When the going gets tough the tough go, or something like that. Same thing for the not so tough. So I’ll sign off now before things start to heat up. I’ve been issued a season, maybe life, misconduct for too much dalliance with the sun. I can’t dispute the call. So I want to recount a brief hockey fan’s bio, since we all got here following one path or another.
I left the men’s game behind with my undergraduate years, and have never missed the occasional dead rat thrown on the ice or the relentless harassing of the opponent’s goalie. I was introduced to the women’s game by my daughters, who wanted to join a fledgling high school team that was 1-14 after its inaugural year. The team improved to around 4-10, give or take a loss or two, over the next few seasons. Our best skater was from Assabet, and our least accomplished a diminutive freshman from Pakistan who had never skated before her first practice. All of the others fell into the mid to low range on that spectrum. But they were all in, 100%. The team traveled from our city hub to carve a ragged arc from Gloucester through Billerica (!) to Waltham, once getting as far south as Duxbury ---- urban kids playing a suburban kids’ schedule. I was team dad, supplying oranges and doughnuts, nourishing body and soul. Our last year we were invited to the first Martha’s Vineyard girls’ hockey tournament, and that was a gas, February ferryboat and all. We beat the host team in the last game with 00:01 on the third period clock, and the kids had their first pig pile. The return ferry to Woods Hole carried exhausted but rewarded players, and all I could do was marvel at how the hockey gods had brought these two scrappy, improbable teams together ---- one an isolated bunch of island kids who were looking for an adventurous foe, the other my patchwork of city kids glad to have an appreciative opponent, ninety-five miles away.
After high school, how to scratch the itch? Well, there happened to be a D1 team right over the bridge. After my first game I was
in thrall. All you have to do is get through the national anthem and then 60 minutes of bliss await. A completely different game, and yet somehow the same game. How can that be? What
is this thing called women’s hockey?
Well, adiós. I will miss most of you
(← but I won’t miss these little fellas). Ever the student, I thank my hockey elders for their wisdom and/or wit. yes sometimes you find the two combined ha ha Enjoy the new season. It ought to be an exciting one, like all the others.
PS. Good to see that the game that dare not speak its name is official.
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