Hockey Cures All Ills

I saw my first hockey game, and everything changed.

Julia

Clean Slate

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As a new skater, old ice rattled me. Every chink, every gouge, every line traced before me went through my legs like car tires over rumble strips. The sparser attendance at mid-day ice—another reason I sought it out when possible—meant I had more time before the wear and tear got to me. Once I felt the wobble, the teeth rattle in my head, I had to leave the ice, knowing I would come back when I could start over fresh.

I don’t know if other new skaters have had this same weird sensitivity. But it created an awareness in me of the changing nature of my new playing field. Of course, basketball courts get mopped after a sweaty fall and outdoor fields of all sorts are tended at regular intervals. But ice lived and breathed and changed throughout play in subtle and drastic ways.

After the Zamboni, the new ice is a clean slate, ready for whatever you can bring to it. You choose how you mark it, what history you carry to it, how you see it evolve before you. As the time moves forward, as the cuts add up, at a certain point they will be erased yet again: A chance to start cleanly each new period with only the score lingering, another fluctuation until it isn’t.

To my mind, no other game has this capacity for starting over entirely. The cuts, the marks, the blood all melt away. You do this because you love it, the beauty of it the first time leaving you breathless; now the exertion of it stealing through you, leaving behind the twins exhilaration and exhaustion. You do this because you can. Sometimes you do it for the process, sometimes for the win.

And if you forget why you do it, you need to remember those moments on the ice when it all felt right. You go back to that space and you decide that, yes, you do want this. The ice may be frozen in place, but you are not. You want it more than anything that could work against you. You decide. You believe. You make your mark in the now.

You got this, Caps.

 

Destination

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Now that I had a stick and a bag of pucks, I needed my hockey skates to fully commit to my plan to play. Having sailed through three sessions of adult skating lessons in my figure skates, I knew that I would finally find my footing and fly in my hockey skates. My return to hockey skates would be a day of triumph, my first true hockey strides forward.

Except it wasn’t. Not even close. The second my hockey skates hit the ice, my body nearly did, too.  Whatever balancing and stopping I had managed in figure skates had now evaporated. It was as if the past three sessions had never happened; I was back to the perilous pratfalls of the previous October.

I felt no connection to the ice; my skates slipped around as if they had clear tape on their blades. As an avid toe-pick cheater, as I then discovered, I was toast without it. For pure self-preservation, I found myself clinging yet again to the boards, like the newbie I should no longer have been. In a last-ditch attempt to salvage some pride, I left my hockey skates behind at the rink for sharpening, a Hail Mary to ascribe my vanished prowess to equipment and not operator error.

I was now more relieved than ever that I had enlisted the help of a friend who grew up playing hockey and now lived near the rink. However, my transition would not be smooth, and I would not soon be learning the fancy stuff like t-stops that I had anticipated.

To his credit, he tried the t-stops anyway, ultimately dissuaded by the wild-eyed terror on my face and my Vincent Price-like cackle as I attempted them. He kept doing them, often flying away from me to get some actual exercise. T-stops and speed were as natural to him as breathing, despite the many years he had been off the ice.

He now spent his limited free time on Motocross, and he deconstructed its various aspects as we weaved around the rink. The details were welcome distractions from my frenzied mind, which was sputtering on an endless loop, “Why can’t I stop? Will I ever be able to stop? Oh, shit!”

And then I would fall.

After a few of these tumbles, he said, “You keep looking at the ice. You can’t do that.”

I knew that. I had sailed through three sessions, hadn’t I? But, I didn’t realize I was doing it. Too much focus on dying can be distracting.

“It’s just like Motocross. Wherever you look is where you go.”

And he showed me, shifting his view, his shoulders, his body, never looking at the ice, always looking at the next place he intended to be.

My attempts to follow his lead were by no means perfect, but they did change my mantra: “Wherever you look is where you go. Wherever you look is where you go. Wherever you look is where you go.”

Walk Up

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One of my best friends, a diehard baseball fan, once called hockey the “AC/DC of the sporting world.” As a life-long AC/DC fan, I accepted it as the compliment it is. She was helping me out with my hockey problem by attending the occasional game with me.

“If you can’t beat ‘em, beat ‘em,” she stood up and screamed as a fight broke out during a bruising Caps loss. At another, we made the jumbotron because she was singing along to “The Hockey Song.” She’s even better at baseball games, her home turf. Never leave a game early. You will be rightfully and loudly scorned if she sees you slinking by.

When I think of her, I think about baseball, and I was reminded of both one day, when on my way to the rink, my shuffling phone popped out my walk-up song. My theoretical one, of course, given I had not held a bat in years, and hockey really has no analogue. Clever DJs can make musical commentary before face-offs, but that is not the same. You choose your walk-up song, not the DJ.

