This piece is not to spend time on the past, anyway. It’s a redemption piece, I can assure you.
For years, I tortured myself about that night, made stupid decisions based on my altered self-concept. I gave up hockey completely -- didn’t think about it, didn’t watch it, gave away all of my stuff. I look back on that decision and realize how many great moments I didn’t get to live first-hand as a fan due to it. Thank God for the mountain of video, audio and stills available that make up the lost time for me. It was the right thing for that time, and I stand by it. The hockey trigger was there, and I had no need to pull it and do myself any more harm.
Flash forward many years, to last year. A serious injury -- a fall resulting in a trimalleolar fracture of my left ankle -- kept me literally off my feet for 3 months. It was unreal. No weight-bearing on it for all of that time put the TV remote in my hands more than it should have been. However, those hours led me to find out that professional hockey had a lot more TV coverage than I had ever experienced in my early fandom years. I watched part of a game. Why? I guess that it was time.
It was the beginning of the 2016 Stanley Cup playoffs.I told myself that night, “I will watch this team until they are knocked out of the playoffs. Then, I’m done.” That team was the Pittsburgh Penguins and, if you follow hockey, you know that I had quite a few games and weeks of viewing pleasure. It was magical to reacquaint myself with a game that had thrilled me so many times. Games like “The Easter Epic” flooded back to my memory. Oh, my gosh! The amount of online content that I would pore over, the pain of seeing who had passed away since my hockey departure. The exhilaration of knowing how many decent dudes made good and had great careers and post-career successes.
That was one of the best parts of the experience, learning about who was playing the game today, and who was shaping the game for them. There are so many amazing people who play and coach this game. There are myriads of charitable organizations, so many humanitarian efforts -- so many hockey heroes. Two stand out of me, and affirm my decision to stay close to this game again.
Corey Hirsch, author of the “Dark, Dark, Dark, Dark, Dark, Dark, Dark, Dark” piece on The Players’ Tribune (https://www.theplayerstribune.com/corey-hirsch-dark-dark-dark/), moved me to tears. It’s too close to home. There’s more that I could say, but I choose not to do so. God, that was real, and spot on. I have no doubt that this man saved lives by writiing this.
Sheldon Kennedy is my other hero. His work to create Respect Certified, to protect the most vulnerable of us from really bad situations, chokes me up ( https://www.hockeycanada.ca/en-ca/Hockey-Programs/Community ). It’s brave to tell your story. It’s braver to help others not to suffer a similar fate, to make a difference.
So, let’s be clear. Bad things happened to me, but hockey didn’t do them. The NHL didn’t do them. A man, who happened to play hockey, did. I refuse to lose the game I love for lack of understanding that. Since reinitiating my fan status, I have lost 30 pounds, made a bunch of friends and care much better for myself than I have for some time. Thank you, hockey!
Now. . .let’s get this next game, Pens. Someone who loves this game will be watching.
-- ESM, 05/21/2017
