Bucko!By Paul Fersen
One might wonder why for a spring magazine, I might choose to write about hockey. It's because I'm still sitting here in this oversized chest freezer watching my youngest play his 45th game of the interminable season known as hockey: A marathon of frozen mornings and ridiculously bad coffee made by inept parent volunteers at rinks throughout the region.
Where I grew up and was semi-educated in southern public schools, this time of year meant azaleas and dogwood, girls in tank tops and cut-off jeans, cut way too short (as if there were such a thing) and convertibles with the top down and a cooler of beer in the back. If anyone had told me that 30 years later I'd be sitting in a walk-in freezer watching a bunch of ten-year-olds try and decapitate each other, I'd told ‘em to lay off the wacky weed and pass me another beer. But here I sit, bad coffee in one hand and the other hand gripping a hand warmer in the pocket of my artic parka.
Whereas soccer lasts about a month and a half in the fall and lacrosse lasts about the same in late spring, youth hockey begins in mid-autumn, continues through the dark of winter and emerges still going strong in the light of early spring. St. Patrick's Day will still find you and your weary compatriots staring blankly at each other in the "warm room" after a two-hour drive for a 7 a.m. game in the nether regions of eastern New York State. "Warm room" is a euphemism for the lobby of the rink where the temperature is generally slightly higher than liquid nitrogen. In one rink, the cream and sugar was outside the concession window. I had to get out my knife, cut open the carton and carve off a chunk of cream for my lukewarm coffee (true). If I get up that early and stay that cold for the entire day, at least I should be duck hunting.
To be fair, youth hockey is rather wonderful when your four-year-old takes his first tentative steps on the ice, leaning on the stick for support, his jersey reaching down to the top of his skates. He and his teammates shuffle like geriatric midgets, trying to stay upright at the same time they are attempting to get the puck into the net. Of course at this stage, there is no concept of spacing and position, so the puck is constantly surrounded by ten little hobbits desperately trying to stand up and actually hit the puck with the stick. There is, in my experience as the parent of three athletes, nothing more heart-warming in the world. Then they get older.
First there is the equipment. A few hundred dollars for skates, stick, helmet and pads all of which they will out grow in the next week or so. At the beginning of each season we all go to the basement and pull out last year's equipment only to find that our children look like Li'l Abner in pants and pads four sizes too small and skates that fit like the glass slipper on Cinderella's ugly stepsisters: Back to the hockey store.
Of course any equipment will not do. The older they get the more sophisticated they become as to what is cool and what is decidedly not. Skates must have the Integrated Wedge technology or the G-Force Cushion fit system in order for them to be able to properly skate. Sticks must have the correct flex and curve, just like the pros, who, by the way, are the only people who can actually flex these things or know what to do with the curve. All of this is packed into monstrous bags, larger than the children and heavier than most Volkswagens under the weight of which the children stagger like drunken sailors returning from leave with their sea bags over their shoulders.
Then there is the tape. Massive amounts of athletic tape that is used to hold up shin pads, tape the handle and the blade of the stick, re-tape the blade and handle of the stick and then re-tape it again so that the puck comes off the stick at a particular speed and trajectory, or so they would love to believe. Generally they are lucky if they hit the puck, but we love to live our children's fantasies with them so we buy the tape, tons of tape. Enough tape so that one season's worth if stretched end to end would reach from somewhere in Quebec to somewhere in Saskatchewan (good hockey places).
Each weekend during this interminable season, we get up with the cold blue dawn, get in the car and head for hidden hockey rinks all over the northeast, slowing down only long enough to grab yet another breakfast combo as we whip through the drive-through (the hockey parent diet is considered second only to smoking as a coronary risk factor).
Inexplicably, people feel the need to build their hockey rinks in the most out of the way location possible, so that parents from the opposing team can't find them. Take a look at our own Riley Rink. If you didn't know better you'd think you made a wrong turn and were headed for the cement factory, until at the last second a road appears on the left. Still can't see it from there. We went to one rink up in northern Vermont that was so remote, everyone spoke French and a wrong turn found us stopped on a dirt road, talking to Lucky Pierre of the Canadian Border Patrol. This of course is where some idiot decided to hold a statewide tournament. Part of qualifying for the tournament was being able to use celestial navigation to find the place. We did though have a nice lunch in Canada in-between games.
Nothing is more fun than following the poor parent who has been designated to lead the caravan of SUV's and mini-vans full of smelly equipment, sleeping children and bleary-eyed parents in the quest for the elusive rinks. If you ever see eight or nine mini-vans making wild and dangerous U-turns across four lanes of traffic, one behind the other, rest assured it's a hockey team that is lost and the leader of the pack is now the object of derision and foul language from those behind him who believe him to be a total moron.
There is a particular affliction among the hockey faithful that because of the skating skills and stick skills needed to become proficient in this game, their children or the children whom they are coaching should spend every waking moment on the ice, throughout the year, playing for select teams and going to endless camps in order to ensure that they eventually end up in the NHL. I read once about a family who logged over half a million miles in this quest. Ahh, the delusions with which we parents burden ourselves. The fact is, perhaps one out of 200,000 of these little hockey hobbits is going to actually make it to the NHL. The other 199,999 are simply at some point going to turn their attention to other things, and rightly so. If my little one makes it to the NHL, it will be his decision. I'll be glad to log a half a million miles, but it will be because he asked me to, not because I wanted him to. ◊
Paul Fersen has been writing for this magazine for over 25 years. He lives in Dorset and when not working at Orvis spends most of his time hunting and fishing or standing on the sidelines of one of his children's athletic endeavors. With two children in college and an 11 year old, he will never be able to retire. So be it.