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Hey, didn’t I used to play hockey?

July 9, 2013 by 3 Comments

So, not much hockey being reported on here at nickdoeshockey. I’m thinking of changing the title to nickusedtodohockey.

Actually, things aren’t quite that bad. Yes, we’re between terms at Icehouse dev league, so that’s Wednesday nights briefly cleared out. And summer league is still a long way away and I’m not even sure which team I’m lining up with, so training feels remote.

Mostly, I’m trying to get my body back together. The long-suffering knee has been an issue. At the last night of dev league for the previous term, a couple of weeks ago, I finally had to pull out of playing because the knee was so sore. “You ain’t gonna be playing no more, til you fix me some, bitch” said the knee, midway through the first hour of scrimmage. Actually pretty much in warm-up. Why my knee talks like a poor man’s version of the Gimp’s owner in Pulp Fiction remains unclear, but this is how things are.

I had to sit out the second hour, which hurt a lot because the teams were playing for the Charles Srour Cup, a little dev league tribute to our mate Charlie, who had passed away almost exactly six months before.

The teams for the Charles Srour Cup. 10 pm Dev League, Icehouse. Red team won.

The teams for the Charles Srour Cup. 10 pm Dev League, Icehouse. Red team won.

Knee throbbing, I played music and worked the scoreboard and missed out on being in the teams photo at the end, because my theory is that if you don’t play, you don’t pose. Kind of like those poor bastards I always feel for, who don’t quite make the premiership team each year in the AFL. A nightmare of hollow emptiness among jubilation. OK, my night wasn’t quite that bad. If nothing else, I laughed at Lliam Webster holding off dropping the puck at face offs because he was digging the music blaring from the Henke Rink sound system. Dev leaguers twitching over their sticks.

I’d been to see an osteo the day before (not Magic Enzo, who was away) and I think the new guy did good things by unlocking problems in my knee, but the side effect was 10 days or so of struggling to climb steps or do pretty much anything. My knee felt unstable and just ‘weak’ for the first time in this whole debacle. Mackquist and I headed to Byron for a winter break to be greeted by murky water at Julian Rocks where we peered at grey nurse sharks in the gloom and then returned to the surface to watch horizontal sheet rain drown the town. Even drowned Byron is still good, though. Our Superman 3-D glasses at the local cinema came with their own caped-pouch, which pretty much made the entire trip.

And so I’m back in freezing, sunny Melbourne, not quite hobbling the way I was, but sick to death of this knee. Having to miss Nite Owls hockey on Sunday night because I couldn’t trust the knee and basically tilting my hat and deciding it’s time to beat this bastard and get healthy, even if it means some time off the ice.

In America, the Red Wings did well in free agency and the draft, so the team is coming together well for next season. The camp for rookies and try-outs is happening tomorrow, so already the Detroit machine is winding back up, seemingly moments after the last season finished. I’m hoping Darren Helm is having more luck getting over his nagging back injury than I am this knee, so he can regain his rightful place in the thick of the Wings action from Game One. He’s taking part in this week’s camp to start the long road back. Fingers crossed, Helmster.

Closer to home, Melbourne Ice has been having all kinds of shenanigans, with Joey Hughes and Vinnie Hughes retiring unexpectedly mid-season. There must be a story there – it’s a big thing to walk away from your team-mates mid-campaign in any sport. You’d want to have a bloody good reason. But I haven’t been around hockey people much so I don’t know what’s what and maybe I don’t want to.

I’ll just bunker in, huddle against the cold winter and try to get my legs moving again. Summer will be here and I need to be ready.

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Are we having fun yet?

May 27, 2013 by 2 Comments

It’s kind of a strange time at the moment. The fact is that hockey is not front and centre in my life right now; hence the long break between blogs. An unexpected twist is that, as I write, the Detroit Red Wings are waking up on the other side of the world, preparing for a huge play-off game, just like last time I wrote more than a week ago.

The Red Wings' underdog run continues ...

The Red Wings’ underdog run continues …

This time it’s against the Chicago Blackhawks, at the Joe – Detroit having not only seen off the Ducks, as per the moment of truth looming in my last post, but then proceeding to play astonishingly great hockey to snatch an unexpected and spectacular 3-1 lead over the President’s Cup winning Hawks. ‘Detroit is like a rash that just won’t go away, boys,’ said one commentator. ‘The Chicago Blackhawks just can’t get rid of it.’

