, 2011.

And then it was Wednesday.
And pretty quickly, I realised I’d made a huge mistake.
A Biblical storm was closing in on Melbourne and I could have so easily scrambled for home, a couch, some whisky, the ever-loving smooches from my faithful hound, and some TV and early sleep.
Instead I turned my car west and headed for the Icehouse, marvelling at the cloudscape as I descended on Docklands from the Goalpost Bridge freeway (no traffic and a rockstar park at the Icehouse front door, because of said storm: awesome).
And that’s when I realised my mistake. You see, for most of this year, Wednesday has meant hockey class: Intro for two terms, and then Intermediate last term. As previously discussed, this term I decided not to enrol in Intermediate again because of my frank assessment that my skating isn’t good enough to progress to Dev League. So I’ve decided to spend the summer having private skating lessons, and/or just hanging endless laps and trying hockey moves on the Bradbury Rink.
Which is all fine and remains an excellent plan. Except that I have to walk past the Heinke Rink and see classes in full flight. The intermediate classes I should be part of, with my usual classmates out there, chasing pucks.
Everybody was super friendly and glad to see me back. It’s very cool what a strong ice family we have built in less than a year, from our ever-expanding Facebook Icehouse Rookies group to just random banter at the venue. The McNab girls, friends of mine, are in Intro and were wearing armour for the first time last night, enjoying the wonders of Supermans and the other rookie moves that made me nostalgic for, what? April?
But then I felt like a loner as I turned my back on all my classmates and headed to the public rink; to toil on my pivots and backward skating and other moves in gloves, helmet and basic padding, but not in the usual class environment.
This term has about five weeks to go and it’s going to be difficult.
There is plenty of upside though. Wednesday night turns out to be a good one for general skating, with very few people there, whether it’s because they thought Melbourne was going to be levelled by the storm and had loved ones to spend their final moments with, or 7 pm Wednesday just isn’t a time people usually skate.
I was on my beautiful new Reebox 11s – as worn by Pavel Datsyuk among others – and they are definitely superior to my old Bauer Vapors. Much more comfortable and fit better (a whole size smaller). I feel more in control even now, when they’re new and the cut is fresh. I read a book recently that discussed hockey skates and said: “A hockey stick is like a date. They come and go. Your skates are your wife.” You do get attached to them, and need to trust them as you perform ridiculous moves that are going to hurt if they go wrong. I feel better in these ones.
Plus even Lliam was impressed by my new wheels, so they have the Cool factor. Pumped up kicks.


Out on the ice, I realised I hadn’t skated at all for something like nine weeks, apart from a cameo appearance in the final scrimmage class of Intermediate (between mantas and American adventures) and one test-the-skates session in Chicago, where Will and I joined locals on an indoor rink, surrounded by Blackhawks of all shapes and sizes, for five bucks a skate.
But even that was more than two weeks ago.
At the Icehouse I took a while to find my legs, then skated fast, zipping around the track, and tried some slow pivots, hockey stops … all my usual foes. I even did 360 spins – as in, pivot and keep pivoting – just to see how long I could balance while turning like an idiot. I figure to get better,I need to conquer balance. Once or twice, at high speed (for me), I almost lost it and had to recover through sheer arse and hammie work. I stayed up. Felt good. Skated for almost three hours.
It was so nice to be back on the ice. Even if I was deliberately ignoring Will and the others, enjoying intermediate followed by dev league. I hope I can catch up when I return from this self-imposed exile.

* A tip of the hat, yet again, to Arrested Development.

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Playtime for the Sporting Gods

November 4, 2011 by 2 Comments

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Above: The Joe Louis Arena, pre-game, this week.

