Skating

Skating took two forms yesterday. Early Sunday afternoon I worked as a linesman for the High Plains Club Hockey State Final. Later that night, after a brief visit with our friend Molly, I took off to skate as a player in a Sunday night drop in session I have joined.

Working the State Championships was a bit of a honor and a nice way to wrap up on what has been a fantastic year of reffing. I started out working an Avalanche training camp scrimmage. It was also my rookie year working both the Central Hockey League (semi-pro) and the Atlantic League, a NCAA Div 1 league. 18 CHL games was one hell of a learning curve. Having front row seats to the fights, watching players do some incredible things on the ice and hearing a litany of complaints and praise from everyone, fans, players and coaches made for incredibly fun year. In the Atlantic League, I worked often enough to warrant working the first round of playoffs, another huge honor.

Reffing has made a big change in how I view the game. I have played and I have coached in the past. Reffing is vastly different than those past experiences. There is a fraternity among refs, male and female. Bonds are made, friendships started and one enters into a new family...people who look out for you and take care of you. As a player, you have that bonding amongst a small team. As a coach, the number of close relationships is even smaller. But as a ref, you are one part of a tremendous organization...and you can pretty much skate with anyone. You see new nuances to the game. You see how players disappear into empty space, how they set up to get that next pass. Not to mention that you are actually paid to skate round and flap your arms like a flock of sea gulls!

But lacing up the skates, grabbing a stick and heading out to play? There is something about playing hockey that borders on a drug induced high. Looking up ice, making that perfect pass that connects to your friend's tape, seeing a hole that you can thread a puck through to the back of a net; nothing can beat it. You come back to the bench with others saying, "thanks for the pass" or "wow!" Nothing can touch this. It is a throwback to the aspirations of our youth. And it affects all of us on the ice, from the 18 year olds to the 65 year olds. On the ice, they channel their youthful form and on the bench, they grin like 5 year olds.

I guess the trick is that as we grow older and find different ways to earn our keep, we need to make sure we hang on to a certain amount of youthful awe that lets us simply go out and play. We should never, ever stop playing.