NH(IL)L

I've been a hockey fan for nearly my entire life. I remember playing (solo) hockey in the laundry room of Springwood Apartments, on the concrete floor, when I was 4. I'd take my plastic runt-sized hockey stick and plastic puck and just whack the heck out of the puck all over the place. It was a decent sized room (doubling as storage for the apartments around the perimeter), and being 4, it seemed as big as a full-sized rink. The year was 1975, which was the true golden age of Flyers hockey, as we (they) were in the midst of back to back Stanley Cups.

Since then, I'd dabbled in some ice hockey, but mostly played good old-fashioned street hockey on STREETS, then on basketball courts, tennis courts, and finally on organized league rinks. I actively played up until last May when I destroyed 2 knee ligaments and a hamstring by trying to cut hard to the net while simultaneously stepping on a defenseman's stick.

Anyway, the bottom line is I've been a player and a true FAN nearly my whole life. And it saddens me to no end when I have to endure this travesty of a non-season by the NHL. Sure I still have my partial season tickets to the ECHL Reading Royals, but it's not the same. It doesn't feel the same this year. Hockey....any hockey this year feels different somehow. I don't have the same rush of excitement sitting at games. And I haven't been able to even stomach bringing out my net to take shots since the whole fiasco started. It's awful.

Most people don't realize that hockey fans....TRUE hockey FANS, don't just view hockey as a sport. They view it as somewhat of a way of live. Even more than other sports. Canadians truly own the sport. For them, hockey IS a way of life. But some people in the US (and other countries) really do get it. We understand. And while the game goes on, there is a huge void in our lives without the NHL. Non-fans don't get it. They don't seem to mind if the NHL would disappear of the face of the earth. And that's a shame because they don't understand the beauty of the game, and the lifestyle that it stands for. Hockey is (should be) a blue collar sport. Grit, hard work, blood, guts, glory. It shouldn't be about multi-multi million dollar contracts and such. That's not what it stands for. And maybe that's why the whole negotiating process has failed so miserably to date.