A small late-night thought that got away from me

I had a thought tonight, somewhere in the second period, and now I can’t stop thinking it, so you’re all going to have to think it with me.

Every time I sit down to watch hockey, my hockey boys and girls are watching it too.

Not in a spooky way. Well. Maybe a little bit in a spooky way. It’s Halloween, I’m allowed.

But think about it. Everything my players know about hockey, they know because I know it. When I learn something new about a breakout or a forecheck or why a coach pulled the goalie with three minutes left, they learn it at exactly the same moment. Their hockey brains are my hockey brain, wearing different jerseys. If I’ve never noticed something, neither have they. If I yell at the TV about a missed call, somewhere in Portland an entire locker room is yelling with me.

Which means my players are only ever as smart as I am. And I’d like that to sound less alarming than it does.

Then it got worse. Or better. I genuinely can’t decide.

Because it isn’t just what they know. It’s who they look up to. My players grew up watching the same players I watch. The rookies in the PHL have heroes, and their heroes are my heroes. Somewhere in my universe there’s a kid who taped a poster of a big, grumpy enforcer with a soft heart to his bedroom wall, and I know exactly who he was thinking of when he did it, because I was thinking of him too. Somewhere there’s a centre who watched a misunderstood ginger find his way home and decided that’s the kind of veteran he wants to be one day.

They’re not just playing hockey. They’re trying to become the players I love. And they don’t even know they’re doing it.

I sat with that for a while, and I think I’ve landed somewhere a bit softer than scary.

Because isn’t that just what happens to every hockey kid? Every player who’s ever laced up grew up watching someone. They learned the game from the people they loved watching it with. They copied the celly, the stick tap, the way their hero leaned on the boards. My players just happen to have learned it all from someone sitting on a couch at the bottom of the world, at strange hours, in her pyjamas, with a cat judging her.

So yes, my players’ hockey knowledge is exactly as deep as mine. They’ll make the same mistakes I make, love the same underdogs, and hold the same grudges against certain referees. (They know which ones.)

But they also love the game the way I love it. And honestly? I can’t think of anything better to give them.

Of course, there’s a small complication on the horizon. In December I’m heading off on my hockey research trip (and yes, it is research, I have a notebook and everything), which means for the first time a lot of what I learn won’t come through a TV screen at strange hours. It’ll come from real arenas, real ice, real noise, and real people who know far more than I do.

Which means my players are about to get considerably more knowledgeable, very quickly. About what they can and can’t do. About what they can and can’t get away with. About exactly how close to the line a person can skate before somebody in a striped shirt notices.

I’m a little worried about what they’ll do with all that. They’re already trouble. Informed trouble is a whole new level.

In the meantime, I just need to keep watching. For their sake, you understand. Purely professional.

— Bella