Ah-- the sweet comfort of another hockey season. Hockey is a thing for me. I love to skate. I could skate backwards by the time I was four.
My family had about 10 acres of land that was used in various ways. It was originally a berry farm before my grandfather purchased the land. My grandfather always had a huge vegetable garden. We had large chunks of open woods and apple trees between the four houses (my grandparents gifted each child a parcel as they started their families). The three berry patches that had become so entangled and overgrown that the canes formed little huts. All of this was linked by "two track" paths that crossed the creek and ended up at the cow pond. A spring fed pond that seemed bottomless when I was seven, but was probably about 20 feet deep at the far end. Regardless it was stocked with sunfish and turtles and we swam in the summer and skated in the winter. Grandpa would be sure it was safe for us to skate on by driving his tractor out on it. Pick up hockey games were played with brooms and sticks and boxes for goals. By combining my two sisters, five cousins and the two neighbor boys we always had plenty of people to field a scrimmage.
By the time I reached adulthood the Wings were a bit of an embarrassment, but I kept an eye on the scores and that cute Stevie Y. Then when I started hanging out with Pete and Eric, well surprise! Eric was just as big a fan and watching the games became a thing we did. If we weren't in the same room we would call each other at significant moments (good fights, bad calls, sweet shots) that had we been together would have gotten a high five.
So life goes forward and Eric doesn't watch so much anymore, I guess... and Petey has morphed from a med student saying things like"Will you turn that shit down? I am *trying* to study" to a stats quoting, trash talking fool. It is pre season right now and last night the Wings beat the Panthers, Draper tried to pick a fight and Mickey Redmond, my all time fave player was doing color.
It was nice to sit on my couch, feet tucked under Pete's thigh, eating popcorn and hearing the sweet scrape of 190 lbs of manmeat hockey stop. God I love that noise.
