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Over to you …

July 3, 2012 by Leave a Comment

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

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

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

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

So I’m throwing open this space to you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Email any contributions to nickolaki@gmail.com.

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

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

June 28, 2012 by 2 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* My words, not Shakespeare’s.

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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.

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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.

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How to recognise a true hockey player

May 3, 2012 by 3 Comments

It happened right towards the end of Dev League, our second last shift. For the first time, Army and Lliam have split us into distinct teams and are coaching us, like genuine hockey sides, with the aim of more personalised and concentrated coaching mid-game.

It’s fantastic, including the fact that we have defined lines, so I’m skating every shift with Morgan and Josh (which makes me look good), and we have dedicated D behind us.

We score a couple of goals and it’s a close game with lots of good-natured banter, up to and including Lliam throwing a water bottle at Dave the designated ref, as Mike Babcock would no doubt have done without blinking, if he had been there.

So, coming off a fun and challenging Intermediate class, and then feeling like I’ve done enough good things among the many mistakes to consider myself to be having a half-decent game, I’m loving life, up until the second last shift.

Which is when we get a sniff of a breakaway and Josh takes off fast towards our goal. I’m motoring as fast I can to keep up, offering an option from my right wing, and Morgan is flying, as Morgan does, to bring home the attack.

But it’s all about Josh and a couple of back-checking defenders as they duke it out after the puck, with the boards approaching fast.

Josh, resplendent in his Rookies jersey, on a recent trip to America, posing with some Cup or another. Pic: Facebook (Yes, Josh, I stole it off your page. What?)

And it turns out, too fast. Josh is so busy fighting for the puck that he has no opportunity to hit the brakes, loses it and slams into the boards very very hard.

I couldn’t see the collision clearly, because the goal and Mark, the goalie, stood between me and where Josh hit the wall but, oh man, I heard it. And saw the aftermath.

I’ve covered a lot of sports as a reporter and you know when an injury is nasty. There’s that moment, even as an impact happens, when you either instinctively think: “Ouch, that must have hurt” or “Oh fuck.”

Josh hitting the boards was an “Oh fuck“.

Josh writhing on the ice, trying to grab his left shoulder. All of us standing, helplessly.

I was sure it was a broken collarbone, at least, and Josh was in a mountain of pain.

But somehow got to his feet, with some help, and skated off the ice as everybody tapped their sticks on the ice in recognition, in the hockey equivalent of applause, which is one of those moments when the hair stands on your neck and you love being part of a hockey community. Because we all understand the courage, and we all know it could have been us, and we’re all behind Josh every skate of the way back to the bench.

And then we got on with the game, and Morgan and I had to find a replacement Left Wing for our final stanza.

But here’s the thing, Big Cat Place – sitting out, because of a brewing lurgy – said he saw Josh, crashed out at the other end of our bench – notice Morgan and I getting ready for our shift, and tried to put his helmet on.

After the game, I sought Josh out and found him in the change-rooms, ice on the shoulder.

And, I shit you not, he said: “I was going to come back on but I couldn’t move my arm.” Genuinely annoyed.

That, my friends, is a natural-born hockey player.

I can’t wait to suit up with Josh in our Summer League team, assuming all goes to plan (as in, I make the team) later this year.

But I know I won’t have to wait that long. As I type this, Josh had reported on Facebook that he was getting ready to go and see a physio, still unable to use the arm.

Knowing Josh, he’ll be back, playing Dev League, next week, in a plaster cast.

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Things I don’t understand

May 1, 2012 by 2 Comments

Why am I Derek Zoolander in the air as well as on the ice?

At Lorne, on Sunday morning, I took to a trampoline for the first time in a long time.

When I was a kid, if I may say so, I used to be kind of a big deal when it came to trampolining. Actually, we pretty much all were, as the local Lorne ‘tramps’ were the only entertainment apart from the Games Room (I was also a gun – ask my boys about Galaga, even now), and riding bikes around. Oh yeah, and endless surfing. And later, drinking sneaky cider on the beach at night. Plus, oh my god, the discovery of girls.

But I digress.

Flying on a Sunday. Pic: Chloe.

Trampolines … I wasted many summers and slow weekends working on somersaults and backward baranis, among other tricks, not to mention mastering bounceball, which is basically one-on-one, or two-on-two volleyball on a single trampoline. It was all fun until my mate, Bill, broke his leg.