And you must choose wisely. I could go into a long description of how certain aspects of my life have had frightening parallels to the lives of the music nerds in High Fidelity, but I will refrain for the moment. In the arguments/discussions that preceded my ultimate choice, which I now heard blasting from the radio and which I had completely forgotten about, I had shortened my potential list to five songs and three artists.

My choices had much to recommend them in my mind, and several of the songs could be said to have changed my life. Leo’s album Hearts of Oak and Harvey’s Rid of Me cover all sides of a broken heart, whatever the loss cause. The Leo songs shimmer as they urge the listener onward against challenges interior and exterior. The Harvey hymns brim with swagger and intensity, two necessary ingredients for a song brandishing an ability to crush the opposition.

But I entertained a different kind of crush. For me, hockey’s intensity went beyond the braggadocio, its spark was bigger and scarier, its flash essentially what happens when you fall in love:

“As soon as I get my head around you/I come around catching sparks off you/I get an electric charge from you/This secondhand living it just won’t do.”

If I were honest, that was what was happening to me. It wasn’t with a person and it wasn’t even going all that well, but it was falling in love, to a soundtrack of great big chiming guitars and drum rolls that almost don’t stop, amid the ebb and flow of not knowing what the heck to do or why, an energy that just can’t settle, “something going on inside, makes you want to feel, makes you want to try, makes you want to blow the stars from the sky.”

I said, yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Choosing Sides

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After confessing my secret hockey ambitions to him, I now had an ally in the Iceman. He was wasting no time with the first order of business—finding me a hockey stick.

“Are you right or left-handed?”

“Right-handed, but I think I might shoot left,” I said.

“Ah, good point,” he said. “Come back tomorrow, and we’ll see what you like best.”

It was tomorrow, and the sticks, intimidating and intriguing as the best things usually are, were lined up against the wall.

There are competing schools of thought on choosing sticks. Although mirror twins, the Lamoreaux sisters both shoot right. Canadian programs tend to steer right-handed players to leftie sticks, and American ones tend to do the opposite. In theory, choosing a stick with your dominant hand on top gives you more finesse whereas placing your weaker hand on top gives your shot more power. In practice, you usually go with whatever feels most natural.

My idea that I might be a left-handed shooter had nothing to do with the above, which I did not know on this particular day, but everything to do with how thoroughly inept I am with implement-driven pursuits. If you want a laugh, hand me a golf club, a baseball bat, a racket of any sort—even a joystick.

Although I spent most of my childhood and adolescence in constant motion, I made no progress in sports requiring that kind of hand-eye coordination. When I played softball, I pitched—erratically at best. I either walked everybody or struck out everybody with no in-between. At the plate, I mostly closed my eyes and prayed. That may have been part of the problem.

Basketball was the only sport that made any sense to me. It took advantage of my slightly ambidextrous nature and kept my hotheaded younger self in check. It was far less rewarding to throw a basketball in anger than it was a club, racket, bat, or an accursed joystick. (I still loathe video games with irrational passion, although I always have and still love Tetris.)

So, as Bob Dylan wisely noted, when you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose. And, I would add, when you know nothing, you might as well be open to all possibilities and follow your instincts. Because I was certain I would mishandle a hockey stick, why not see if left might be a little less awful than right? Why not trust the process for the first time ever?

The Iceman selected various sticks and demonstrated how to shoot a left stick and a right stick (although I did not yet know which was which.) I followed suit, taking the one he would hand me next, switching directions and monitoring the results. Honestly, in my hands they all felt beyond awkward and sometimes painful, but one was decidedly less so.

“What do you think?”

“This one,” I said, as I handed him the mystery and waited for his wisdom.

He smiled. “You are a leftie.”

I didn’t think my first hockey lesson would take place in my walking shoes in the wet cement at the back of an ice rink, but I was learning to check all hockey expectations at the Zamboni door, to be completely open to wherever this journey might take me, and, leftie stick in hand, perhaps to slay some old demons along the way.

Hockey Gods

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As I watched more games and listened to both game commentary and coach interviews, I would hear a term every so often: “hockey gods.” Whether related to something miraculous or capricious, the fast-paced nature of hockey lent itself to the random. More than a few people would invoke these gods as explanation.

I was beginning to wonder about the hockey gods working in my life because over the past few months the random was becoming a pattern. Everywhere I looked, everyone I talked to seemed to have an interest, a connection, a skill, an insight related to the game. All I had to do to find them was be honest about my intentions.

I had to be honest because I was starting at absolute zero. Every other passion in my life I pursued with some basic understanding, natural talent, and/or an ability to fake my way along. From what I could tell so far, I wasn’t a bad skater, and I wasn’t afraid of pushing people around (boxing out in basketball was something I never hesitated to do). But, that was it. And there was no faking it in this game.

