5 FOR THINKING:WHY I LOVE HOCKEY?

5 For Thinking:Why Do I love Hockey?

Why do I love hockey? It’s a question I have been asked by friend’s family and first dates alike over the years. To be a hockey fan in Britain makes me something of an oddity, while most men my age are in to football and rugby. I enjoy a sport where toothless Canadians hack each other with sticks between rounds of fisticuffs. At least that is the common public perception I fight against every time anyone, who has never set foot in a rink finds out about my love of hockey, before that question comes in to play. But this season I have found myself asking that same question of myself. Why do I love this game?

            The last two seasons for me as a fan of British ice hockey have been tough, there were times I wanted nothing more than for the season to be over. And anyone who knows me, knows that for me to make that statement alone is worrying. Me the guy who wears his hockey jerseys to work during the play offs, the guy who’s dream holiday was to spend 2 weeks  travelling Ontario making sure he stopped at every rink on the way there and back, me the teetotaller who swears he’ll only drink again if Leafs win the cup, wanting the season over its a concerning thought. But it’s not been the on ice product, that has entertained me as ever this year, in fact this season in Streatham has been some of the best value I’ve had for my ticket money in a long time. It’s been everything that came with it, from the EIHA seemingly powerless to stop the collapse of the EPL from destroying the NIHL and my love for the Coventry Blaze continuing to be tested by the teams acceptance it will never be more than a contender for 8^th place, and another season of players getting called out for homophobic, racist and sexist comments or actions I had grown tired of it all. And then something happened that changed all these feelings. I went back to my spiritual hockey home in Coventry for the play offs two weeks ago. I watched one of the best games I have ever seen at the Skydome. And I remembered in the moment that Bobby Chamberlain potted the OT winner, that I could care less about all that, and that I needed to find an answer to the question of why I loved the game so much?

My introduction to the sport doesn’t really go a long way to answering this question of course. It was 1995 and I was stood in a Toronto sporting goods store, staring up at a video screen running highlights of the NHL. At the time I had been playing rugby and was sort of getting interested in NFL. So my friends who I was staying with had decided to get me a CFL football and an Argo’s jersey. I left the store with a CFL football and a Maple Leafs hockey player key chain. In that moment a spark had been ignited in my brain, a spark that would come to shape my life. But at the time I had no real understanding of the game at all. I just knew I liked it, I guess you could put it in basic terms as I enjoyed the spectacle of it all.

            But loving the spectacle is not really a solid answer to me, certainly it is a part of my love of the game.  The thrill of seeing a forward skate end to end and roof the puck in to the net, the excitement of a bone crunching hit and the state of sheer dread that makes me want to run away and hide, yet keep watching as my team kills a penalty. Followed by the exhilaration as the goalie makes a game defining save.These all make up hockeys spectacle, that and the fights, but there are many things in my life I enjoy for the spectacle they represent. Everything from a live band to the latest episode of Game Of Thrones. And yet none of these have inspired this devotion in me that meant I would end up uttering the sentence “I’m sorry I have hockey that day” a lot in my life(Ok maybe GOT but come on its Game Of Thrones). A sentence that has strained and I am sure broken friendships and relationships for me in the past. All because I had to witness or be part of the spectacle on the ice. 

            But then if it’s not solely the spectacle what else can it be, an obsession maybe? It certainly can be said I am obsessed with the sport. So much so that one of my criteria’s for choosing a university was access to a hockey arena so I could have another try at playing the game after my attempt earlier in life ended in training session 1 with a broken leg. In that regard I am very lucky that Coventry accepted me in 2007 for a place on their course in 2008. I had no idea that this decision would see hockey shaping my life from university onward. Both in my professional, and personal life. When I stepped in to the Skydome one September night I was clueless to the fact I’d be turning a spark in to a Blaze that would burn through my life

            To some in the sport it may seem odd for me to make such a claim, I never laced them up for a pro team, I didn’t spend years on the buses going toe to toe with the best imports.  But in retrospect hockey has shaped so much of what I did at university and what I have done after. Case in point would be my career. When I was at university I spent so much time at the rink friends joked I should have it listed as my address. I was always there either filming, playing or watching a game, in fact my dad has often remarked I didn’t get my degree in media production I got it in Hockey.  