This Red Wings team of kids in rebuild mode is within a win of pushing out the No. 1 seeds and going to the Western Conference Final. And, shit, if you make it that far, having beaten the No. 1 and 2 ranked teams, why not go all the way?

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

In Game 5, the Hawks came back hard, as you knew they would, in front of a hometown crowd, so now the series is 3-2, and this second chance to put it away at the Joe is fraught. Some of the highly-rated Hawks started to wake up after a shocking series so far. There is still a real chance that Chicago could become the 21st team in something like 220 series to come back with three straight wins to steal it.

But I’m going to be honest: I reckon my Wings will win. Played such brilliant, tough, play-off hockey to take those three wins – especially the last one at the Joe when Chicago threw everything at them. It’s definitely possible to triumph. LGRW, LG! Wish I was in Detroit to be there.  The old Joe will be rocking.

(Tuesday update: Well, the Wings got edged, 4-3 at the Joe, after some rookie errors, which leads to a sudden-death Game 7 on Wednesday, Motown time. See below for Mike Babcock’s take on that.)

And all of this points to my conundrum. The Red Wings are on a prolonged and unlikely and thrilling play-off run. I’m playing hockey for two hours very Wednesday (although the last two have been kind of tense, grumpy sessions, unlike our usual laughfests) and supposedly every Sunday – although I’ve had trouble getting to a few of those nights. The Melbourne Ice men’s season is well underway, but I’ve only seen their first game.

There is hockey everywhere but I’m on the fringes and this is made more noticeable by the foaming-at-the-mouth enthusiasm a lot of my fellow rookies have been displaying, mostly all over Facebook.

‘OMG training tonight!’ is a pretty standard post. Or arranging seats, hours early at the Ice game.  Or heading down for Sunday night general skating at the Icehouse. Or doing boot camp to train hockey muscles. Some seem to be training or playing at least five nights a week. And these aren’t Melbourne Ice players that I’m talking about.

It’s intense and impressive.

And then there’s me. Driving down to Bairnsdale for a weekend, listening to music, watching the amazing light as storm clouds hit the lower alps to the north, staring at the Yallourn power stations, en route to take part in a panel discussion with a bunch of other authors, discussing writing fact and fiction. Then heading to Sydney, wearing my Giants hat (as against a Giant hat, to be clear), to drink too much coffee with clients and friends, and to walk the streets and stare at the view from the 66th floor of a hotel. Then coming back, now carrying the lurgy everybody seems to have had – I blame Chloe, or Mackquist – and sleeping all day Wednesday instead of working. Then playing dev legue that night to ‘sweat it out’ and feeling awesome about that, despite a mediocre night on the ice. Then throwing up maybe 15 times in the six hours after I got off the ice. Maybe ‘sweating it out’ not such a great idea after all. Bed ridden for two days, then staggering back into the world over the weekend, but with no energy and feeling crap. Meanwhile work and family bushfires, or at least spotfires, spark in different directions, and there’s that next novel sitting there, just waiting for some love – or at least some headspace. So much for catching up with friends, or quality time with anybody in particular. I spread thinner and thinner … Nite Owls play suspended because of illness, bad knee stopping running …

In author mode, in deep dark Gippsland. Look how excited fellow writers Anne Crawford and Kate Forster are by my pearls of wisdom.

In author mode, in deep dark Gippsland. Look how excited fellow writers Anne Crawford and Kate Forster are by my pearls of wisdom.

The tension builds.

But you know what? There’s another important life lesson from the Red Wings that I didn’t mention in the last post and it’s one of my favourites.

When under pressure, when facing elimination or a similarly huge game, coach Mike Babcock, captain Henrik Zetterberg and other leading Wings have a habit of saying one thing: “This is fun.”

Such a simple statement, but so powerful.

Take these quotes from Babs last week before the crucial third game against the Blackhawks: “It’s fun, it’s the most fun I’ve had coaching in a couple of years, by far.”

“At the start of the year, we weren’t a good team, but we understand that. We buckled down and we got better. The coaching staff is fun, the players are fun, it’s been a fun year for us.”

It’s something you hear a lot from the Wings. Intimidated? Nope. Season on the brink? Well, that’s what you play for – the fun of those moments.

