The Game I'll Never Forget - VII - The Drought and Resurrection
For people who say their personal lives aren't affected by residency, they're lying. It always affects you in one way or another; whether you're post call and too tired to do anything or whether you have to study for your boards, you're life IS affected. My life was no different. There was always something that had to be done and if there wasn't, then I had to be studying. After 4 long years of that somewhat mundane existence, that finally came to an end.
Graduation. This marked a pivotal time in my life, as it signified the end of my residency, the start of a new job, and a new road towards marriage, a new life. And again, there was no room for hockey. Yet. Life issues had to be established and settled before pursuing other interests, and that would take a while. As it turned out, it would take over 2 years.
One day in March of 2007, about 2 years after graduation, Q for some reason expressed an interest in picking up roller hockey, again. I'm not sure what brought this on; perhaps it was the Cup Finals that Anaheim played in that previous year that motivated him. Either way, he told me about it and I encouraged him. Then, he suggested the unthinkable,
"Why don't you play, too?" ME? I haven't played hockey in over 10 years, I haven't played ice hockey in 20 years. I wasn't in shape or working out. That would be suicide for sure. Besides, I'd have to have Mom and Dad send all my equipment over, again. And who knows if I even had a full set, anymore. However, it would be a form of exercise, something I was lacking quite severely but that I needed.
Despite making excuses not to play, I found myself shopping for hockey equipment online. My interest for getting back in to the game snowballed, as did my time researching equipment. My old ice hockey equipment was 20 years old and would not suffice; the pads were old, moldy, and coming apart at the seams. Buttons and snaps were rusted and fused. OSHA standards recommended replacement of helmets every 7 years. Mine was 15 years old.
Surely by now they've improved the technology, making padding lighter, stronger, and more comfortable. Sticks were stronger and lighter and skates were stiffer and lighter. A lot of research went in to choosing my equipment and I learned a lot about hockey equipment that I had no idea about before. For example, I learned that there were different types of sticks: wooden, one piece, 2 piece (huh? 1 piece, 2 piece?); not all curves on the blades were the same and in fact were very very specific; a curve on a blade had 5-7 specific characteristics and varied with each player; the shaft itself had at least 2-3 different specifications, as well. Woah! That was news to me. You mean you just didn't grab any old stick out of Sportsmart and use that one? I guess you could, but you'd be using a much different stick each time. The stick I ended up using was a right shot, Lie 6, mid curve type, moderate curve depth, moderate length blade with a rounded toe, neutral face angle, and a 102 flex with a low kick point. Huh? Exactly. Put simply, the Lindros/Kane P88 blade.
(Back in the day, composite sticks were just coming on to the market when I stopped playing ice hockey. But as young adult with no knowledge or experience of equipment, Q and I thought these new sticks were made of aluminum. When I had asked about aluminum sticks at the proshop as I was researching my new set of equipment, the guy looked at me like I was insane.)
My Excalibur
Skates were no different. The skates were THE most important part of playing (the 2nd most important is the stick). And not being in the game for so long I had no idea what was available, what was good, what wasn't. All I knew was Bauer and CCM and neither of those felt very comfortable. I searched many websites, went to many proshops and tried on many skates and for some reason they all hurt my feet. It felt as though someone was squeezing my feet together. Because of that, I took a chance and ordered a pair of CCM skates online that were wide-boot. Waiting for those to arrive in the mail was agony, but I eventually got them and tried them on. For the first time ever in my skating/hockey career, I wore a pair of skates and felt absolutely no pain in my foot. I was set.
My Pegasus
The rest of the equipment - helmet, face shield, shoulder pads, elbow pads, pants, shin pads, and cup weren't as crucial. I could always adjust to those and I realized that nothing that I wore would ever feel 100% comfortable regardless of how light the material was. Sacrificing comfort for protection wasn't an option, either. I had a job and a family and I couldn't jeopardize my livelihood just because my shoulders felt uncomfortable whenever I took a shot.
I eventually completed my equipment shopping, taking a very different angle on it than I had when I was younger. Before, it was all about buying what was cheapest but as I found out, that meant the least protection. At the same time, I didn't need the super-duper shoulder pads people wore in the NHL because I wasn't planning on playing in the NHL with bone-crunching body-checks, either. So I ended up buying equipment that was very middle-of-the-road.
