It’s a conversation that sneaks up on you, and even when you
feel prepared for it, it still leaves you a little breathless.
“Mom, dad; I don’t want to play hockey anymore.”
Every summer we’ve asked both of the boys the inevitable
question; “do you want to play hockey this year?” For our oldest, now a high
school junior, it was always a resounding YES, with the youthful eye-roll of
feigned disgust that it’s an obvious answer.
Since he was a six-year-old Mini-Mite 1 in Rosemount the
answer has always been the same. The same exasperated and mischievous why-wouldn’t-I-want-to look on his face.
The same sarcastic tone in his voice. Until this summer. I asked the question
and there was a pause. He looked me in the eyes, “dad, I’m not sure yet.”
Wait, what? I asked myself….this can’t be my kid….my kid would never give up hockey. He must have had a bad day at
work, yeah that’s it. Sure. I’m sure that he’ll wake up tomorrow morning and
want to rush to the rink.
But that never happened.
It had been the winter of 2004-2005 when we had first signed
Stanley up to play mini-mite hockey in Rosemount. I remember walking into the gymnasium of the
Rosemount Community Center with my wife Brenda, and picking up the forms and
signing the checks for registration and fundraising. A former co-worker set me up with some of his
son’s old equipment, we bought a stick and inherited some skates from another
co-worker and away we went.
He’d skated before, typically a trip up to Jaycee Park in
Rosemount, a bike helmet, and snow pants. What followed was 10 minutes of
getting him laced up, and 3 minutes of him chopping his skates on the ice while
I held him under his armpits while my back started to spasm. Ten minutes later
we would be untying skates for the ride back home. I knew enough to know that
trying to force him to skate when he clearly didn’t want to would be a bad
idea. Before long came the days when we couldn’t get him off the rink.
When he started as a young player, hockey dreams filled his
head. Dreams of playing for the Rosemount Irish Varsity team, then onto the
University of Minnesota to play in front of the Gopher faithful in Mariucci
Arena, and then onto Xcel Energy Center to star for the Minnesota Wild. Oh to
have the dreams of a child.
When he was in Kindergarten he’d finish his lunch and pop in
a couple of hockey videos. Being a budding goalie he’d put on my shin pads,
strap on his helmet, gloves, and knee hockey stick and play along with his
favorite players. One day I got an e-mail at work from my wife telling me that he
finally did it – he fell asleep with the gear on. The picture that she got of
him that day always makes me smile.
Our journey gained
momentum through the Mini-Mite and Mite Programs, with weekend ice times and
treats afterwards. Jamborees with medals and trophies and a growing love of the
game. We learned how to skate, to pass,
to get up when we fell down. We still skated outside 3 nights a week, running
back into the warming house when the temperatures and wind cut through the
layers and pads. There were lots of naps in the cars back and forth to
practice. I’d look back at him in his pads, sitting in his car seat, stocking
cap pulled low over his ears, head lolled over to the side, dreaming of games
won on shots that he took.
Coming into first year Bantam Irish Clinic showed a longer
stride and confidence. Checking was back in play but the one-year of checking
in PeeWee’s served him well. The more I
watched him the more impressed I was with his maturity as a youth player. He
took it all in the same calm even manner he had always approached the game.
Kids that had always seemed a stride faster weren’t as fast, and the game
looked as if it were slowing down for him.
With no expectations we entered tryouts, and stayed up with the top pool
the entire time. When he got called off the ice early during the last
Farmington scrimmage, I had a feeling that he was going to end up on one of the
top teams. He made B1.
He was in deep water for those first couple weeks of
practices. The pace was frenetic, and the expectations were higher. Intensity.
Commitment. Pride. It became less about
learning how to pass and stop, it was more about where you needed to be on the
ice and what to do when you didn’t have the puck as much as was about knowing
what to do when you did have the puck. Instead of being a player expected to
carry a team, he was a player expected not to let the team down. He struggled
early but started to get his skates under him. Our head coach, John, caught me
before a practice and asked me if I could work with the goalies a couple of
times a week and I agreed. Pretty soon I was on the ice for all of the
practices and on the bench for games. Both the player and coach learned a lot.
We took the championship trophy in a tournament in Mankato,
a consolation trophy in White Bear Lake. We wound being runner-ups in New
Richmond, and to top it off: the District 8 Playoff Championship.
We had our final practice that year at Richfield arena.
Inside I knew that it was going to be the last time I’d be sharing the ice with
him in a coach – player relationship. We warmed up in the usual way, ran our
flow drills, penalty kill and power-play. But at the end of the hour I remember
feeling almost numb, as if wishing that the time would slow and stop. I knew
I’d miss this time with him.
The team fell short
in the Regional playoff but collectively we were proud of the accomplishments.
It had been a great season.
The fall of 2013 brought us to our final Irish Clinic and
tryouts. As a returning second-year Bantam who had earned his battle scars on a
successful B1 team the next logical step in his development as a player was
with the AA team.
From a trip to Faribault to play powerhouse Shattuck – St.
Mary’s, road trips to Moorhead, Bemidji, the NAPHL Tournament at the Super Rink
in Blaine, the Bantam A/AA Tournament in Roseau, and finally ending up with the
VFW State Championship in Fergus Falls, and every rink in between we went. But
as the season wore on the fun started to leave. Playing third line center
wasn’t as fun as he thought it was going to be.