Sure, it’s sport. Sure, these guys get paid millions, win tomorrow or not. Sure, they’ve already pretty much over-achieved this season so the pressure is off.

But I really like this take on the world. (Tuesday update) In fact, watch his presser after today’s loss. The “fun stuff” kicks in about midway through.

Same as before. The reporters are all gloomy that Detroit didn’t close it out. Babs is already anticipating how awesome Game 7 will be.

Life gets difficult, stakes get high, shit gets real … it’s okay. That’s fun. That’s the fun of living. To perform under pressure. Or at least have a crack. We’re not here for all the boring moments where nothing much is happening, are we?

Mambo's magnificent 'Not With That Clown (great songs of sexual jealousy)'

Mambo’s magnificent ‘Not With That Clown (great songs of sexual jealousy)’

And so hockey can float for me, for a while, while I have fun dealing with the things that need dealing with right now. Yes, I’ll probably embarrass myself in my office tomorrow, screeching if the Wings get a big goal, as I sneakily watch Gamecenter on my iPad. Then I’ll be off to see the physio yet again tomorrow afternoon, about my knee and maybe my shoulder. I’ll wade through mud professionally. I’ll battle sinus pain.

But I’ll smile because life is about the challenges, and those changes of gear.

I just rediscovered one of my favourite CDs: Mambo Surfwear’s “Not with that clown. (Great songs of sexual jealousy)” (circa 1997, when Mambo was cool) and so ‘I was checkin’ out, she was checkin’ in’ by Don Covay can once again become my soundtrack as I travel around Melbourne, doing what needs to be done. Maybe occasionally even managing to tune back into my hockey world.

I’ll just try not to think about the future games where I’m going to find myself hunkering over my stick to face all the rookies who are currently training five nights a week to get better, better, better, while I’m not.

That’s going to be a tough game when that happens. It will be fun.

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Learning from the Wings: never surrender

May 10, 2013 by 3 Comments
The Red Wings: down but not beaten. Pic: Detroit Free Press

The Red Wings: down but not beaten. Pic: Detroit Free Press

With an Over Time loss yesterday, Detroit suddenly sits in a 2-3 series hole in the first round of play-offs against Anaheim, facing a sudden-death potential exit game at the Joe on Friday, American time.

With such jeopardy facing the Wings, I want to say right now that I’m very proud of my team.

All season, coach Mike Babcock has been trying to find the magic; putting this player with that, introducing defenders (one who literally arrived at the club on the morning of an early-season game, a guy Babs admitted he barely knew anything about), just holding things together. Helm’s been out all shortened season with his mysterious back, Bertuzzi for almost the entire season … it’s just been one of those seasons of pure struggle.

I was really pleased that the team found cohesion and form to roar into the play-offs for the 22nd straight year, when that could so easily not have happened. And now, against the more highly-rated Ducks, they’ve been dogged and determined and about a goal-a-game short of where they need to be.

In Game 4, it was the Wings that kept falling behind; somehow hanging on by their fingernails to take the game to OT, where Brunner and the rookies combined to steal it. But today was the other way. The Wings got the first goal, then allowed the Ducks one. Detroit got the go-ahead goal but couldn’t hang on to the advantage. The third OT of the series, and it was Anaheim that scored.

Another day, another desperate struggle. Which is how it’s been since the lock-out ended.

I’m not giving up on this Western Conference quarter-final. Game 6 is at the Joe and the Wings have shown that on their day, they can score and score heavily. Which is what they need to do to make Game 7. But they could just as easily be strangled; not be able to find the net. Hank Zetterberg, who has been brilliant all season as our new captain, has yet to score in the play-offs, and Filp has gone cold again. We’re pushing it, to rack up enough goals to overwhelm the experienced, confident Ducks.

This absorbing battle has mostly been what’s kept me going over the past week or so. My life has been a rollercoaster (although it’s actually fine: all minor bushfires, not major scares).

Like Detroit, I just don’t seem to be able to find the goal often enough; can’t score wins lately in many areas of my life. I’ve taken the Wings’ lesson and kept pushing and persevering, but it can be hard. You want life to be one way and it’s another; you have ambitions and dreams and they drift tantalizingly out of reach. All you can do is breathe, and tell yourself that the buzzer hasn’t gone. Keep your head up. Chase the puck.