That authenticity attracted me as much as anything else. I was ready for it. You see, I could fake it like nobody’s business. Years of playing music and being in plays had driven home to me that the show must go on, and I made sure it did—whatever that show might happen to be.

Was I a tough woman who needed no one? You betcha. Could I make up lyrics to songs on the spot in the middle of a show? That was my specialty. Were my relationships happy, fulfilling, and equal? Of course they were. Why be honest when it would only cause worry? How can you ask for help—that is the same as admitting defeat.

But with hockey, I had no baggage. Truly, I knew nothing, and there was no way I could pretend otherwise. In spring 2014, I did know a bit more than the year before when I saw my first game, and I was developing opinions: Nicklas Backstrom was my favorite Capital because he could slow time whenever he got the puck. Carl Hagelin’s breakaways for the Rangers always took my breath away—he could just throw the puck way ahead, out of control, and still beat everyone to it to score.

But, I still could not explain icing or off-sides. I did not know where a face-off was supposed to be or why the players stood where they did. I had never hit a puck with a stick. Heck, I still did not know if I needed a left or a right stick—the answer to that is not as obvious as you might think. The hockey gods had their work cut out for them.

“Whatever is yours will come to you.”

I first heard that statement recently. But as I look back at those early days in my love affair with hockey, I cannot find a truer way to describe how it all began evolving in 2014 after I finally stopped hiding behind my figure skates and the side-show that had become my life.

What would happen if I approached everything I did with this same level of openness and love?

 

Game-Time Decision

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It was March 2014, and my self-imposed deadline loomed: Take enough figure skating classes to learn how to spin and then switch back to hockey skates.

But I hesitated. My love of hockey had not diminished, and my development as a skater had continued. Spinning was as much fun as I had imagined, but I wasn’t sure that skill really translated to hockey. Stopping skills definitely did, but they still eluded me. I could stop by using the toe pick—which hockey skates do not have.

If I let the old voices win, then there was no way that I was going to trade in my figure skates: “You are 43 years old; you have a bad back and all of your teeth; and you can’t stop in hockey skates. Are you insane?”

Those voices had some valid points, and I had spent the last two months gabbing away with the figure skaters at Cabin John and elsewhere, doing my best to convince myself and them that I intended to be a part of that world. I was finding opportunities for ice dancing and other pair skating activities. I was meeting retired women who worked their edges on the ice with such deliberation that they called to mind Tai Chi enthusiasts in public parks and earned my enduring admiration.

I was keeping quiet about playing hockey, especially with my new figure skating acquaintances. Most friends and family had little experience with the game, and although the few I told were somewhat supportive, I knew they secretly hoped as they nodded encouragement that I would come to my senses.

For my scheme to have any legs at all, ​I needed to hear ​from someone who bought into my aspirations.

He had sharpened my figure skates right after I bought them. Now, I saw him around the rink, almost every time I was there. We chatted often.

“Edges still good?” he wondered one day.

“Absolutely!” I said.

He smiled, “My skates have been in storage for 15 years.” He saw me getting ready to ask why, and he changed the subject.

“Ice dancing does look like fun, though.”

I knew he used to play hockey. He had mentioned it, and the conversation had turned to various professional teams and people that he knew or used to know, towns where he had lived or places he had played.

“It does,” I said. I knew now I had a chance to be honest about my intentions, if they still were my intentions, which I had started to question given my deadline, my inability to stop, my back, my teeth, my age.

I blurted out: “But hockey looks even better. It looks like the most fun thing in the world.”

I stared at him, looking for any sign that he would not betray me with a laugh or, worse still, a patronizing “aren’t you cute” figurative pat on the head.

He smiled to his eyes: “Then you should play.”

He was serious, which encouraged me to become serious. I stopped being quiet and started telling others that I would play. As I did so, I heard new voices, louder and more numerous than the old ones. I was ready to listen.

Ice Timing

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Few things terrified me more as a new figure skater than going to a busy public skate, where I would be elbow to elbow with skaters of all levels. Perhaps this unease had to do with my previous boss telling me about the last public skate she had attended, when her kids were young, where another child had dropped in front of her, causing her to fall in a way that broke her wrist instead of the child.

Or maybe it had to do with my continuing inability to stop and my need to remain as close as possible to the wall, which I could, with terror in my eyes and flailing, outstretched arms, use as a sort of bumper-car fail-safe in a public skate emergency.