He scored his last goal in Bantams during the waning minutes
of a game against Duluth East with a wicked snapshot in the slot on the
powerplay. Top shelf where mom keeps the cookie jar. Head up all the way just
like we taught him all of those years. In that sweep of his stick I felt that
it was all worth it. When his teammates surrounded and congratulated him I felt
proud. But at the same time I felt sad. Sad knowing that this portion of his
hockey career was over. The team lost that game.
We played one more game against Grand Rapids, a team that
had won the State Bantam AA Championship the week before. We lost that game as
well. As we collected ourselves after the game he asked for the car keys. He
wanted to drive a few the first few minutes home. We started RAHA with a six
year old boy still sitting in his car seat. We ended it with a fifteen year old
teenager driving us home on the interstate.
The next step to take on the journey was into High School
Hockey, to wear the colors of the Rosemount Irish. I picked him up after his
first Captain’s Practice; body sweaty, and eyes big as saucers.
“So how was it?” I asked.
“Fast dad,” he answered back, “very fast.”
Through Captain’s practices he adjusted to the new pace, and
wound up making the Junior Varsity team.
As the upperclassmen get picks of jersey numbers, most all
of the lower numbers have been chosen. In homage to his Mini-Mite and Mite
years he took his old number 34. I smiled when he told me.
One thing to get used too were the 5:30am practices; he was
only late once, but they made for long days. He enjoyed the coaches and
teammates, but would often ask to leave the Varsity games to head home to hit
the books. As a team they won the JV Silver Division Championship at the
Schwan’s Cup in Blaine, and for the season wound up with a winning record.
On Saturday mornings when there was a home game on the
schedule, the Varsity and Junior Varsity teams would have a morning skate in
home jerseys and sweats. Getting the legs and hands moving, an easy 15 minute
skate with a team breakfast afterwards. On one occasion when I was there to
bring in some food for breakfast, a group of mini-mites were waiting to take
the ice, and the high schoolers formed a tunnel to give high-fives to the
little ones as they came out to take the ice. It didn’t seem like that long ago
when he was one of those mini-mites.
Early in the season he made it onto the stat sheet for a
couple of goals against Apple Valley. Adjusting to the new speed and different
expectations he played well. Some games when it was tight or if there were lots
of penalties or short handed situations he would wind up doing more watching
instead of playing. Later on in the season he worked with the penalty kill
units and played well within the system.
His play suffered when asked to fight for pucks in the corners, never
one to get deep in the zone and cycle. His limited minutes on the 3rd
of 4th lines seemed to bother him but he knew what it was about.
We never got to watch his last JV game. We were up in Breezy Point watching his
younger brother play in his out of town tournament.
The air is crisp outside and the RAHA traveling teams have
been formed. His younger brother is a first year PeeWee and starting into the
season grind. High School Captain’s Practices have been going on for the last
few weeks but the heart isn’t into it. The other night he told one of the
varsity captains that he wasn’t trying out.
On his final night of captain’s practices I snuck into the
arena to watch him skate one last time with the boys. The coach in me watched
him run through a few drills, and paid close attention to how he played and
positioned himself during the scrimmage. Maybe a step slow, maybe a little
timid. The coach in me wanted to pull him aside and let him know where he could
tweak his positioning or when he should have been a little more aggressive on
the forecheck, after all, I’d been behind his bench for 9 years so I knew what
his strengths and limitations were. But
the dad in me wore an inner smile, watching and enjoying the game. What started
on a Saturday morning in November of 2004 came to an end on a November evening
in 2015. I left before the session ended.
In the cold, sober daylight of reality I’m fairly confident
he would have made JV, but maybe as a 3rd or 4th line player
seeing limited ice-time much like it was last year. Then again, with the
returning talent, and influx of young, hungry players, there was no guarantee
that he would have made the team. So in a small way he went out on his own
terms, knowing that he’d given his best to his coaches, teammates, and family.
His gear still hangs in the laundry room where we’ve always
stored it. Soon we’ll probably ask him to finally put it away in his hockey bag.
If anything we can use the space for his brother’s gear. But I can’t ask him to
do that yet. Part of me still can’t come to grips that his hockey journey is
over, and I take solace that his younger brother still loves the game and I
have the opportunity to coach him this year. I still have my hockey fix, but
there is still an empty feeling.
I’ll miss watching his long, smooth stride as he catches the
puck at center ice, streaking down the wing, looking for a teammate breaking
for the far post. I’ll miss seeing the bend of his stick as he leans into a
hard wristshot. I’ll miss seeing how his left arm tucks into his torso when
he’s tired after too long of a shift.
But I’ll also miss our conversations in the car back and
forth to practices and games. Talks about what he wants to do when he grows up,
what cars he wants to drive, what classes he wants to take in college. Silly
jokes, and lots of laughs. I’ll miss the comradery of his teams, those 6 months
together as our hockey families melded into villages to raise, cheer, and
transport our burgeoning athletes from rink to rink. The end-of-the-year
parties always seemed sort of melancholy. As Ken Dryden wrote in his book “The
Game”;
“’The Game’ was
different, something that belongs only to those who play it, a code phrase that
anyone who has played a sport, any sport, understands. It’s a common language
of parents and backyards, teammates, friends, winning, losing, dressing rooms,
road trips, coaches, fans, money, celebrity – a life, so long as you live it…It
is hockey that I’m leaving behind. It’s “the game” I’ll miss.”
On the front page of the RAHA website they had listed the
pools for the Mites, Mini-Mites, and Termites as the Initiation Program in
Rosemount swings into the start of their season. One of the names on the list
was the son of his 5th grade teacher. I couldn’t help but
smile.
The game ends for one. The game starts for another.
