Another Year of Hockey

When last we left our intrepid hockey player, he was sick of hockey. I remember quite clearly his final words as we left the rink at the end of last season: “I won’t ever play hockey again.”

I’ll admit that, at the time, I was of a mixed opinion on the matter. On the one hand- YES!!! Weekends free next year! No more tears over equipment and early mornings! On the other hand, well, I hated to see him dislike it so much. Hockey really is a good sport, I’d hoped he’d at least have a better opinion of it than that.

Then, about 2 months ago, the subject of hockey came up at the dinner table. The boy stated that he thought he’d like to play again. It was all I could do not to choke on my food. The Wife’s reaction wasn’t quite as strong as my own, but his statement caught her by surprise as well.

Ever since, we been waging a covert campaign to figure out what he really wants to do. The Wife and I both have strong senses of how thing will go if he chooses to play: after a couple weeks the complaining will start, halfway through he’ll be phoning in the practices with half-assed effort, buy the end he’ll be mad because his team can’t do anything and he’ll hate hockey. Again. That said, we are both reluctant to just out-and-out deny him the chance to play because we could be wrong.

We’ve both spoken with him, trying to couch the conversation in terms of his having thought about his martial arts classes and does he really want to give up his weekends? But he’s consistently come back with the conviction that he wants to play. So it looks like our weekends will be occupied this Winter.

As for the lass, she’s been in for quite awhile now. She’s a different beast altogether from her brother when it comes to sports. The boy wants to be an All Star without putting in any work. The lass just wants to have fun.

So the countdown has begun. 3 weeks to go.