Saturday, December 24, 2005
Hockey, etc.
Christmas Eve. 6:31 pm. A few degrees colder and it'd be snowing. Instead, a steady drizzle is coming down and is patiently melting the snow into slush, slush into puddles.
If it were colder, I'd probably be out playing pond hockey with my father. Pond hockey was and is the only form of hockey I can bear really. So it works out well when it's about 22 degrees out and no recent snowfall. Maybe some sunlight to warm you, but mostly just grey usually. Hockey was really a touchy subject with me and my parents. I love the game, but hate mostly what I remember of playing it. At least on the pond I don't have any expectations really. Except to trudge out into snow drifts looking for stray pucks (a difficult task, but rewarding with practice).
I don't know why I became distasteful of the sport. My father finds his solace from the everyday in it. Not that his life is particularly bad. Not that he truly needs it in any definition of needs. He thinks he needs it, and that goes a long way to elevating a passtime into something as elemental as breathing. He told me one day that if, hypothetically, he were to lose the mobility of his legs, he'd likely want to kill himself. That's understandable, I guess, though a bit dramatic for even my sensibilities. I don't think I'll ever understand the sport the way he does, though.
When I was twelve or thirteen, I was a great player, comparatively speaking. I had hit puberty a couple years sooner than most of my peers. So I had no trouble dominating for a while. It was probably the most gratifying time in my hockey career.
I was a smart player. I knew how to dominate players I had no business dominating. The execution of artistic passing, stick-handling, etc. - these were the mediums in which I worked and enjoyed. I could think ahead - know what the other player would do. I probably never realized my full potential in that time, however. I thrived on the communal aspect of the game. I always wanted other players to succeed as well. I would skate circles around each of the five opponents, up and down the ice, maybe twice, then dish the puck off to the weakest player on my team (largely to no avail). I'm sure my father looked on incredulously at the sheer talent and ingenuity that I possessed to beat every player on the opposing team, and my subsequent idiocy of giving the puck to an asthmatic, four-eyed chunk of baby fat, sure to be overcome in 2 seconds, tops. Who knows why I did things like that. It drove people crazy.
Sooner or later, I found I was no longer bigger than the other players. In fact, I was significantly smaller. I was 5'6" at 11, and I'm still 5'6" at 20. I tried to adapt to a more physical, less inventive, and less romantic game. I spent most shifts on my ass after being run over by 6'1" trucks. I would have feared those types more if they lacked braces and tubes of Oxy-10 in their back pockets. I gradually became less successful on the ice, and ultimately ended up a third line right-winger (with a left hand shot, no less). My job changed from scoring and being impressive, to chipping, hacking, grinding, bludgeoning and generally keeping the other team from scoring too much.
By this point, I lost most of my love of hockey. It was a different game entirely. Instead of relying on brains (or whatever you call what we thought we had), we relied on brute force and intimidation. As you can imagine, I wasn't very intimidating. So it went. I began loathing the game. Loathing it because of imminent injury. Loathing it because of parents and friends who remembered my glory days of artistic and cerebral domination, and who thought I was now a hack. I justified. At least I was getting exercise.
Practices were like bootcamp after awhile. We had all kinds of names for the drills. Suicides. Meat Grinders. Tunnel of Love. (That was a big fucking misnomer.) Yes. The Tunnel of Love I remember well. In practice, every player would line up single file along the boards, standing about six feet away. And you'd skate through the little corridor they'd created, getting blasted with body-checks by each player. Of course, this was a fun drill. Seriously. It was. You only had to go through once. And afterwards, you got to take a crack at every guy who hit you. It wasn't that bad really. It hurt. But not that much.
What I really couldn't take was the seriousness of the whole thing. We lost to our cross-town rivals one day. I dunno. I think it was 4-2. We were admittedly flat that game, I guess. We were a better team, but only a little better. So the rivalry was quite alive. Nevertheless, our coach was furious. The next day at practice, he came in, stony-eye'd and calmly ferocious. At first he didn't say anything. He dragged the bucket of pucks into the center of the locker room and dumped them out onto the floor. "If you need to puke, bucket's gonna be at center ice." Players groaned, spit, cussed. They took off superflous pads. They knew they wouldn't be needing them. This was a skating practice. Skating laps as fast as you could for an hour and fifteen minutes without breaks or water. Whatever you didn't sweat out, you puked out. Again! Again! Again! Just like Herb Brooks in Miracle. I remember some player collapsed from exaustion in the corner. Coach skated over, and - I swear I'm not kidding - he kicked him right in the stomach with his skate like, three times. "Get up, lardass!" He turned to the rest of us, mouths agape. "You guys are all heartless! Gutless!" Blah, blah, blah. All the same sports clichés. Pft. He even told us once, "If you lose this game, you're going to take it to your fucking grave." Another Herb Brooks line, no doubt.
I think we beat that same team the next time we played them. It was a blowout. 8-2. I dunno. Fights broke out towards the end. Players trying to keep what little dignity they had left by trying to kick your ass in fisticuffs. Whatever.
I miss the game. Of course I do. I miss when it was fun and I was good at it. I miss being in shape. I miss scoring and winning. What happened? I'm a musician most of the time now. A student otherwise. I keep playing my guitar. My dad keeps playing hockey. Both escapes, I guess. Probably keep doing both until we die.