On Sunday night, I played for the Nite Owls, where I can feel out of my depth. Many of my teammates have played for 40 years or more and skate without effort or thought. My skating has come along in the last few months – no longer endlessly camped on my inside edges… yes! – but I’m pretty wobbly compared to these old gliders. They notice every hole in my game, in a good way; telling me to skate with both hands on my stick (a bad habit) and to stay high on the blue line in D, things like that. I don’t mind. I respect their experience and game sense and I’m still up for learning everything I can. Even better, I managed to find my way to my usual place in the slot, to jam home the first goal of the night, which gave me a feeling of belonging. I even almost managed to Holmstrom-deflect another goal, which hopefully made my teammates realize the 48-year-old they call “lad” isn’t a total muppet.

Dan Cleary hits the deck, versus the Ducks. You know he's getting up. Pic: Detroit News.

Dan Cleary hits the deck, versus the Ducks. You know he’s getting up. Pic: Detroit News.

But by Wednesday, another few life kicks had me really struggling to ward off a general feeling of emotional flatness. Mackquist was sick with a cold and I thought about missing hockey, mostly to look after him, but also because I just didn’t know if I had it in me to compete in the occasionally wild and willing dev league games.

How sad sack are you to baulk at the idea of playing hockey? Even I couldn’t stomach that … I’m definitely unable to make Sunday’s Nite Owls play, so decided I really wanted to get in some skating this week, and should go. I checked Mack was alive enough for me to head to the Icehouse after all.

Of course, it was a brilliant night. The hockey was fast, furious and good-natured.

Before the game, I’d joked to another player, Todd Harbour, that I was going to kill someone. ‘And if I kill early, I plan to hunt again.’ I was deadpan and he looked worried but then smiled. Minutes in, battling for a loose puck on the blue line, I met an opponent head-on and they went flying backward, landing flat. Yes, it was Todd. I swear, Mr Harbour, I didn’t know it was you. And I was joking beforehand.

Later in that game, Big Cat and I combined for one of my favourite goals ever; me winning a battle on the defensive blue line and sneaking a short pass to his stick, then following his charge down the ice to be there when his shot rebounded off the top crossbar and between goalie Chris Lourey’s pads. I poked home the goal, for an epic one-two-one-two Place combination. Sometimes you have to remember why you got into something in the first place, and playing alongside my boy(s) was a prime motivation for my dive into this crazy world. Playing alongside Big Cat and having that kind of understanding on the ice remains awesome.

Usually I’m pretty buggered by the end of the 10 pm game, staggering into the night, knowing I won’t sleep before 1 am or more and have to wake to a 6.30 am alarm. Last night, I just wanted to keep skating, to keep chasing the puck; all the worries and annoyances of the real world blown away as I felt my legs burn and my chest gasp for air, and laughed with my hockey mates, bantered and sledged the coaches Lliam, Army and Tommy, and couldn’t wait for my next shift, and then the next shift, and then the next shift.

Damn, I love hockey when it’s like that.

And now, that hockey momentum has carried into the real world so that a few of the disappointments dogging me all week seem to be not quite so black. Maybe I’m not out of the game after all? Just like the Wings, I’m definitely 2-3 down in a seven-game series, but that just means I need to keep winning, right?

I have no idea, after watching yesterday’s game, which way the Wings-Duck series will go, but I’m proud of my Detroit team either way.

They just never ever stop trying, pushing forward, believing. It’s the Red Wing mantra, a non-negotiable, and I wish I could explain it to my AFL team, Richmond, which is building and building but does not yet believe. Something I can be guilty of as well.

I need to hang on to the Red Wings’ sense of self-confidence and excellence, no matter the scoreline; refusing to concede until the buzzer says it’s over …

And it ain’t, Anaheim Ducks. It ain’t over at all.

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Yo, Ranger! Ever heard of a cage?

March 7, 2013 by 9 Comments
Marc Staal wonders if he still has an eye, on Monday.

Marc Staal wonders if he still has an eye, on Monday.

This picture (right) was attached to a story on blueshirtbanter.com, a New York Rangers fan blog. Thankfully, the article explains that Ranger Marc Staal is expected to eventually make a full recovery after copping a full-blooded puck to the eye two days ago, against the Flyers.

My favourite part of the photo is the ref in the background. Because he’s thinking what I was thinking, watching Staal writhe around in severe pain and then staggering off the bloodied ice. Arms folded, head on an angle, the ref is clearly thinking: ‘What a dick.’