Anyway, on Sunday, now older and less supple, I took to the sky and it was so much fun …. But here’s the thing, and the tenuous hockey link. I was bouncing high and spinning 360s, and realized that while it was effortless to turn left, spinning a full 360 to land facing the same way, it was difficult to turn right and do the same thing. Just like on the ice, where I can pivot, crossover, (mostly) hockey stop and do other moves to the left, but struggle when turning to the right. What the actual fuck? I am turn-right challenged beyond ice-skating? I am Zoolander. “Papa, I got the lung …” *koff

How there can still be such blatant racism in the world?

I mean, seriously. You kidding?

In Game 7 of the first round play-offs series between the Bruins and the Capitals, it was Washington’s Joel Ward who snared the goal to win the game and the series. A huge moment for a Canadian with parents from Barbados. As the Detroit Free Press reported, racist tweets were flying around the virtualsphere within seconds, up to and including: “That (n-word) deserves to hang.”

I don’t even know where to start. I mean, for fuck’s sake. It’s 2012. This is hockey. This is the western modern world. This is a supposedly evolved species.

Get it together, whichever cock-with-ears wrote that shit. That is all.

How will I ever get better as a skater if I only skate once a week?

Actually, you know and I know the answer to that. I won’t.

I know only too well that I have to keep putting in general skating sessions and other between-class time on skates, whether inline or ice. Other Ice Rookies are putting in endless hours and their skating is brilliant for it. I haven’t got there enough.

The last couple of weeks have been intense and I’ve only made it to class/dev league on a Wednesday night. Already, I can feel my always sketchy skating getting sketchier by the minute. There is no way I am remotely a good enough skater to take shortcuts.

So boot to arse. Get on it, Place.

Why do people who fancy themselves as NHL-standard skaters do Intro hockey classes?

Is it pure smugness? Are they Icehouse plants to test the resolve and heart of true L-plate hockey skaters? Weird.

Why is a smart, genuine woman like Julia Gillard making such a hash of being Prime Minister?

Ah, screw it. Politics … no place for it here. Depressing, though.

Why is there a Feature Ornamental T-Rex outside the Icehouse?

Oh, that’s right: it’s the Docklands. Outside of the haven that is the Icehouse itself, we’re talking about a soulless wasteland. Why wouldn’t you plonk a Feature Ornamental T-Rex across Pearl River Road?

The Docklands’ Feature Ornamental T-Rex. Why ask why?

(I remember when we had just started skating, early last year, Big Cat Place – then only a Kitten – discovered this T-Rex in a car park, behind a big fence. Peered through the fence as we were aimlessly wandering the wasteland and said, ‘Hey, a dinosaur.’ As you do. It’s good to see Rexxy is now front and centre.)

Sportswatch: The Melbourne Ice men’s team kicked off their season on the weekend. Thriller on Saturday against the Mustangs, which I missed because I was down the coast, and a more routine 5-2 win over Canberra on Sunday, which I made most of. Go, Ice, go.

And rub some of that winning magic off on the Richmond Tigers who could be 3-2 and have beaten Geelong and West Coast, but are instead 1-4 after two heroic, narrow losses. Sigh. Deep sigh.

And I continue to sweat on Detroit, wondering what the fall-out of the late season fade will be?

Maybe the Joe Louis Arena needs a Feature Ornamental T-Rex out the front, for luck? It’s working for the Ice …

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The Avengers: a hockey team waiting to happen

April 26, 2012 by 4 Comments

My hockey team: Ironman takes Centre. Hulk. you're in goal, big guy.

Well, damn. Having Wednesdays off is something I could get used to. Crawled out of bed at midday, went to a movie, snoozed on the couch then wandered down to Docklands for the usual game of pool at the Harbourside followed by two hours of hockey. That’s my kind of day.

I took a few moments to consider the sacrifice of the ANZACs and to savour Australia’s freedom, but mostly I spent the day thinking that The Avengers would make a damn good hockey combo. Watching the new movie (which rocks) had taken all afternoon, 3D glasses on, and I emerged, blinking, already trying to work out positions for the super-heroes in my new Avengers hockey team.

I’m assuming Hawkeye and Black Widow would take the wings. Hawkeye’s whole thing is that he cannot miss, at least with a bow and arrow, so he’s a handy guy to have in attack. Black Widow is a Russian spy with ninja moves and acrobatic flair, so she’s definitely going to be an asset causing chaos as we head through our blue line. Plus, you know … Scarlett Johanssen. I mean, what? I need to draw you a map?