In 2007, I was at one of the lowest ebbs of my life. I was lurching toward an inescapable conclusion that I couldn’t stay in my marriage. No need to dwell here, but when you deeply love the woman involved and have two boys, that is a very hard place to be.
So, to distract myself, I did what all sports fans do and went to lose myself in some live sport.
I know, I thought, I’ll go watch Richmond play Geelong in a Sunday twilight game at the Docklands stadium! That will be awesome!
If I had thought to look, the Icehouse was probably under construction at the time, just a little over to the west.
I caught the tram from Fitzroy to Docklands with an uncomfortable awareness that the afternoon might not go according to my plan. See, Richmond v Geelong has a certain history in recent times. Yes, my Tigers kicked Geelong in the 1967 Grand Final but that was quite a while ago. Almost perfectly matching the time I spent as a football journalist for major Melbourne papers, and The Seven Network, Richmond had fallen into a hole deeper than the Romanche Trench. It wasn’t so much that successive Geelong sides of the late Eighties, Nineties and new millennium, featuring several Hall of Famers, would beat the hapless Tigers, whose back line would struggle to get a game in the VFA, but more that the Cats would slice and dice with the needless brutality of A Clockwork Orange. Gary Ablett Snr would perform party tricks that made the entire press box* burst into spontaneous laughter and applause (journo humour being what it is, I was ALWAYS sent to cover these games; to suffer it out) and I’d laugh and clap along. What the Hell. It wasn’t as though we had a chance. One day at the MCG, I can recall Ablett flying so high and so ridiculously early (over Brian Leys, maybe, or Mark Summers, or both) that he found himself metres into the air, looking around for the ball. It finally arrived as he was well into his potentially painful descent. The great No. 5 marked it one handed, jammed into his elbow, moments before he hit the turf. He booted 10 or maybe 12 that day …
So anyway, Richmond had improved a bit by 2007 but the Terry Wallace five-year plan was lurching and our young kids would be up against it on this day. But I needed a change of headspace, I needed some light in my life. Surely, my mule-headed lifelong devotion to the often hapless Tigers would show mercy and give me something to smile about.
Richmond lost by what I believe was an all-time record against the Cats. 157 points. I didn’t need to look that margin up for this blog. It’s scarred into my withered soul.
The loss was so huge that by mid third quarter, I was smiling. Even chuckling. Ah, Tigers, you never fail to let me down. It’s not only that you continue to kill us fans, you run the truck over us four or five times to make sure of it, when we are most hurt. The funniest part was that the sheer black humour of The Universe that day strangely did the trick. The massacre was so horrific, it was awesome. I walked all the way home, lighter, thinking: OK, you’ve got more planned for me, huh, Universe? Bring it.
And it did. And it has.
What has all this got to do with hockey?
Well, a key component of my current massive American trip has involved watching the Detroit Red Wings live. To actually witness some games at the Joe Louis Arena. And Will (aka Kittens), Mack and I have now seen three of four.
The Red Wings are the most consistently successful team of the past two decades. They haven’t missed the play-offs in 20 seasons, despite salary caps, equalization, etc. They are very much a Geelong, not a Richmond.
The Red Wings home-grow players, churn them out and create great team after great team. In that 20 year span, the Wings have won four Stanley Cups. In poor, half-deserted, out-of-money-and-luck Detroit, they have been a shining light. Because Detroit IS Hockeytown and the Wings MATTER.
So, our first Wings game ever was in Washington DC, against the Capitals at the Verizon Centre. Detroit lost, 7-1. A massacre.
No, matter. Bring on the Joe Louis Arena, hometown Detroit with a Wings crowd revving them on. Against the San Jose Sharks, who knocked the Wings out of the last two play-off series but haven’t been as dominant this season. The Wings lost, 4-2.
Tuesday night, we were there again to see the increasingly worried Wings take on Minnesota Wild. By now the losing streak, home and away, was at four, the worst straight streak since 2008. The Wings hit the ice like skaters possessed. A goal inside of 5 minutes to Nick Lidstrom, with Zetterberg and Datsyuk on assists; our main line sparking. The Wild barely had a shot on goal for the entire first period. The Wings lost, 2-1 in Over Time. We were totally robbed by the refs on the final goal, but still …
The lesson: No matter which side of the world you are on, in any sport, the Sporting Gods will fuck with you, given half a chance. “Hey! It’s that Richmond loser in a Lidstrom jersey!” they must say to one another, sniggering.
Happily, I am in a much better headspace than 2007. I have genuinely shaken my head with nothing more than bemusement at Detroit hitting such a trough at the exact moment we are in town and have paid hundreds of dollars to be in excellent seats at the Joe.
It actually occurred to me after the Wild fiasco that I must be in a good place. I have genuinely loved every game – just being at NHL games, with all the excitement, hoopla and energy. The sheer breathtaking level of skating and shooting and skill of NHL players. Seeing my heroes, “Hank” “Zee” Zetterberg, Dats, Lids, Mule, Helm, Abby, Jimmy Howard in the flesh. Gazing at the retired numbers and all the pennants hanging from the roof of the ageing Joe arena. Being surrounded by genuine Wings fans and being accepted, unquestioningly into the fold.
Between games, we have wandered the eery streets of Detroit and fallen in love with this art deco, decaying city. We have examined every inch of the Hockeytown Cafe – sort of a Red Wings version of the Hard Rock Cafe – and grinned at old time Wing names like Honey Walker, Ebbie Goodfellow, Art Giloux and Wilf Starr (all 35-36 Cup-winning team), Gunzo Humeniuk and Red Kelly (49-50 Cup team, with Gordie Howe) and Lefty Wilson and Enio Scisizzi (51-52 Cup). I’ve loved building my knowledge of Wings lore and general hockey history.
The NHL home and away season is 82 games, so the Wings don’t have to panic yet, although this form slump is worrying. They have barely scored since we arrived in America – five goals in five games, which is ridiculous.
Maybe tonight will be when the drought breaks? At our final game, when we’re sitting on the glass. Row 1, Seat 1. And the Red Wings are giving us a personal tour of the Joe before the game. and it is Bobblehead Thursday, so we get to add three Henrik Zetterberg bobbleheads to our already groaning baggage.
Or maybe the Wings will lose again, to the struggling Calgary Flames and I’ll head home to Australia on Saturday, possibly never to see the team play live ever again, having not seen a win, having not sung “Don’t Stop Believin'” to celebrate victory because we’re enough goals clear with a minute to go.
I don’t really care either way. I have a lifetime of Tiger training on absorbing match day disappointment to fall back on.
I’m just happy to be here. Getting momentarily annoyed by opposition goals, dud ref calls or whooping at Wings brilliance. Letting my passion soar.
Watch for the three of us, behind the glass in Section 120, screaming our lungs out, whichever way tonight goes.

LATER THAT NIGHT UPDATE: Wings played like crap and got beaten 4-1, the last goal being an empty netter after they’d pulled Jimmy Howard. Laugh it up, Sporting Gods. Like I said, I can take it. On a brighter note, we stood on the ice at the Joe Louis Arena, during our tour. The ice maintenance guy wasn’t thrilled but we did it. Stood on that famous ice. Now we’re leaving the country, Detroit can get back to winning …

* As I was typing this, auto-correct on my iPad changed Press Box to Pessimism Box, which is so perfect I never could have come up with it.

Below: happier days at the Joe. The celebrations after a Cup victory.

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