Readers of this blog know what a sensitive, new age hockey player I am, usually full of compassion and love for my fellow skaters. But sorry, Staal, I have only one thing to say to you when you can eventually see out of what’s left of your right eye if and when the elephant-man swelling subsides: go buy a fucking face cage.

Staal was lurking in front of his own goal when a Flyers defender did what defenders do on the blue line and drove a hard shot through traffic. All it took was a deflection and suddenly Staal was copping a piece of hard rubber travelling extremely fast to an completely unprotected face. If this description is not graphic enough for you, click here. Watch the injury in all its animated gif gory. It’s way nasty.

In dev league and summer league, the ferociously competitive forms of hockey in which my on-ice adventures exist, many players wear the plastic visors that barely cover your eyes. Not many don’t wear anything but that’s because Ice Hockey Victoria dictates an age range for when you have to wear a cage, or a visor or nothing at all. I’m not kidding: it is clearly stated, in fine print, that while my 17-year-old and 20-year-old sons must wear face cages, hacks my age are not legally required to wear any facial protection, presumably on the basis that if we haven’t picked up a life partner with our looks by now, it really doesn’t matter if they’re ruined at this point.

That was my reading of it anyway.

I wore a full face plastic visor for a few months but found the constant fogging, no matter what demisting potions I attempted to use, to be incredibly distracting. It was actually when I was sitting on the bench, breathing hard but not moving, that I couldn’t see a thing. I’d jump the boards pretty much blind, lost behind a pea-soup fog on the plastic in front of my face, and require quite a few strides for the breeze to clear things up.

Early on in summer league, I switched back to a full face wire cage and have never regretted it, even if yes, it clearly does impair your overall vision somewhat.

That’s a trade-off I’m prepared to make. As I say to anybody when this subject comes up in locker-room discussion: “I’m far too pretty not to wear a cage.”

Or to put it another way, this is one extreme, nasty, potentially dangerous injury that I can avoid with the right equipment, so why the Hell wouldn’t I?

A hard puck to the helmet can give you concussion. So will bumping your head hard against the ice, or into the boards. … basically, if your brain bounces hard enough against your skull, a concussion will happen. There’s no real way to protect that.

"Is he dead?" That's what Drew Miller appears to be wondering after Red Wing Patrick Eaves' face met a puck. Eaves was out for a year. Would a face cage have helped?

“Is he dead?” That’s what Drew Miller appears to be wondering after Red Wing Patrick Eaves’ ear met a puck. Eaves was out for a year. Would a face cage have helped?

But a face cage can stop a puck or, in my experience, a more frequent errant high stick to the face.

Two weeks ago, we finished a game at Oakleigh and were preparing to leave when a guy staggered off the ice, from a team training scrimmage, with blood pouring from his mouth and a big tooth, one of his bottom fangs, in his hand. “What do I do?” he asked us.

I resisted the urge to say: “Well, five minutes ago, I would have said buy a face cage but it’s too late for that.”

Instead, desperately trying to remember the St John’s first aid part of my scuba diving Stress & Rescue training, I suggested he put the tooth back in his mouth and suck it like a lolly. Saliva is actually the best warm, sterile holding material there is. Happily other even more medically qualified people were there and so he was hauled off to the Monash Medical Centre for treatment. I doubt they would have been able to put the tooth back in.

A cage would have stopped that injury ever happening and the case list goes on and on and on, at every level of hockey.

I do recognise that some head injuries are going to happen, no matter what, in a game where bodies, sticks and pucks hurtle around a confined space. The Red Wings’ Patrick Eaves is only just back on the ice after more than a year of “concussion type symptoms” as they call it, having worn a puck to the ear in front of goal. This one was really nasty but actually I’m not sure a cage would have helped him. The puck struck him near the ear as he turned away from it, so I suspect the brain-rattle was unavoidable.

All a cage can do is protect your eyes, nose, teeth and cheekbones. But that’s no small thing. It’s strange that no hockey player would think of heading into a game without elbow and knee protection, yet many skate into battle with unprotected faces.

I firmly believe that most amateur players only wear visors or nothing at all because they watch the NHL and see their heroes manning up in no visor, or a minimal visor. Visors look way cooler, no doubt. Right up until you get hit. I accept that the vision is worse in a cage but I’d counter that all the knee-to-ankle padding impedes your natural skating ability. Yet nobody ventures into a game without leg padding. Imagine the looks we’d give somebody, being helped off the ice with a broken leg, if they said: “I chose not to wear knee padding because it affects my crossovers.”

