A Reason for Living
I will admit that last night I was seriously depressed over the canceling of the hockey season and the final admission of defeat after a failure of both sides to work something out. Pathetic isn't it?
I remember my first hockey game like it was yesterday. I was living up in Binghamton going to grad school up there. In the first four months I lived there, I had no friends and was incredibly alone. Then, I found out that the secretary for the Graduate History department, Nancy, was organizing an outing to see a Binghamton Rangers hockey game. I had never been to a hockey game in my life before so I didn't know what to expect. Honestly, I was more excited about meeting people than I was about the game. Little did I know what this fateful night would do to me. I was instantly hooked on the game. It was fast-paced, hard hitting, and exciting. Mind you, I didn't really make any friends that night but I was exposed to something even better.
It took a year for the damage to really sink in. In my first year in Binghamton, I only went to two games, mainly for two reasons: I was broke and I didn't have anybody to go with. The next season was different though. I was making decent money working at Barnes & Noble and I started working with people who liked hockey so I went to more and more games. By the end of the '92-'93 season, I was catching practically every home playoff game and the ones I missed I listened to on the radio. The Binghamton Rangers ended up losing in game 7 of the division finals and lost out on their chance to vie for the Calder Cup. With that loss, I was devastated. It ended too quickly. It was like I had an addiction and needed a quick fix. This is when I started watching NHL hockey.
The '93 playoffs were a great time to start watching hockey. I tuned in during the division finals. I remember it clearly. I was rooting for teams like the Islanders and the Kings because they were American teams, not out of any loyalty. I remember hating the Maple Leafs and one player in particular: Dougie Gilmour. He looked scary back then, losing so much weight during the playoffs and being so beaten up. Little did I know that less than a year later he would be my idol. I rooted against the Montreal Canadians because they were Canadian and instead rooting for the Kings and Wayne Gretzky during the Cup Finals. Once again, that was another bad choice as a few years later I would find myself driving up to Montreal with friends to go see my beloved Habs play.
The point though is that by the time Patrick Roy and Co. raised the Stanley Cup over their heads that fateful night in L.A., the damage was done. I was a true hockey fan. No more could I watch the slow prodding of baseball, the lackluster plays of football, or the boring dribbling of basketball. I needed my sport to be fast and exciting. I needed hockey.
I moved to New Jersey in September '93 and one of the first things I did was buy a partial season ticket plan to the NJ Devils. Yes, I started out a Rangers fan, but it was too expensive and almost impossible to get tickets to the Rangers at the Garden. The Devils were so much cheaper and closer. I also bought my first pair of hockey skates and learned how to skate. By November '93 I was enrolled in Hockey North America playing for the NJ Silencers out of the rink in Englewood in their beginner's league. To say I was a pathetic hockey player would be an understatement but I was having FUN.
The summer of '94 was hard for me. Bad things definitely came in threes that year.
First, I saw the Devils lose Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Championship to the Rangers. By this point, I was a die-hard and loyal Devils fan so seeing the Rangers win the Cup was very bittersweet for me.
Then in July, I went to hockey camp up in Guelph, Ont. I picked this specific one because it would give me an opportunity to meet Dougie Gilmour, who was a guest coach for the kids' camp. On the second day there, I shattered and dislocated my right ankle. I needed surgery and was out of things for six months.
Finally, the owners locked out the NHL players. I was completely and utterly miserable. It was bad enough that I couldn't play hockey for six months but then the NHL goes and cancels its games through January so I couldn't even watch hockey. If it wasn't for my friend Rich, that would've been the longest six months of my life. Instead, the two of us took a road trip every weekend to go see a minor league game, to Albany, Binghamton, Philly or Providence. I was getting my hockey in.
Since then, I have had either season tickets or, when I got sick and had no money partial season tickets, to the Devils every season. I played hockey for another four years after breaking my ankle but it got too hard to play with the pain and too expensive. I was on disability and $500 plus travel costs was too much to spend. Even still, I had my hockey in one form or another.
Now with the cancellation of this season, it would be the first year that I don't have any hockey. I'm too out of shape to play and we can't afford to be doing road trips each weekend. It wasn't the end of the world, but it really put a damper on my spirits.
Today, however, I decided not to let it get me down. Yes, we can't afford overnight road trips to see minor league games, but there has got to be some sort of hockey within two hours. I knew there was a minor league team out of Trenton, the Trenton Titans. That's ECHL which is kind of like AA baseball. Not bad but not the greatest. My brother lives in Providence so we can always go visit him for the weekend and catch a game as well. Also, I discovered that Bridgeport has a team and that's only 1 1/2 hours away and, as I was very happy to find out, the AHL does live radio broadcasts over the internet so I can catch hockey games that way. On top of all that, ESPN, FSNY, and MSG are all broadcasting "classic" hockey games (tonight they are doing the 1980 Miracle on Ice game).
So things aren't nearly as bleak as I had feared. I've got one of my reasons for living back. No, I never would've been suicidal over the loss of the NHL season, but it was one of those things that kept me going even when my depression was at its worst. I always had hockey to bring that spark of happiness into my life and it looks like I still will.
