Pondering the coming hockey season in the midst of a cold

It's Monday and I've called in sick. If I recall correctly this is the first time I've ever done this. I'm sitting in bed watching DVD's and I'm testing out my new hockey gloves and stick... at least to the extent that it's possible to do so while sitting in bed. I'm preparing for the hockey season.

I didn't start playing last year until January and, before that, I probably hadn't played in about five years. I haven't joined a league but there's an outdoor rink near my place where they have an hour and a half of men's shinny every night. This year I hope to get out at least twice a week.

On Saturday, before I got sick, I went out and bought the gloves and stick. I learned that hockey gloves last about three years if you're playing two to three days a week. After that the palms wear out. Leather palms will last a little longer than suede and if you put white tape instead of black, on the shaft of your stick, the palms on either leather or suede gloves will last a little bit longer than they would have otherwise. The girl at the store told me these things about gloves. I hadn't known much about the life expectancy of gloves because, aside from my last pair, I had always grown out of my gloves before I had a chance to wear them out.

The strange thing about this cold (or flu – I'm not really sure which it is yet) is that so far, I'm not experiencing any of the usual cold/flu symptoms aside from feeling awful. I'm exhausted and feel like I'm about seventy years old but my nose isn't running, I don't have a cough or watery eyes and my digestive system and appetite are par for the course.

To make matters worse I burnt my finger on some steam this morning. I was trying to pour myself a cup of tea and the top of the kettle popped off in mid pour. I'll bet this happens to seventy year old men all the time.

I was thinking that it would be very strange if everyone in the world had this exact cold only permanent, we'd never know that we were sick. We'd think that humans simply preferred soup, didn't have large appetites, required eleven hours of sleep a day and so on. Our entire civilization would be much slower and sedate. If such a cold or flu existed and there was one person who was immune to it, we'd think that he or she was superhuman. "Incredible!" we'd say "how do they do it? How does one get by on a mere eight hours sleep? And his/her temperature is so well regulated... no wonder he/she is able to move about so quickly."

Sometime in the next few weeks I'm supposed to do an interview with a young man who plays in the OHL and has actually been drafted by an NHL team. He's nineteen and, while that doesn't necessarily make me feel old, it has got me thinking that at least five or six years have passed since the year that I would have been drafted, had I aspired to and succeeded in becoming a professional hockey player.

In 2003 Marc-Andre Fleury was drafted first overall by the Pittsburgh Penguins. In the same year I was selected by the University of Guelph (I'm not sure where I was ranked) to pursue an English degree. He's won a Stanley cup since then and I've graduated and started a career. I didn't feel all that young at nineteen but looking back now it seems awfully young to be starting a career in the NHL, flying to a different city every few nights and so on.

My new stick is a one piece Reebok Crosby replica. I paid about fifty bucks for it and I'm not sure exactly what factors go into stick pricing but mine seems pretty similar to the ones that go for well over two hundred dollars. It might be a little heavier and a little less flexible but it's still a major upgrade over my last stick. I've never been able to take what I'd call a real slapshot and I figured that having a stick made in the last ten years would help and that having one with a good amount of flex would help some more. I wont have to rely on having a slapshot much playing outdoor shinny but being able to properly execute one would, I think, give my game a satisfying sense of completeness.

I know that there's a lot more to Crosby's game then his stick but I figure his stick must be part of it. The way I see it, if he can get one hundred and twenty points with that stick in the NHL then I'd probably be able to get at least two or three using that same stick. That might not sound like much but I'm not going to be playing in the NHL and two or three points must translate to six to eight points in the AHL which would translate to ten to fifteen in the OHL and, when you bring it all the way down to casual outdoor shinny, should translate to... well I don't want to get ahead of myself here but it should make for a good season.

Mastering the slapshot will be difficult but I'm now twenty-five and if I'm ever going to learn I figure this is the year. Not that anyone pays me for my athletic abilities but I've been thinking as of late that, pro or not, I am entering into what should be my athletic prime and, like this cold, it wont last forever. In fact, by the time the palms on my new gloves wear out, it could very well be over.

I've got an uphill climb but the rinks will be open soon and I feel this could be my season. With some effort, a little luck and my new Crosby stick, I figure I should at least good enough to make an impression on the outdoor shinny scouts or at leas the guys who also play in rec leagues who are looking to fill out there teams. I figure once I've made it into a rec league I should be able to work my way up to a more competitive rec league and there must be some minor league scouts who look for talent in the most competitive of the rec leagues and once you've made it into minor hockey then you can really get noticed. I don't want to get too ahead of myself but perhaps it's time to make a few YouTube videos to demonstrate my talents.

I'll have to fight this cold off first and the steam burn mild will need time to heal and it won't be easy to develop this slapshot and get my skating legs back but I've got a good feeling about this season. This is the start of my athletic prime and I'd like to make the most of it. After all there will come a time when I'll feel like I do now all the time and I'd like to think back on the days when I had a healthy appetite, ate lots of solid food and could bend all of my joints with ease and know that I made the most of them.