Thought this was cool looking, though not germane at all. It's on my door.
Vic Chesnutt
¶ 3:51 PM 
If it were colder, I'd probably be out playing pond hockey with my father. Pond hockey was and is the only form of hockey I can bear really. So it works out well when it's about 22 degrees out and no recent snowfall. Maybe some sunlight to warm you, but mostly just grey usually. Hockey was really a touchy subject with me and my parents. I love the game, but hate mostly what I remember of playing it. At least on the pond I don't have any expectations really. Except to trudge out into snow drifts looking for stray pucks (a difficult task, but rewarding with practice).
I don't know why I became distasteful of the sport. My father finds his solace from the everyday in it. Not that his life is particularly bad. Not that he truly needs it in any definition of needs. He thinks he needs it, and that goes a long way to elevating a passtime into something as elemental as breathing. He told me one day that if, hypothetically, he were to lose the mobility of his legs, he'd likely want to kill himself. That's understandable, I guess, though a bit dramatic for even my sensibilities. I don't think I'll ever understand the sport the way he does, though.
When I was twelve or thirteen, I was a great player, comparatively speaking. I had hit puberty a couple years sooner than most of my peers. So I had no trouble dominating for a while. It was probably the most gratifying time in my hockey career.
I was a smart player. I knew how to dominate players I had no business dominating. The execution of artistic passing, stick-handling, etc. - these were the mediums in which I worked and enjoyed. I could think ahead - know what the other player would do. I probably never realized my full potential in that time, however. I thrived on the communal aspect of the game. I always wanted other players to succeed as well. I would skate circles around each of the five opponents, up and down the ice, maybe twice, then dish the puck off to the weakest player on my team (largely to no avail). I'm sure my father looked on incredulously at the sheer talent and ingenuity that I possessed to beat every player on the opposing team, and my subsequent idiocy of giving the puck to an asthmatic, four-eyed chunk of baby fat, sure to be overcome in 2 seconds, tops. Who knows why I did things like that. It drove people crazy.
Sooner or later, I found I was no longer bigger than the other players. In fact, I was significantly smaller. I was 5'6" at 11, and I'm still 5'6" at 20. I tried to adapt to a more physical, less inventive, and less romantic game. I spent most shifts on my ass after being run over by 6'1" trucks. I would have feared those types more if they lacked braces and tubes of Oxy-10 in their back pockets. I gradually became less successful on the ice, and ultimately ended up a third line right-winger (with a left hand shot, no less). My job changed from scoring and being impressive, to chipping, hacking, grinding, bludgeoning and generally keeping the other team from scoring too much.
By this point, I lost most of my love of hockey. It was a different game entirely. Instead of relying on brains (or whatever you call what we thought we had), we relied on brute force and intimidation. As you can imagine, I wasn't very intimidating. So it went. I began loathing the game. Loathing it because of imminent injury. Loathing it because of parents and friends who remembered my glory days of artistic and cerebral domination, and who thought I was now a hack. I justified. At least I was getting exercise.
Practices were like bootcamp after awhile. We had all kinds of names for the drills. Suicides. Meat Grinders. Tunnel of Love. (That was a big fucking misnomer.) Yes. The Tunnel of Love I remember well. In practice, every player would line up single file along the boards, standing about six feet away. And you'd skate through the little corridor they'd created, getting blasted with body-checks by each player. Of course, this was a fun drill. Seriously. It was. You only had to go through once. And afterwards, you got to take a crack at every guy who hit you. It wasn't that bad really. It hurt. But not that much.
What I really couldn't take was the seriousness of the whole thing. We lost to our cross-town rivals one day. I dunno. I think it was 4-2. We were admittedly flat that game, I guess. We were a better team, but only a little better. So the rivalry was quite alive. Nevertheless, our coach was furious. The next day at practice, he came in, stony-eye'd and calmly ferocious. At first he didn't say anything. He dragged the bucket of pucks into the center of the locker room and dumped them out onto the floor. "If you need to puke, bucket's gonna be at center ice." Players groaned, spit, cussed. They took off superflous pads. They knew they wouldn't be needing them. This was a skating practice. Skating laps as fast as you could for an hour and fifteen minutes without breaks or water. Whatever you didn't sweat out, you puked out. Again! Again! Again! Just like Herb Brooks in Miracle. I remember some player collapsed from exaustion in the corner. Coach skated over, and - I swear I'm not kidding - he kicked him right in the stomach with his skate like, three times. "Get up, lardass!" He turned to the rest of us, mouths agape. "You guys are all heartless! Gutless!" Blah, blah, blah. All the same sports clichés. Pft. He even told us once, "If you lose this game, you're going to take it to your fucking grave." Another Herb Brooks line, no doubt.
I think we beat that same team the next time we played them. It was a blowout. 8-2. I dunno. Fights broke out towards the end. Players trying to keep what little dignity they had left by trying to kick your ass in fisticuffs. Whatever.
I miss the game. Of course I do. I miss when it was fun and I was good at it. I miss being in shape. I miss scoring and winning. What happened? I'm a musician most of the time now. A student otherwise. I keep playing my guitar. My dad keeps playing hockey. Both escapes, I guess. Probably keep doing both until we die.
Thought this was cool looking, though not germane at all. It's on my door.
Vic Chesnutt
¶ 3:51 PM