In two and a bit years of chasing pucks around, I can easily think of seven or eight times where my face cage has been rattled hard ether by a flying or deflected puck, or somebody’s stick waving around, way off the ice, or even an elbow, and I’ve actively thought: “Amen for the cage.”

Now I just need to work out how to protect my inner thigh, having copped a hard drive to that unprotected flesh against the Fighters on Sunday. Between that and my boringly endless troubled left knee, my skating is not at a career peak right now. On Sunday, we Interceptors play our last game of the summer league season, and I think my legs need the rest. Well, actually not rest: I’m getting too much rest, not able to run or ride my bike hard or do any of the usual things that put off-ice miles into my legs. They’re getting sluggish because of this undiagnosed knee. Time to get it sorted, but I wanted to survive the end of the season.

At last, next week, I’ll be able to see the doctors, as they do an MRI. Which puts me ahead of Marc Staal. He’s listed today as out of action indefinitely.

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The walking wounded

February 11, 2013 by 2 Comments
A huge Oakleigh crowd watches the dying seconds of the Ceptors' win; Jay Hellis in perfect pose, mid shut-out. (Pic: Elizabeth Vine)

A huge Oakleigh crowd watches the last seconds of the Ceptors’ win; Jay Hellis in perfect pose, mid shut-out. (Pic: Elizabeth Vine)

“So, let’s get this straight,” I said, looking around the purple haze of Interceptor jerseys in the Oakleigh rink’s tiniest change-room. Pointing, and ticking off our players.

Two bad knees: one for the season, the other almost certainly for the season.

Next player: a suspected broken toe.

Next along: a badly swollen puck-hammered thumb.

Next along: separated shoulder, now strapped up and on a prayer to survive the game about to start.

Next to me, on the right: painful back that hurts badly after every game.

Me: dubious knee that is refusing to heal.

Next to me, on the left: another strained and painful lower back.

And so it went. Around the room.

“You know what?” I said, thinking aloud. “We’re a real hockey team now.”

Mid-season, winning some, losing some. Just about everybody carrying something; maybe major, maybe not. At the bare minimum number of players without forfeiting, because Interceptors were away or on hens’ nights or sick or elsewhere.

And about to face a bunch of our friends in the TigerSharks, who had played the night before and were also only just able to scrape a healthy team together on a Saturday evening for this clash.

It’s 30 degree C-plus almost every day outside at the moment in Melbourne, but in the magnificently dilapidated surrounds of the Olympic Ice Rink, sliding and scrapping across a block of freshly-laid ice, or at the Icehouse, the war of attrition between Summer Rec D teams continues.

Maybe this is not mid-season as much as just hockey. After the endless NHL lockout, the Red Wings returned to find they were alrady in disarray with a bunch of injuries that have stopped coach Babcock fielding what he would regard as his best team at any stage so far, a quarter of the way into the season. Heroically, my winged wheel team keeps finding ways to win, more than they lose, although there have been a few meek days. This photo from the game against the Oilers on the weekend is one of the best hockey shots I’ve seen (and well found, James Smith).

Red Wings v Oilers. Pic: NHL (I think) via Facebook.

Red Wings v Oilers. Pic: NHL (I think) via Facebook.

The staggering Ceptors managed a win, with my boy, Big Cat, scoring a hat-trick and his old man, camped in the slot at the moment that counted, managing to swipe a rebound through the goalie’s five-hole for our other goal. Unfortunately the refs didn’t see it like that, giving one of Big Cat’s goals to somebody else, and mine to the assist before it. But gave me the assist. Weird. If I had one take-out of my first summer league competition, it would be to politely suggest to Ice Hockey Victoria that the official scorers consult the coach and captain of each team before officially signing off on the score sheet. Nobody is about to deliberately steal somebody else’s goal, and it would be nice to have them right when they’re lodged. Every time I talk to players from other teams, they have stories of wrongly-attributed goals but I don’t blame the refs at all – they have a million other things to think about mid-game. We should just be able to correct mistakes before we leave the rooms. Then again, Pete Sav got the goal for his shot, which deflected off Big Cat’s leg. Does it change anything? All that really matters is that the goal went in. It counted.

