silent_jay

As a kid hockey was important to me from the ages of 4-21, the ages I played, usually 11 months of the year, summer and winter hockey, with maybe 2 weeks off inbetween but on around age 19 or so the shine started to come off my love of hockey, well it started way before that.

I had a 'hockey father', who felt that the best way to make your son better at the game was to yell as much as humanly possible. I remember leaving the arena and being yelled at for 30 minutes of the 45 minute drive home, then get a little more for good measure once you got home. My father kept that up until I was around 10-12 I guess and I informed him that I no longer wanted to see him at the arena during my games. That kept up for about 3/4 of the season until I decided to let him come watch me play again, he learned his lesson to a degree, I told him top stay away a few more times during minor hockey, but by the time I went to play Jr. at 15 he knew better than to yell and rant.

At 21 I left the team I was with and was supposed to come back to Canada and play for my old Jr. team for a year, then go back to the US and play there after I got a little more seasoning, never played another game of hockey again, only had my full equiptment on once in the last 11 years.

So hockey was very important in my life at one point and time, used to live, breath, everything involved hockey, but after 21, it just hasn't been the same. I still follow the Leafs quite a bit, but not like before, I love sports, hockey inparticular, but too much sports ina short period of time, can turn that love to hate quite quickly.

And Wes, excellent story, reminds me of watching hockey games with grandpa when I was a kid, of course he cheers for the Sens now, so we don't do that anymore haha