Posts tagged hockey

six unanswered goals

six

Hockey is life where I come from.  Not gonna lie.  I was on skates by the age of four. I can still smell the cool air of an ice rink, hear the crisp cut of a sharp skate cutting into the freshly cleaned ice.  

I grew up in ice arenas.  My brothers were six and eight years older than I am. I got used to playing with my dolls, coloring, falling asleep, and my favorite trying to beat the Zamboni up and down the rink.

By the time I was ten I knew which teams to hate, which teams were ok, and that we cheered for the northern teams when it came to tourney time.  I have grown to believe the State Hockey Tournament should be a state holiday.  It is second to the Texas football tournament, I believe.

When my brothers played hockey, they knew how to hit people.  They went in and they tried to knock them through the boards and glass.  Sometimes the succeeded.  

Hockey is a physical sport, those of us that enjoy it like to see it physical.  We like to see open ice hits, big hits in the boards, and somebody who has their head down get their bell rung.  We want all of these hits to be clean.

The problem today is that a lot of the kids do not know how to hit.  They go into the hit with their hands up, so their hands and stick hit the head of the person they are hitting. There are very few hip checks anymore.  

I know they are trying to take some of the hitting out of the game, a lot of dad’s don’t like this, they call it girls hockey (honestly some people like women’s sports more because it isn’t as physical and they have to know how to actually play the sport without showing off or beating the shit out of the other players). I think if we started to teach the kids how to hit correctly we wouldn’t have this problem.  The youth also need to know how to take a hit, not to be afraid of it.  

I do not think taking out the physical side of hockey is the right thing to do, I think the youth need to learn how to hit correctly.  

I am writing all of this because of the high school kid who was hit from behind when playing a hockey game.  Basically what that means is he had no idea that the people that hit him were coming and he was close to the boards.  So when he was hit his head and body went into the boards, causing the injury.  Sometimes people can “sense” people coming, so they are able to absorb the hit.  Usually if you are hit from behind you have no clue that you are about to get hit.

Part of me thinks, oh it’s BSM (prep school), and all the rivalry stuff comes back to me.  Than I stop to think how this kid woke up one day, like every other day, went to the rink, was joking with friends, put on his hockey uniform like so many times before, was playing a game he loved, and because of one hit he is paralyzed.  Damn.  Not only is his life changed, the whole family dynamic is changed. 

Instead of spending evenings at the rink, they will be spending evenings at the hospital. His little brother will not get used to the hospital, and while he too may play hockey and his parents will try to make his life as “normal” as possible their minds will be with the son that is laying flat on a hospital bed.  

I’m asking for you to please pray for Jack and his family. For the two boys that hit him and their families, and for the BSM team, that they are able to heal from this.

Please check out his caring bridge site.

 http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/jackjablonski

Hey,

Where I am from hockey is life, little kids are on skates by the age of three, we dream of playing at the Xcel Center from the time we can talk.  The High School Hockey Tourney I believe should be a state holiday.  Hockey is life for a lot of families here in Minnesota. Please take the time to pray for this family.  Their son woke up one morning able to walk and now he cannot move his limbs.  As somebody who played hockey we understood the risk, just never think it could happen to us.  

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/jackjablonski

shitshardtoswallow:

I really hope he is able to make a full recovery.

http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/highschool/blog/prep_rally/post/High-school-hockey-player-paralyzed-after-hit-in?urn=highschool-wp10640

(Source: tylenall)

Where I live, the majority of the youth grow up to play hockey or figure skate.  Put it this way it is not odd to have your child on skates by the age of 3.  

I grew up in a hockey family.  It is said that the Doctor who delivered me had to come from the state hockey tourney to deliver me (this is actually not true).  My Dad enjoyed hockey growing up, as did his father.  My older brothers both played hockey, so it is no surprise there are pictures of me dressed in hockey gear by age 4.  

Hockey arenas, hockey tournements, trying to beat the zamboni up and down the ice, playing knee hockey in hotels until we got yelled at.  On the weekends my dad would build a fire in the fireplace and we would watch our local college hockey team, the same school I now work for.  

I was on skates by 4 or 5 and played Ringette.  It is a lot like hockey and is still played in some countries.  Ringette didn’t take off like people had hoped so they switched us to hockey.  

It is not that I didn’t like playing or always hated playing, with age comes better competition.  I feel the pressure for me to succeed was to great.  The pressure for me to be this amazing player was too much.  

After 8th grade I hated hockey, I hated everything there was to do with it.  I couldn’t watch it on tv, I wouldn’t talk about it, I wouldn’t play outside on cold winter days, I played because that is what my parents told me to do or expected me to do.

It was two to three years after I stopped playing hockey - junior year of high school - that I was able to start enjoying hockey again.  I can now watch hockey, talk about hockey, and play hockey and enjoy it. 

After I was able to be truthful about not wanting to play hockey anymore I was able to enjoy hockey in a different light.  I love the game of hockey, I’m pretty sure it is part of my DNA.