Centre is a key role but again, it’s an easy fit. Ironman. The guy is the ultimate forward-and-back player, with agility, lightning moves, the ability to fly, strength, great hockey armour built in … he rivals Datsyuk as the perfect centre man, depending on whether Tony Stark can deke. Getting skates on Ironman’s feet might be tricky, given the jetpacks and all, but I’m sure Stark industries, or Bauer, can come up with something.

Plus, Stark is equally famous as a billionaire playboy, so he can be the money behind the team as well. Nice to have you aboard, Tony.

Defence? Captain America picks himself as Right D. Nowhere near enough creativity for a forward role and a possibly too rigid team-first player but solid, always making the right decisions, a big body and shining with leadership. He’s the Lidstrom of the team. And I’d definitely pair him with Thor on the Left D. Not only does the Norse God come from Sweden, a renowned source of hockey talent (just look at my Red Wings) but he can bring lightning to the defence, which will scare the crap out of other teams. It might be tricky to get Thor to part with his hammer so that he can hold a hockey stick, but maybe we can just extend the handle on the hammer and kill two birds with one stone?

Which only leaves a goalie …yes, the big green guy. Hulk.

Hulk as Goalie: penalty-minute concerns ...

One, he’s enormous, completely filling the goalface, two, he’s finally awesome in the new film (after a couple of dubious movie attempts beforehand) and three, nobody’s about to rush the crease while he’s in goal. True, there’s a chance, the big green giant will give up a lot of penalty minutes for over-aggression on the ice, but I think the intimidation factor is high enough to counteract that.

Team assembled, with Big Cat Place, me and the other Icehouse Rookies on the bench and ready to sub in, as required.

Oh yeah, Nick Fury giving the Babcock Glare as coach/GM from the bench, with SHIELD agent Maria Hill as his assistant, just because she’s played by that hot chick from “How I Met Your Mother”. (see Scarlett Johanssen logic, above.)

Who’s up for playing us?

Speaking of playing, we had class/dev league last night.

I’d planned to skate all week but hadn’t actually made it, so I was scratchy in Intermediate; never quite having my skates under me (although, thankfully, I landed several crossovers while all the coaches were looking at me and barracking/sledging, so I dodged a bullet there).

Dev League was okay but again not amazing, for me.

Big Cat Place scored a goal with the most clinical opposite-corner finish I’ve seen from him, which was cool (plus I was on the ice, so technically went to +1 on that play).

My campaign to become known as “Huge Cat Place” failed to gain traction

I was involved in a huge collision with James, which saw him end up on his back and me standing over him yelling: “Mother-fucker! … You ok?” (Yes, I’ve learned to do it in that order, as against earlier hits.)

I attempted and failed a wrap-around goal, which was fun.

But I caught myself being a total spectator a couple of times, was sluggish in my skating and only managed a few genuinely nice plays, so I scored myself harshly on the night, especially after playing my best game last week. Hey ho. Onward to next Wednesday.

… assuming I’m not required by the Avengers team.

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Vale the octopus

April 21, 2012 by Leave a Comment

The legend of the octopus. Every April, at the Joe Louis Arena.

Last Sunday was the anniversary of a quirky piece of Red Wings’ history. It was exactly 60 years ago that a Detroit fan, and the owner of a local fish market, Pete Cusimano, in cahoots with his brother, Jerry, tossed an octopus onto the ice of the Olympia stadium, at the start of the 1952 play-offs. At that time, a team needed to win eight games to lift the Stanley Cup so the Cusimano’s symbolic gesture was that the Wings needed one win for each cephalopod leg*.

The Wings didn’t lose a game from that moment, sweeping the semi-finals and final to lift the Cup. The legend of the octopus was born and Red Wings games have been routinely interrupted by octopi landing on the ice ever since, especially during the play-offs. It remains perfectly acceptable, come April and the play-offs, for Detroit fans to declare: “Respect the octopus!” without anybody looking sideways.

Of course, the real losers in his tradition are the poor sacrificed octopi, and the sourpusses at NHL headquarters who have tried repeatedly to stop the tradition, to the amusement of Wings fans. The Wings’ Zamboni driver, Al Sobotka, is the one who usually gets handed the octo-remains by a linesman and he has the endearing habit of waving the octopus above his head as he leaves the ice, which doesn’t exactly discourage fans.

Al Sobotka does his best to discourage Wings fans from their favourite prank.