Now I was set. I had the stick, I had my full set of equipment. Now the hard part: getting my game back. I had to figure out a plan for that.
Graduation. This marked a pivotal time in my life, as it signified the end of my residency, the start of a new job, and a new road towards marriage, a new life. And again, there was no room for hockey. Yet. Life issues had to be established and settled before pursuing other interests, and that would take a while. As it turned out, it would take over 2 years.
One day in March of 2007, about 2 years after graduation, Q for some reason expressed an interest in picking up roller hockey, again. I'm not sure what brought this on; perhaps it was the Cup Finals that Anaheim played in that previous year that motivated him. Either way, he told me about it and I encouraged him. Then, he suggested the unthinkable,
"Why don't you play, too?" ME? I haven't played hockey in over 10 years, I haven't played ice hockey in 20 years. I wasn't in shape or working out. That would be suicide for sure. Besides, I'd have to have Mom and Dad send all my equipment over, again. And who knows if I even had a full set, anymore. However, it would be a form of exercise, something I was lacking quite severely but that I needed.
Despite making excuses not to play, I found myself shopping for hockey equipment online. My interest for getting back in to the game snowballed, as did my time researching equipment. My old ice hockey equipment was 20 years old and would not suffice; the pads were old, moldy, and coming apart at the seams. Buttons and snaps were rusted and fused. OSHA standards recommended replacement of helmets every 7 years. Mine was 15 years old.
Surely by now they've improved the technology, making padding lighter, stronger, and more comfortable. Sticks were stronger and lighter and skates were stiffer and lighter. A lot of research went in to choosing my equipment and I learned a lot about hockey equipment that I had no idea about before. For example, I learned that there were different types of sticks: wooden, one piece, 2 piece (huh? 1 piece, 2 piece?); not all curves on the blades were the same and in fact were very very specific; a curve on a blade had 5-7 specific characteristics and varied with each player; the shaft itself had at least 2-3 different specifications, as well. Woah! That was news to me. You mean you just didn't grab any old stick out of Sportsmart and use that one? I guess you could, but you'd be using a much different stick each time. The stick I ended up using was a right shot, Lie 6, mid curve type, moderate curve depth, moderate length blade with a rounded toe, neutral face angle, and a 102 flex with a low kick point. Huh? Exactly. Put simply, the Lindros/Kane P88 blade.
(Back in the day, composite sticks were just coming on to the market when I stopped playing ice hockey. But as young adult with no knowledge or experience of equipment, Q and I thought these new sticks were made of aluminum. When I had asked about aluminum sticks at the proshop as I was researching my new set of equipment, the guy looked at me like I was insane.)
My Excalibur
Skates were no different. The skates were THE most important part of playing (the 2nd most important is the stick). And not being in the game for so long I had no idea what was available, what was good, what wasn't. All I knew was Bauer and CCM and neither of those felt very comfortable. I searched many websites, went to many proshops and tried on many skates and for some reason they all hurt my feet. It felt as though someone was squeezing my feet together. Because of that, I took a chance and ordered a pair of CCM skates online that were wide-boot. Waiting for those to arrive in the mail was agony, but I eventually got them and tried them on. For the first time ever in my skating/hockey career, I wore a pair of skates and felt absolutely no pain in my foot. I was set.
My Pegasus
The rest of the equipment - helmet, face shield, shoulder pads, elbow pads, pants, shin pads, and cup weren't as crucial. I could always adjust to those and I realized that nothing that I wore would ever feel 100% comfortable regardless of how light the material was. Sacrificing comfort for protection wasn't an option, either. I had a job and a family and I couldn't jeopardize my livelihood just because my shoulders felt uncomfortable whenever I took a shot.
I eventually completed my equipment shopping, taking a very different angle on it than I had when I was younger. Before, it was all about buying what was cheapest but as I found out, that meant the least protection. At the same time, I didn't need the super-duper shoulder pads people wore in the NHL because I wasn't planning on playing in the NHL with bone-crunching body-checks, either. So I ended up buying equipment that was very middle-of-the-road.
Now I was set. I had the stick, I had my full set of equipment. Now the hard part: getting my game back. I had to figure out a plan for that.
posted by V-Hume at 10:24 PM
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