In 2007 my life was a smouldering crater, I had wasted the potential I had shown and was working in retail. The only thing that kept me sane was using my imagination to come up with short story and film script ideas when working in the stock room. It soon dawned upon me I could put this creative energy to better use. And so in 2008 armed with A-Levels in Film, Media and English Language and Literature I headed to Coventry University to try and find my way as a creative. I had high ideas of being the next Lucas or Spielberg. But instead hockey showed me the way I wanted to go. In my second year I began a project filming highlights for the Blaze B team. For the next two years I would tinker and toy with the video editing programmes and learn the skills that would see me avoid the minefield of entry level media positions and land in the operations department of a major UK broadcaster, and has seen me go on to land my dream job with another. And I had hockey to thank for all of it.

Me and the Original SITV crew 

Running my mouth on air with Paul Wheeler

            

University can often be a scary time for many fresher’s, far from home making your own way in the world it can all seem overwhelming for some. It of course felt like this for me and so while it was great to have something like hockey to anchor learning my skills to. Over time the sport became more than that for me, it became what it has continued to be for me to this day. A form of escape, from everything going on in my day to day life. Regardless of how bad the week had been, regardless of how my flatmates were driving me nuts or how long distance was putting a strain on my relationship. I had the Skydome and the Blaze ten minutes up the road on a Sunday and for 2 hours I could just let all my anger out in the direction of opposition players.

But it wasn’t just the chance to yell at the opposition I wanted anymore, I wanted to play the game. I wanted to put to rest the demon in my mind of what had happened at my first roller hockey practice. I wanted a chance to get back some of what I had missed when I had given in to fear and quit roller hockey. Warwick Panthers gave me an opportunity to do all of this. In my first training session I took a hit in to the boards. As I flew through the air my mind went back to that night in Reading when my leg had snapped, I waited to feel that same agony course through me, to have to crawl to the bench. But then I hit the ice and realised nothing was wrong, and I got up and never looked back. It was the beginning of 3 years where I would have the best of times with my team mates, as we travelled the country dominating teams in the BUIHA Div 3. I look back on it now and think of them all fondly as a sort of family away from home.

The unstoppable Warwick Panthers B Team. 4th Line For Life

         In the second and third years, and beyond I found I would need this escape and found family more than ever due to mounting pressures in my home life. My partner at the time had been accepted to Coventry, at the time our relationship was not in the best of places. I won’t go further than that for detail but things were tense, there were so many times I was glad to have the Panthers training sessions and games to just get away for a few hours and hit the puck around. I know when two people have problems the solution isn’t to run away, but at that time in my life having hockey around as an escape and distraction was very welcome. I learned my lessons here though, and while I am glad hockey gave me a reason to get away from my problems. I learned in future to face a problem and not hide away.

Graduation Day with my Best friend Keshia(Man was I fatter then)

            Graduation would come and my life would shift again. The skills hockey had taught me in the edit suite and the team work skills I had learned on the ice would see me land at a UK broadcaster doing a job I loved using the software I loved. But all was not well on the home front, and sadly that year I would choose to end my relationship 6 years gone like that. In the cold emptiness that was the aftermath I looked around for an anchor or a guiding star to help me, for my friends. I had thrown so much of myself in to trying to make the relationship work that I had sacrificed friendships and drifted away from people I cared about. I was fortunate that the ones who remained helped get me back on my feet. But I was in Reading, my best friend Keshia was in Weston, Linds was in Warwick,Chris was in Coventry still and Ed was in London. I knew next to no one save one person in the Reading area my friend Matt. I was a broken husk of my former self. Massively over weight, low on self-confidence and worth and had the people skills of a potato. I needed a way back, and guess how I found it.