In fact, the Wings’ play-off mascot since 1995, Rally Al, a giant purple and ferocious-looking octopus that hangs from the rafters of the Joe Louis Arena, is named after Sobotka.

Anyway, anniversary or not, none of this helped the Red Wings in this year’s play-offs. As of this morning, Melbourne time, they’re already out. First-round losers to the Nashville Predators, having won only one game and having failed to score anywhere near enough goals to threaten to progress. Even with all our alleged forward firepower.

It’s the earliest exit since 2006 and follows two pretty limp efforts in second round exits in the previous two seasons.

I’m gutted but not surprised. We started this season strangely and slowly, then hit a golden mid-season run of form. But lately, with a badly-timed rash of injuries and a complete, inexplicable lack of mojo when it mattered, we’ve looked off the pace.

You get the sense that the Wings’ owner, pizza czar Mike Ilitch, general manager Ken Holland and coach Mike Babcock are going to be having some serious discussions in the wake of this one. I’m even nervous for Babcock’s job, and I generally like him a lot as a coach. The fact is, our wildly-talented team – good enough to set an all-time NHL record for consecutive home-wins (starting the day Big Cat, Mack and I left town, as you may recall) and briefly top the entire competition, barely gave a yelp against the Preds.

Nik Lidstrom, post today's loss. I so hope this isn't the last shot of him in the No. 5.

We need new blood, new tactics or new energy, from somewhere. And we’re no longer talking a few tweaks here or there.

Depressing, but the good news is that the Melbourne Ice team starts a new season next Saturday, and the Richmond Tigers are showing definite signs of finally becoming a team worth barracking for in the footy (he wrote nervously – I have said that before and been proven wrong, and Richmond plays Geelong on the rebound, at Geelong, tomorrow. Gulp).

But one thing about sport, in your moment of disappointment, you can take comfort in the fact a new season will bring fresh hope and memories. The Wings will rest, players will go, players will be hired, our veteran defender, captain and inspiration, Niklas Lidstrom (nickname: The Perfect Human), will hopefully decide to play again, and maybe the cards will be reshuffled into a better team than the one that just lost.

From my point of view, it was the most memorable Red Wings season ever, simply because Will, Mack and I made our live NHL debut and actually saw the team live, four times, in Washington DC and then at the fabled Joe – an absolute life highlight, regardless of the play-off fizzle. I’m still eyeing the idea of trying to get back to Motor City for the Winter Classic.

The city of Detroit’s official flag features not one but two Latin quotes: Speramus Meliora and Resurget Cineribus. Written after the great Detroit fire of 1805, when the entire city, apart from one building and one chimney, burnt to the ground, they translate as: “We hope for better things” and “It will rise from the ashes”.

For Red Wings fans, they both resonate today.

(* See, and you thought you didn’t learn stuff on this blog).

See you next year, Rally Al.

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The saucy burlesque edition

April 12, 2012 by 2 Comments

Burlesque diva Radha Leigh and a fellow burlesquee pretending to be a lion. To the best of my knowledge, neither of these women are hockey players.

“So, Will”, I said to Will Ong, usually of my Wednesday night development league crew but notably absent on Wednesday this week, for the final night of scrimmaging. “Are you hurt?”

Being a highly trained investigative journalist, I miss nothing, and on this occasion the give-away clue was leaning next to Will in the LuWow tiki bar on Johnston Street in the form of a pair of crutches. Turns out he did his medial ligament in last week’s late shift scrimmage and is off the ice for three months, a disaster I’d caught hints of in snatches of conversation this week, between games on Wednesday, without ever quite hearing the full story.

Will said he had a reasonably innocuous fall while playing, limped off at the end of his shift and thought he was fine right up until he jumped the boards, from the bench, to start his next shift and his right knee said: “Um, no.”

Then the knee cooled down and really screamed. Ouch. This is on top of a broken leg for Dan, another local player, stitches for a skate-slashed arm for goalie Mark Stone and other assorted ailments eating into our Rookie crew. Anybody would think hockey is a potentially dangerous sport, I thought as Will discussed his physio regime and knee brace.

As is standard for hockey players, Will and I had this conversation at a tiki bar between sets of burlesque dancers stripping down to undies and pasties over their nipples to such songs as The Lion Sleeps Tonight*, and Jungle Boogie.

The kind of company your average Icehouse Rookie keeps on a non-hockey evening ...

