I’ve been trying, with great conviction, to write all week. I brew fresh coffee, plunk down in my favourite writing spot, tuck my left foot up under my right leg and begin...
and hockey comes out. Hockey comes out and a little voice in the back of my head screams NOOOOO…not here too!
Don’t get me wrong, I love hockey. Okay, not really. To be more accurate I love the people in my life who love hockey, so I go along with it. Going along was pretty easy in the beginning of the season this year, we were restricted to house league games and our hometown OHL heroes. House league is good, mostly because there is no place in this entire world I would rather be than watching one of my kids live their passion. The OHL is good; all those Friday home games leave me with an empty house and some time to rejuvenate my inner calm. But then it happened; the end of the NHL lockout, and we switched to all hockey all the time. The Hockey Night in Canada theme song is an earworm loop from sun up to sun down. When the sun does go down, in my sleep Don Cherry narrates a play by play of my day, tells me exactly where I messed up and what to expect tomorrow. I can’t escape. We are so deep in the quicksand of hockey that it has leaked right into my creative spirit and I can’t even pen a thought that isn’t associated in some way with hockey.
I have Hockey Block.
There are only two ways to handle any kind of block; Turn around and go home or push it out of the way. I can’t go home, writing is my home. So I have to push.
An exercise in turning hockey terms into relevant terms:
Offside – what the cat does with a glass left on the table.
Face-off – Removal of makeup before bed each night.
Left wing – right-wing – a snack in each hand
Power play – remote control supremacy
Tripping – a mother’s reaction to chores that get ignored
Penalty box – locking yourself in the washroom for a timeout
Penalty minutes – the length of time you are in the box before somebody knocks on the door
Goaltender – the person responsible for remembering that things besides hockey are waiting for attention
Point-man – I have one
Checking – running around behind people picking up what gets left behind
Cross checking – finding someone else’s stuff
Line change – moving to the faster cue for coffee
1 Game Suspension – pretending you don’t find hockey boring for one night and attending a game with your husband. If a girl wants a date during hockey season – you’ve got to compromise.
Good play – making it a double date with dinner beforehand.
There is still a lot of season left and I’m sure to suffer further bouts of Hockey Block, there is no telling how long this list of terms might get before we get to…
Playoff Season – light at the end of the tunnel
Have a great weekend everyone! Keep your Stick on the Ice -
Michelle