I remember my first hockey game like it was yesterday. I was living up in Binghamton going to grad school up there. In the first four months I lived there, I had no friends and was incredibly alone. Then, I found out that the secretary for the Graduate History department, Nancy, was organizing an outing to see a Binghamton Rangers hockey game. I had never been to a hockey game in my life before so I didn't know what to expect. Honestly, I was more excited about meeting people than I was about the game. Little did I know what this fateful night would do to me. I was instantly hooked on the game. It was fast-paced, hard hitting, and exciting. Mind you, I didn't really make any friends that night but I was exposed to something even better.
It took a year for the damage to really sink in. In my first year in Binghamton, I only went to two games, mainly for two reasons: I was broke and I didn't have anybody to go with. The next season was different though. I was making decent money working at Barnes & Noble and I started working with people who liked hockey so I went to more and more games. By the end of the '92-'93 season, I was catching practically every home playoff game and the ones I missed I listened to on the radio. The Binghamton Rangers ended up losing in game 7 of the division finals and lost out on their chance to vie for the Calder Cup. With that loss, I was devastated. It ended too quickly. It was like I had an addiction and needed a quick fix. This is when I started watching NHL hockey.
The '93 playoffs were a great time to start watching hockey. I tuned in during the division finals. I remember it clearly. I was rooting for teams like the Islanders and the Kings because they were American teams, not out of any loyalty. I remember hating the Maple Leafs and one player in particular: Dougie Gilmour. He looked scary back then, losing so much weight during the playoffs and being so beaten up. Little did I know that less than a year later he would be my idol. I rooted against the Montreal Canadians because they were Canadian and instead rooting for the Kings and Wayne Gretzky during the Cup Finals. Once again, that was another bad choice as a few years later I would find myself driving up to Montreal with friends to go see my beloved Habs play.
The point though is that by the time Patrick Roy and Co. raised the Stanley Cup over their heads that fateful night in L.A., the damage was done. I was a true hockey fan. No more could I watch the slow prodding of baseball, the lackluster plays of football, or the boring dribbling of basketball. I needed my sport to be fast and exciting. I needed hockey.
I moved to New Jersey in September '93 and one of the first things I did was buy a partial season ticket plan to the NJ Devils. Yes, I started out a Rangers fan, but it was too expensive and almost impossible to get tickets to the Rangers at the Garden. The Devils were so much cheaper and closer. I also bought my first pair of hockey skates and learned how to skate. By November '93 I was enrolled in Hockey North America playing for the NJ Silencers out of the rink in Englewood in their beginner's league. To say I was a pathetic hockey player would be an understatement but I was having FUN.
The summer of '94 was hard for me. Bad things definitely came in threes that year.
First, I saw the Devils lose Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Championship to the Rangers. By this point, I was a die-hard and loyal Devils fan so seeing the Rangers win the Cup was very bittersweet for me.
Then in July, I went to hockey camp up in Guelph, Ont. I picked this specific one because it would give me an opportunity to meet Dougie Gilmour, who was a guest coach for the kids' camp. On the second day there, I shattered and dislocated my right ankle. I needed surgery and was out of things for six months.
Finally, the owners locked out the NHL players. I was completely and utterly miserable. It was bad enough that I couldn't play hockey for six months but then the NHL goes and cancels its games through January so I couldn't even watch hockey. If it wasn't for my friend Rich, that would've been the longest six months of my life. Instead, the two of us took a road trip every weekend to go see a minor league game, to Albany, Binghamton, Philly or Providence. I was getting my hockey in.
Since then, I have had either season tickets or, when I got sick and had no money partial season tickets, to the Devils every season. I played hockey for another four years after breaking my ankle but it got too hard to play with the pain and too expensive. I was on disability and $500 plus travel costs was too much to spend. Even still, I had my hockey in one form or another.
Now with the cancellation of this season, it would be the first year that I don't have any hockey. I'm too out of shape to play and we can't afford to be doing road trips each weekend. It wasn't the end of the world, but it really put a damper on my spirits.
Today, however, I decided not to let it get me down. Yes, we can't afford overnight road trips to see minor league games, but there has got to be some sort of hockey within two hours. I knew there was a minor league team out of Trenton, the Trenton Titans. That's ECHL which is kind of like AA baseball. Not bad but not the greatest. My brother lives in Providence so we can always go visit him for the weekend and catch a game as well. Also, I discovered that Bridgeport has a team and that's only 1 1/2 hours away and, as I was very happy to find out, the AHL does live radio broadcasts over the internet so I can catch hockey games that way. On top of all that, ESPN, FSNY, and MSG are all broadcasting "classic" hockey games (tonight they are doing the 1980 Miracle on Ice game).
So things aren't nearly as bleak as I had feared. I've got one of my reasons for living back. No, I never would've been suicidal over the loss of the NHL season, but it was one of those things that kept me going even when my depression was at its worst. I always had hockey to bring that spark of happiness into my life and it looks like I still will.
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