            If you guessed hockey, your only half right. My friends of course where a big help, especially my friend Matt who dragged me kicking and screaming to the gym 3 days a week. But I needed that anchor, that escape that  beacon of hope I’d had in Coventry. Luckily I found it, down in Hampshire just an hour or so away, in the Basingstoke Bison. I still remember my first game, I remember entering the arena feeling scared of being in this new environment, wearing my Panthers shirt with pride but still worried about how I’d be received. But in the end I didn’t need to worry, I spent the night talking with a nice chap next to me and my anxiety melted away. Over time the anxiety and low confidence faded and as I found a favoured spot in C block I made new friends. The man who taught me all I know about yelling at clouds Anthony, fellow Leafs fan Debs her husband Phil, my Swindon road trip buddy Eleanor and of course the two ladies who kept me best in check Jess and Hannah.  And of course my adoptive hockey family, the Blakemores. Over that time I have even come to find friends in fan bases outside of my own in the Swindon boys. In 2013 when I first entered the Basingstoke arena, I would never have dreamed of walking in to the away end to talk to fans, or even fans of my own team. Now to everyone's annoyance you can't shut me up, and I will happily engage any fan in conversation.  
I found confidence again, and I found a new me thanks to this wonderful found family of mine. Each had an influence in finishing my hockey education, and helping me become a sociable humam being again. And that has transferred in to a confidence outside the rink to put myself in to social situations and make new friends I would have run away from back in 2013. 

Family isn't always bound by blood. 

The Swindon Boys

Me Jess and Anthony pre last years play off final.

Eleanor had had enough of me this night

Maz!

My Hockey Mum and Dad Gary and Carol

With that new sense of confidence came a new sense of adventure and self-understanding, I grew as a person thanks to these new friends. When you go from having someone to always go to events with you to having no one with you the idea of going places alone can become a bit daunting. But this found family taught me I shouldn’t let opportunity pass by because I didn’t want to go it alone(well mainly Jess did) if it hadn’t been for that I wouldn’t have busted a gut to fulfil my life’s goal of a dream holiday to Canada to see the Leafs play. Having never flown abroad alone, I was at my most nervous. But I had so many incredible experiences on that trip, from all the games I saw,  to seeing the real Niagra, the sites of the war of 1812.Standing in the presence of a fully assembled T-Rex fossil at the Ontario museum. And of course the ultimate highlight of getting to touch the Stanley Cup. These were adventures I would not have had if not for hockey, and it giving me the drive to do so.

Making new friends along the way. This is Ty, who I met in the line for the mens room!

Probably my most cherished memory behind my first Leaf game. Meeting Lord Stanley's mug

London Knights game 

Saying hello to Buffalo

When I mentioned this drive the game has given me to a friend once, they made a comparison between my love of the game and some peoples devotion to religion. Sunday is a day of worship, and for those who believe it is important for them to attend church that day, growing up in a Catholic family I knew this all too well, my grandparents still attend church twice on a Sunday some times. The comparison was that, I felt that same need to be in my own house of worship every Saturday and Sunday. Certainly the fact that we hockey fans often refer to "the hockey gods"our worship of the teams logo and the team itself. Combined with the chanting and ritual dress we wear for games all have a religious overtone. Though not a believer myself religion brings great peace and solace to people as well as hope. And over the years the experiences I have had through the game, my dream job, making new friends who have greatly impacted on my life. Moving to Streatham to live with one such friend and taking the trip of a lifetime. All while cheering like a maniac along the way have given me that same kind of hope and happiness.  

I guess on reflection at the end of all this, there’s not just one reason why I love hockey there are many. It’s been a slow evolution over the years, much like any relationship the reasons you love someone or thing in this case build over time. It’s a sport that has given me incredible highs and gutting lows, a sport that has given me a found family, a sport that gave me dreams and helped me fulfil them. A sport that built me a career, and a sport that saved me when I needed it to. It’s just a sport to some, but to me it’s everything you’ve read above and I love it for all these and many more reasons.