Fellow Icehouse Rookie Brendan Parsons, Melbourne’s recognized pimp of burlesque – I’m sorry, I meant to say costume co-ordinator and producer to burlesque – had invited us along for opening night of Amazon Cabaret, knowing that any Melbourne International Comedy Festival show is going to struggle unless it can claim to have at least three leading Melbourne ice hockey players in attendance.

A burlesque show was more or less the perfect end to a packed week for me, not least because I’m a big fan of hot women dressed as lions or Tahiti Princesses stripping down until they’re swinging their tits in pasties, but because I was destroyed from a threatening lurgy as well as a huge hockey week and just needed to rest, drink tiki cocktails, listen to music and well, watch hot women dressed as lions or Tahiti Princesses stripping down until they’re swinging their tits in pasties.

On Monday, Big Cat (the artist formerly known as Kittens), Mack and I had come back from a beautiful easter break at Lorne in time for Big Cat and I to hit a Come & Try session at the Icehouse. This was amusing because a joyless easter staff at the Icehouse decided it was wrong and horrific and disastrous that a bunch of Icehouse Rookies should dare to show up and pay honest money to attend the session. “This is supposed to be for learners, for first timers,” we were lectured. “You shouldn’t be skating or wearing your armour.”

I pointed out that I was only wearing armour because I really wanted to work on a front-foot outside-edge turn that my coach, Army, had workshopped with me last week, and I knew I would be hitting the ice repeatedly, if practising this move was to happen. Anyway, there were about three people for the actual L-Plate part of the session, so … what? It was worse to have 10 or so ice hockey students practicing moves at one end of the Henke Rink than to only have $75 worth of newbies (3) stinking up the ice?

The bottom line was that shock, horror, nobody died, we Rookies all had enough sense not to barrel through a seven-year-old kid holding a hockey stick for the first time, or to hit head high slapshots into the intro crowd (3).

Instead, it was a lot of fun. There were a bunch of Rookies there, including Big Cat, the Hough gals, Wayne, Happy Feet and Alex (sicker than eight dogs but heroically present – even if snot did fly through her face grill after a hard landing on her butt). We all practiced tricky moves, passed pucks around, and played a spirited game of half-rink hockey (the terrified, intimidated newbies having cleared the ice for the last 10 minutes of the session). I scored the game winner, when Big Cat somehow hit a shot over everybody’s heads, including the goal, so that it bounced off the glass and landed at my feet, as I happened to be standing next to the goal. Fun.

Intro Rookies dive into scrimmage action on Wednesday night.

But not as much fun as Wednesday. It was end-of-term night, which means scrimmages. We arrived early, to watch the 7.30 Intro class actually play a scrimmage for the first time. Then revealed to Army and Martin, a new import for the Melbourne Ice who coaches at Oakleigh, that the Rookies were sponsoring them this year. Then suited up and played two furious hours of hockey – Intermediate class scrimmage and then the usual 10 pm dev league.

Hockey heaven. In fact, put it this way: at the start of my last shift of the night, I jumped the boards, found myself next to Army, who was refereeing, grinned and spontaneously said: “Army, how much fun is hockey?” to which he smiled, laughed and replied: “Oh, it’s outstanding!”

And it simply is. I’ve finally hit a level where I feel I can mostly compete, and so I enjoy hitting the ice, trying to carry the puck to the goal, actually having shots, battling for it against the boards, standing my ground in defence, competing. Sure, I can be beaten badly by better players, and the puck can bounce the wrong way to leave me stranded, but I don’t care. Every week gets more fun as I get better. Increments of improvement, sure, but improvement and I have definitely crossed a line from newbie wobbling around to dev league journeyman.

On Wednesday night, I had a break-away where I hit my shot cleanly and in the air, even if the goalie gloved it to deny a goal. I had another moment where I controlled the puck from the defence blue line to a shot on goal, holding all opponents at bay for the duration. I had a genuine assist where I won the puck in defence, in a “stone cold steal”, and passed it along the boards to a teammate who scored.

OK,  sure … I also got beaten pointless by Morgan, one-on-one and watched him goal as he left me in his wake. I fell over repeatedly. I got out of position as a defender more than once. And, most memorably, I tried to change direction at pace near my own goal, lost it, cannoned into the goal with my stomach, landed hard on my back, taking out the goalie, and took seemingly minutes to flail and roll and climb back to my skates. Everybody got a laugh out of that one. Including me. As stated: even when you fuck up, hockey is outstanding.

