BIG HOCKEY DAY!

This deserves a post!

I BOOKED THIS TODAY!!! PWHL LAUNCHES FIRST-EVER FANTASY CAMP

Brian saw it come up on his feed this morning (here’s more details too) and - sorta shockingly, because it’s a big expense for us and we never take those lightly - thought I needed to see it, and the feeling was immediately, I should probably do this, and Dillon agreed as well. I genuinely want to do Anything I can, for the girls. To help make better and deepen and enrich their experience as much and in any way I can - in hockey, in Women’s hockey, in Mammoth; in Life.

I want their lives to be better, for having played hockey, and for playing in this league., in this program. And I don’t know what roads or resources or people can Help with that, but I can only keep exploring them, and following them, to find more. I know enough of life now to know that You Never Know who or what can help, or make a difference, or make something Wonderful.

I didn’t know, last year, when we started this.

I didn’t know, when I was quibbling about coaching at all, because I was so rusty, and had never been Amazing to begin with.

I didn’t know that I could help stoke and build and contribute to a Community, one that Matters, one that makes a Difference, in each other’s lives. I’ve come to realize that I Can help it - I don’t even know all the How yet, beyond what I’m doing and what I’ve been wanting to do - and so I so deeply and desperately want to. This is a cause I Believe in, and can get behind, and know that no matter what, Hockey is something that can be a driving force for Good, in our Community, in ourselves, in each other. There’s no Ambivalence about whether this is right or wrong to believe in, to further, to espouse.

I see every day at the rink, what people are like - hockey players and general public alike, kids and adults and older folks - they’re Excited to be there, intrigued, curious, interest, humbled, or great. But they’re Alive. And that’s what I want to be around, and be a part of - being Alive.

It’s in a really small way, sure, one session of a public skate, or a lesson, or a clinic. But for some - me included - it’s a Lifeline, a pool of Friends, always there, these ladies….the chat and the conversations and support I get to see unfold in it, it’s just…

There’s no ambivalence to it - it matters.

And I love that, SO much. I want to help it grow, and breathe, and feel, and expand. I want it to touch and be able to touch every person who wants it to, who wants to and can be a part of it, in any way they feel they can and want to, and know they’re part of the Community, part of that pool of Friends, and Support, and Confidants. Your Team, your people who have your back, who care about how you’re doing and what you’re up to. Where the only common starting ground needed is that we are women, and we care about Hockey. That’s enough. We can build from there.

And so, for as much as this is an Amazing opportunity and experience for me as an individual and a player, that’s the heart of why I want to go and why I’m drawn to and why I feel called to do so. Why it wasn’t even that much of an internal kerfuffle to justify the logistics - it’s not for me.

It’s for Them.

It’s for whatever I can do, learn to do, learn to be, begin to Become, so that I can best serve my ladies in this hockey program. And the Beginners in general. The people who Want to be a part of hockey, and are only beginning, or who only Might.

I don’t know what that road looks like just yet, certainly not in Entirety, or what awaits, or what I am or will be capable of doing, or what that looks like. But I have to figure a chance to go see and meet and mingle with and interact with the Pros, the top of the top of the women who are doing it, RIGHT NOW, unfolding in real time, historical - I’ve been in the game 30. years, I know where we’re coming from, where we’ve come from, what wasn’t available or conceivable then that Is a REALITY now…

I may have to accept I’m too old to get to really be a part of it, in those Player ways (though I’d sure still give it a shot and I feel like my audacity and physical toughness/assertiveness would get me pretty far XD), but I have to believe there’s a place for me in this new wave, one that my previous experience doesn’t amount to “lost” experience/chances, but ones that serve to make me best suited for whatever role it is that is mine to assume and take on here.

For now, the best I can see it - and all I can see - is my ladies, this precious group of women+ that have shown up on the ice, enough times in enough ways - watching, skating, stick timing, clinic-ing, pick up-ing, leaguing - that we’ve become a known core group to each other, and around town as, frankly, the hip place to be if you’re a woman+. Whatever I can do for them, I want to learn to do and be it.

And so, Jan 21-27, I’m going to go to Toronto for the PWHL’S FIRST-EVER FANTASY CAMP, and see what I can learn from them to do so.

I am SO excited, and SO grateful for the opportunity and everything and everyone who went into it with support and to make it possible. <3