Such emergencies generally involved the below skater categories:

  1. Other new skaters, who, like myself, had no idea how to stop and would grab onto me as I was grabbing onto the wall (boards, really, but I did not call them that yet). I could sympathize, but did my best to avoid them anyway lest their tragedy suddenly become mine as well.
  2. Small children, whether new or experienced, because they had no sense of potential injury, and their falls resembled a brief, mostly ignored bounce onto the ice. I admired and feared them.
  3. Hockey players, especially the younger ones, who would chase each other or an imagined nemesis, dodging every obstacle (i.e., me and every other skater out there) with such last-minute precision that my heart jumped in my throat each time I saw or felt how close they had come. I was convinced they did this to terrorize us all. As with the indestructible children, I admired and feared them, too.

Because of these dangers, I became a master at finding empty ice. One of my best friends lived across the street from a restaurant that turned its patio garden into a winter rink. Skating there any weeknight meant lots of space and one low price for hours, and you could find me there most nights.

If I could slip away during lunch, I would go to Cabin John, which happened to be 10 minutes from my new job. As the Olympic season ended and my Kettler lessons wound down, I generally went there because their adult-only day skates eliminated the second and most third skater emergencies. With 10 skaters or less at most Cabin John sessions, the first emergency diminished as well because I had more room to focus and fall and avoid others when doing both.

As I found a corner of my own and worked on spins, I would watch anyone in hockey skates out of the corner of my eye and marvel at their speed, fluidity, and ice-spraying stops. My stops still involved vigorous toe-pick cheating, if I were lucky. Imagining myself in hockey skates was starting to feel like imagining myself in an astronaut’s suit.

And so I spun. My doubts and hopes wrestling in my mind and heart, I sought the equilibrium available to me in the moment. I would spin to the left, then I would spin to the right, ignoring the conventional skating wisdom that I should choose a stronger side and focus there. Many years of pilates had taught me another way, one that sought to balance strength and weakness, that would ensure I could spin both ways with equal grace and flexibility as my mind spun everyway for answers it could not yet have.

Against the Glass

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The ticket options were extensive, more than I had ever seen and closer and cheaper than I would likely see again. The explanation was simple: snow. Lots of it. And the storm timing for those possessing tickets was awkward. For me, the timing was perfect.

My snow-driving panic instigated by teenage inexperience was gone, eroded by circumstances demanding self-sufficiency. It was me, the dog, the foster dog, and the cat. If I wanted to get somewhere in a snowstorm, I alone had to figure out how. I will never forget that post-divorce day when I glared at the water pouring in from the snow melting on my sunroom roof and thought, “I am the man in my life.” I got on the roof and shoveled. I now would get in the car with a blizzard threatening and drive. I had been raised to be like this and had only shifted into situational helplessness because my marriage had required it.

I now had new requirements, as I was developing what I politely termed a “hockey problem,” which was becoming a “Capitals problem,” which I justified as “seat reconnaissance.” Suddenly center ice seats right behind the Capitals bench were available for 70 bucks? I had to know more, because I was still unsettled on my preferred professional hockey vantage point.

Through much trial and error with online ticket markets, I knew to the minute how long I could wait on game day to get the best seat at the best price and still get there on time. I had to be willing not to go at all, which I was, because I have always been the sort of live event person who needs to see the whites of their eyes, the teeth in their smiles.

Far-away seats never sufficed. Why go to the trouble to be somewhere to watch a big screen? I would rather not be there at all. There are bands I likely never will see live for this reason, and I am more than okay with that. You will find me at general admission music venues such as the 9:30 Club and the Black Cat because I have always needed to be close to what I love and can always do so at these places with a bit of planning and resourcefulness.

What did all this mean for hockey? I found the 200-level food/drink packages not worth it for a beer-snob vegetarian but awesome for others. Sight lines there were decent in seats and suites, and I could watch and be civilized. Four-hundred level made me dizzy in a bad way, and I determined I would not buy a ticket that high and far. Sometimes I even politely declined free ones. I was suspecting myself to be strictly 100 level.

But against the glass? I will never forget that insider-view of bench politics and player passion during my February 2014 blizzard bonanza. I could see the sweat running down their faces, the blood, the energy drained and gained. I jumped in my seat, startled when an angry Jason Chimera smacked his stick so loudly against the bench glass that I feared for my hearing. The equipment guy tried to get out of my sight lines so I could take better pictures, but I didn’t want him to and got pictures of him as well.

Every game I attended as a newbie showed me time and again that hockey attracts the best people. They are real. They are strong. They are the best ticket in this town at any level (I freely admit that others don’t have the proximity character flaw that I do, and they are the better for it.) They make me want to learn more and to play this beautiful, impossible game.

And on one of those blizzardy February nights I wandered outside to a completely still city. I retrieved my car from a garage and watched the streets quietly glisten, thankful for everything that had taken me this far and for whatever was yet to come.