Tragically, Wednesday night’s action was the end of term.

Miraculously, a whole new term of 8.45 pm Intermediate class and 10 pm Dev League starts next Wednesday.

Amen. I can’t wait.

* Pro Karaoke Tip: Never attempt this song at karaoke. Slightly drunk, in the mood for a sing, flicking through the song catalogue, it’s easy to only think of the easy “a-whim-a-way, a-whim-a-way” part of it, and completely forget all the super-high almost-yodelling bits. A friend of mine, Katey, once fell into this trap and has never recovered. In fact, she left the country not long after to try and establish a new non-karaoke-haunted life in France. Stay safe out there, kids.

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Celebrating the uncelebratable*

April 3, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Not sure the snake as goalie is a smart play by the coach. And my money is on the lion to beat the pig, one-on-one.

I’m not a birthday hater. I usually like birthday celebrations. I like that kind of excited feeling you still get, a ghost of kid-dom, even if you’re just heading to work, drinking coffee, doing what you normally do.

But now I’ve passed the turn towards 50, what is there to celebrate? Wisdom? Oh, please. Still waiting for that bus. Maturity? Next. Financial security? Potential 2013 Winter Classic costs blow that out. A chance to reflect on a full life well lived? OK, I might have to hurt you now …

In fact, don’t even attempt to answer. (A big hello to Brendan Parsons who recently called me “an active senior”. Yeouch! – but well played, Brendan)

I’ll be locked in my study with the single malt and loud music.

Well, actually, I won’t. Here’s how my actual birthday diary is shaping up:

7.30ish: Wake up, probably happily sore from the after-shocks of tonight’s 5.30 pm Dev League. Maybe even nursing a mild hangover from pre-birthday dining shenanigans.

Grab Fly Dog The Magnificent and hit Brunswick Street for breakfast and novel-writing, or the New Yorker/Wired mag on the iPad.

Eventually, turn up at Giants HQ; mostly cartooning all day, which rocks, because it’s fun. And writing articles for our fake sport website, The Bladder. Just because it didn’t happen doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Even more fun.

Celebratory lunch with workmates and other buddies in the East Richmond hood.

Post-work. Harbourside Hotel. See if excellent eightball lessons with reigning Australian nine-ball champion Robbie Foldvari work on a pub table. (Robbie said I was a natural, and a “freak”, hitting the ball brilliantly despite a completely wrong, unworkable bridge, among other sins. Then offered to play me for money … what?)

7 pm: Still at Harbourside, meeting to discuss forming a potential summer league hockey team. Yes, a real team. For competition. Excitement.

8.15 pm: Head to the Icehouse; start strapping on the armour.

8.45 pm: Intermediate class for one hour. Second last class … should be puck-handling, game-play heavy. I hope so.

10 pm: Intermediate level, intense but fun Dev League for one hour.

11.30ish: Get home. Say hi to Fly Dog The Magnificent, and Macklin the Younger. Fail to sleep before about 3 am.

Perfect.

Isn’t that how everybody turning 47 (yes, the horrible truth … fuck!) spends their birthday?

Well, whatever. As of now, I’m 37. Prove I’m not.

Or even better, do like I do and try to ignore the artificial human concept of ‘years’ by allowing yourself to be distracted by a selection of the finest hockey-themed cakes I could find in a scandalously fast and un-thorough Google search. Enjoy.

My understanding is that the cake under the beer, and the hockey skate, are edible. I really hope I'm not wrong on the hockey skate. That would be awkward.

Can't work out if this guy is an astronaut, about to plant the flag on a planet, or that's a hockey stick.

OK, this skate is definitely edible. Red Wings backing colours too. Nice.

One for the Canucks... Hello, Alex. Pretty good cake, despite the dodgy team branding.

Sensing a theme here. What is it with hockey players and eating boots?

Full respect. A cake with mood lighting.

OK, it came up under "ice hockey birthday cake". He appears to be wearing a helmet. But seriously? Is that a walking stick or a hockey stick? Richmond FC colours just saves it.

Before biting into puck, see previous comments re hockey skates that may or may not be made of cake.

All round impressive. Players appear to be attempting to hold their positions, although it's obviously a violent cake: down to two-on-two. The Penalty Box cake must be overflowing with players.

* Is “uncelebratable” a word? Hey, I’m a frickin’ novelist. I say it is, as of now. Sweethouse.

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