Sport: Punks who can dish it but can't take it

I love the rough stuff....grinding hard along the boards, causing traffic in front of the goalie, killer hits; it's very rare that I come home from a hockey game without something bloodied or bruised.

I think it stems from growing up in a 'neighbourhood' (really just a country road with a couple of houses on it) where most of the kids were a few years older than I. It was either play outside with them, or sit inside all day. Add to this that I was a big kid growing up, I was the same size as a couple of the other boys who were 5 years older, and they didn't treat you any different, a tackle was a tackle, live with it, take the pounding, and get up and do it again. It was fun, toughened you up, and made me the goon I am today...lol.

Growing up, I'd fatten up, then hit a growth spurt, then fatten up, then another growth spurt, but they day I fattened up and didn't get that growth spurt, was the day I realized how I could use my size to excel at hockey and football. My stats changed from about 50 pts a year and maybe 20 mins in penalties, to 12 pts a year and roughly 300 mins in penalties, and I loved it. It was fun, even when I was skating off the ice with a face full of blood from a busted nose, there'd still be a smile under there. I was never a dirty player, just an effective enforcer.

Now that I play non-contact leagues, I have lost some of that, and although I have to deal with the body penalties I get for people falling when we collide, for the most part the only thing I have left that I can do is stand in front of the net, screen the goalie, tip pucks, grab garbage rebounds, and push and shove with the defencemen who try and fail to move me.

And if you try, and you can't, and you resort to two-handed slashes to the back of my knees, expect an answer. If it wasn't for the $50 fine you get for fighting in this league, there would have been quite the tilt. Instead, there was everything short of dropping the gloves, and although there was a triumphant slam of the sin bin door, deep down, it was fun, I loved it.

Sport: I have gotten better at hockey since I have gotten old

It's Friday, which means Friday Night Hockey for me; long gone are the days where I would have started pre-drinking at about 4:30, preparing for a crazy night that would go until the first hints of daylight on Saturday. No, parties are only parties, hockey is life.

I was thinking the other day...I am almost 34 now, and I started playing hockey at the age of 5, so that's what...almost 29 years...without missing a year, many years winter and summer, leagues, pickup, shinny, pond, competitive, recreational...I have been faithful, and devoted to the one thing that keeps me happy, through thick and thin, the constant that I can base my life around.

I truly love the sport. I cannot sit down and talk trivia or stats with anyone, my friend Piotes would destroy me in a trivia contest; but I play and I joke, those you can do, those who can't know trivia...but really, it's a religious experience more than a past time.

I can still hear the crack of the ice on a cold Sunday morning, as your blades cut through virgin glass on that old cow pasture watering hole, the one you've been watching for weeks, throwing cinder blocks on to see if they finally don't puncture through and sink. Your nostrils freeze together, your ears are numb, but your forehead sweats and your cheeks glow red.

Games would only be called for supper, or darkness, or that bull getting lose in the field and tearing after your red Canadiens jersey that you wear, unsure what he hates more, the colour, or the team.

When I get into a relationship, I declare upfront the nights on which I am off-limits, and they laugh thinking it's cute that they're dating a jock, only to find out that I'm being serious, do not get between me and the ice, you will  not be happy with my decision. My ex-wife never got that, even with the fact that I had been playing 2 years longer than she has been alive...

It's therapy...I can clear my head, think back to simpler times, enjoy great comradery, stories, beer, vacate for a couple of hours to be refreshed and renewed in my ability to deal with life. Thankfully there's one person I know, who even though she's not working tonight like she was supposed to, and is hosting my visit for the weekend, that doesn't care that I'm staying up here for hockey tonight, or that I have to leave earlier on Sunday for hockey playoffs then as well...she's just happy that I'm there...and that quality is too rare in my life.

Wish us luck, this playoff run will be tough, but we have heart...and Ogie Ogilthorpe...

Lifestyle: God I've missed going to places like this...

I had exclaimed tonight, and I have uttered it in the past, but it is one thing to travel to some place and discover something new and unseen, but what I find more enchanting, more exciting, is when you find a mystery in your own back yard....such was The Bauer Kitchen on King. 

Yes it's atmosphere was quite appealing, a mix of old loft and new post-modern fixtures. Bonus that they had my scotch, the 12 year old Glenlivet available. But it wasn't the food nor the drink that made this place special tonight, it was the people.

I had met Hilary Abel at an event hosted at the Art Bar. My wife at the time was quite a social butterfly, and left me at the bar while she mingled. Luckily Hilary had carved out a niche there at the bar herself. We immediately hit it off, and have stayed in touch since then. It was she who organized a little get together called Cinq a Sept tonight at the Kitchen. 

The invited were a select group of her friends, and what I had come to find as great group of young professionals, with interesting conversation to be had. I'd like to think I was my usual charming self, and enjoyed a convo that ranged from travel to sport to religion...I think potentially I've expanded my circle of friends tonight, which is something I have been lacking this last year and a half.

I left with a smile, this winter will not be as bleak as I thought...until le prochaine Cinq a Sept...and the exchange of new ideas with new friends...


Adieu