Living Vicariously

Hockey. It's in our blood in Minnesota. Many of us play it. A lot of us watch it.

My journey with the sport has been reinvigorated in recent days. Let me go back a few years to give some background.

I was 4 or 5 and was taking skating lessons. A monster the size of a bus drove onto the ice! I was petrified as I tried to move my little legs to get off the ice before it killed me. That's how I remember it anyway. I'm sure reality was a little less dramatic.

Fast forward about 5 years. I'm playing at the local park. Some older boys are playing hockey and I join them as a goalie. I can barely stand up so goalie suits me. A kid takes a shot. I fall and make the save with my knee. A kids think I should maybe try staying on my feet to make a save. I say I'm OK as I try to skate. Now I skate even worse than when I started.

Those two highlights of on-ice time are frozen in my memory.

Fast forward about 37 years. My six year old is on the ice and is in his second year of mites hockey. He is now playing goalie with all the paraphernalia required to protect his little body from the onslaught of the black disk. Not only is he skating better than I did when I "played," he's actually shown some potential according to a couple of dads/coaches that know way more about this than I do.

So I've found myself schlepping my son around from rink to rink to get his ice time. Some weeks he plays goalie. Others not. He likes goalie a little more, but loves the game. The other night it was a goalie clinic. He and some 30 odd goalies ranging in ages from 6 to 16 are learning things like: positioning, stick saves, the butterfly, post to post movement etc. So my dreams of being a goalie from days gone by are now transferred to my son.

Yes, I know living vicariously through children can be dangerous. They don't need the pressure to be what we wanted to be years ago. I've made a conscious decision not to put that pressure on my son and simply enjoy every moment he's on the ice. I'll take him as far as he wants to go, but when he's done, I'll hang it up with no skate laces attached.

Instead of merely living through him, I've learned that I can have some measure of joy on the frozen water. I've found a pair of skates that fit and are in pretty good shape. I've laced them more in the last month than I have in all the previous years of my life. I've played with my boys and have learned how to stop - well at least one direction any way. I've managed to play a pick up game with a few young boys (ones who can actually skate at my speed! Or is that the other way around?). I'm getting a chance at this age to do the things I wanted to do as a kid, but didn't have the courage or the desire to complete.

I'm invigorated by this new activity and am learning that there are second chances for things missed in years gone by. It should be obvious that serious organized hockey is not in my future, but for me I am living a dream.