So we had a win – goalie Jay having a kick-arse shut-out that I was crazy-excited about, for him, after all his hard work, over the last couple of years – and we shared our post-game beer with the TigerSharks, before I limped off into the dusk, my stupid knee still giving me grief. Don’t know right now if it’s going to last the season or not. Strangely, it is least troublesome when skating, but I pulled out of Powerskating with Zac, at the Icehouse last Wednesday (it is an intense class – everything I hate, but NEED to do, from intensive crossover work to outside edge work) because I wanted to make sure I made it safely to Saturday’s game where we were so short of numbers. The injury feels like a timebomb, yet hasn’t collapsed yet.

Nicko, v Champs at the Icehouse. Lots to work on, including not looking at the puck while skating, apparently. (Pic Elizabeth Vine)

Nicko, v Champs at the Icehouse. Lots to work on to improve, including not looking at the puck while skating, apparently. (Pic Elizabeth Vine)

I think this week I’ll play Dev League. And power-skating. No tomorrow; suffering in the interests of improving my ever-not-good-enough skating. If my knee folds, it folds.

It was strange to score a goal but leave the game feeling unsatisfied, knowing that I hadn’t skated well enough and feeling like I hadn’t put skating skills I know I have into practice during the actual games. Why don’t I do crossovers when carrying the puck? Why don’t I carry the puck more? Things to work on this Wednesday at Dev. If I can walk.

I don’t mean to sound like I’m whinging by the way. I loved our win and had an awesome weekend on and off the ice, even if painful when I walk or ride my bike. Then again, when I show up on Wednesday night and look around the change room, the chances are that everybody else at Dev League will  also be carrying a wound or strain or bruise or knee or back or something at this stage of things.

So giddyup, Nicko.

We’re hockey players. We need to go play hockey now.

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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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So, how was your week?

February 19, 2012 by Leave a Comment

The difficult one-finger hand-stand push-up. What you - well, I - do when no mantas turn up mid-dive.

Me? Finally had a story I’d written about taking up hockey published in the Sunday Age (thanks, fellow rookie Michael Coulter) but had flown north and landed on a remote Barrier Reef piece of sand with some trees and eight-billion noisy birds, Lady Elliot island, so I didn’t have any phone or web access.

Seems like it got a decent response. The headline: “Puck life”. An f for a p and my reputation as a sunny optimist is gone forever. (Even if, in reading back this blog, I spend far too much time in the f life mode, given how 90 per cent of my life rocks.)

On Lady Elliot, I did my second tour of duty as an Earthwatch volunteer. Not as many manta rays as in September, but I had one face-to-face beautiful encounter, which made the week worthwhile all on its own – plus, it was a never-seen-before very large (read: five metre wingspan) female so I got to name it. Introducing Lana Del Ray (see what I did there? Ray and Rey? Working on so many levels … well, two). I cut together a highlights video of her, but Youtube chopped out the music (Lana Del Rey: “Blue Jeans”) because it suspected copyright breach. Those spiders don’t miss a thing.

So I’ve cut together a broader highlights video of the week underwater, if you feel like a break from hockey. It only goes for six minutes. You’ll drool with envy. Lana Del Ray is the manta in the close-ups. The sharks kick in at about 3.49, if you can’t bear to watch six minutes of fish and other critters.

So that’s been my week. Now back in civilization and happily exhausted.

In other news, my footy team, Richmond, apparently looked good in the pre-season competition. The Red Wings’ astonishing home-winning streak is now at 22 wins and has broken all NHL records. Physically spent from the north, I lay on my couch today and watched a replay of the historic 21st straight home win on Gamecenter on my Apple TV. It was brilliant. The crowd at the Joe in the final minute was out-of-control loud and excited. I got emotional listening to the fans, now able to imagine being there. And of course they played “Don’t Stop Believin’“. One day I will hear that song in that stadium. (But no, Detroiters, I’m not coming anywhere near the city or the Joe while the streak remains! You can relax.)

Closer to home, the world junior speed skating championships will retain a hold on my home rink, the Henke, for another week or so, so I plan to go to Sydney for work and then non-work shenanigans before classes start again.

For now, I need to sleep and will hopefully ditch my usual yearnings for happy dreams of manta rays and Stanley Cups. Let’s go Red Wings, let’s go.

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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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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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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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