What season is your favorite? Mine is hockey

This is my winter season team, during our last game of the season, needless to say we were short a few players.


Hockey.

I have written about it many times.  It has helped me get through a lot of things.

Sports.  One thing that helps cancer survivors survive ( I hate the word thriver or thrive, just my personal thing.)

Some people run 5Ks, half marathons, marathons.  Never understood the excitement about that,  maybe I just don't like running, after all marathon comes from the legend of a Greek Runner who was sent from Marathon to Athens to announce that the Persians had been defeated in the Battle of Marathon, and supposedly dropped dead after he relayed the news of the victory.



This does not make me want to run a marathon.

Back to the ice.

We draft two seasons: Fall (Oct-Dec) and Winter (Jan-March)

Fall season I was Co-captain of Apple Tree Inn.  We were last in our 5 team league, with an abysmal 3-8-1 record.  We didn't win either of our two playoff games and well we finished.  

We didn't win the season, however we didn't lose it either.  My fall team, team Apple Tree Inn (seen below)

short once again, without our Co-capt who was out of town on a job, had fun.  We had a game where we got totally blown out by another team 8-0 and my team was in great spirits, because we were having fun (well I am not a goalie, I hope he had fun, even though we lost, sorry Zach.)  I think I missed one game in the fall, I was going to participate in a bike race and, well that didn't happen.  We didn't do great, but when one of the best players in the league tells you it was the most fun they had playing hockey, then you know, as a captain you did your job.  ( I did a good job drafting the team, the hockey gods deemed it a non winning season.

Winter season.

New sponsor.  It happens, businesses decided not to renew sponsorships,  We have had several businesses do that.  Since my co-capt and I had gotten 2 sponsorships, we decided to captain Trish Hartwick Coldwell Banker.  Doing so we became the first all female sponsored and captained team in the league.  Unfortunately once again my co-capt. was out, this time with an ankle injury.  

So we had more jerseys ordered before the season and then we drafted.

I think I drafted pretty well, but again the hockey gods were not favoring us.  We had a 4-6 season and we made it to the semi finals of the playoffs, if you look at the photo at the top of the blog you will see why we lost, most of our team was gone that day.  Most people didn't expect us to make it that far.  I am thinking our team didn't expect us to make it that far.  

I never doubted us.  Not for a second.

You see, every season that you draft, you draft not just people, but your team, that team becomes your family.  For 13 games those player were my family. 

Family.  if you have played hockey you understand.  If you haven't, then it is difficult to explain.  

I don't like missing games.  Most people don't.  I really hate missing games.

I know what it is like to not be able to play.  

I know the feeling when your body hates you, and you can't lace em up, step out onto the ice and skate with your team.

I missed 1 game in the winter, I had bronchitis, I was coughing so much my doctor, who was also on my team, told me to come see her that week.  

I missed a game, 

I wasn't able to play.

I coached from the bench.  (Yelling probably wasn't good for my throat, but I am not the quietest person out there when I am at the rink)

Having bronchitis reminded me of what it was like when I had to stop playing after I was diagnosed.  It is weird how things can take you right back into that moment.  

It was a moment I will never forget.

It was a moment I do not want to repeat.

I may not be the fastest player out there, or the best, but when I am out there I will give 110% every game, because I know that any game you play could be your last.  That is a scary feeling to know about the sport I love so much.

So if you see me play, you will know why I skate hard, yes I like to win, but there is more to that sheet of ice that most people can see.  

That is why to me every game is a victory.

To some it is just a game.

To me it is a whole lot more.

That is why I will keep skating.

 Check out my podcast The Cancer Warrior on Empoweradio.com available on demand, on iTunes, IHeart radio, the podcast app on your iPhone and on stitcher.

Enforcer

Hockey teams are like family.  We protect each other on and off the ice.   Many people think hockey is nothing but a boxing match on ice. To those people I say lace em up and see why you are wrong.

This has been a sad year for hockey.  Not only with the tragic loss of KHL Locomotiv team from a devastating plane crash, but two hockey players (Wade Belak and  Richard Rypien) took their own lives because of (assumingly) their battle with depression.

I subscribe to Sports Illustrated.  No surprise there to anyone I am sure.

Reading Brian Cazenueve's article about the deaths of 3 NHL players, in a few months, and the fact that they were all enforcers, it made me sad.  The fact that Mr. Cazenueve said that "A third untimely death may spur the NHL to take another look at 'place in the game"


Fighting.

Hmm.

Fighting has its place in hockey.  I am not one to disagree with that.  I do however disagree that the NHL should look at fighting as the root cause of these players tragic demise.

I battle depression.  I hate the word suffer, but yeah sometimes I do.  Mental illness still has a stigma attached to it.

Now imagine you are a tough guy in the NHL.  Would it be easy to tell someone that you are depressed?

I can tell you it wasn't for me, and I consider myself to be a strong person.

Not as physically strong as a professional hockey player, but strong nonetheless.

I kicked cancers ass, and continue to do so in this blog, and on my podcast.

But the hardest battles are the ones that others can't see.

My friend said to me recently:

Sometimes the scariest place is inside your own head


Maybe the NHL should focus on helping players from the inside out, not worry about players dropping the gloves.

Hockey teams are like a  family, and even though I am not in the NHL, or even close to being anywhere near a professional player, I am ok at best, I will drop the gloves for anyone battling depression or any other mental illness.

Even you.

Wanna go?




Mel is the producer/co~host of The Vic McCarty Show. Listen Live Monday~Friday 9am-noon eastern time on wmktthetalkstation.com

Check out my podcast The Cancer Warrior on Empoweradio.com Available on demand and also available on Itunes.

The season

I play hockey.  That is not new to any readers of this blog. I played on a coed league this year.  Haven't played coed hockey since I lived in California, because of the expense, and I really wanted to try to get the women's hockey program of off the ground, but cancer had other plans.

So I really returned to the ice this year, in an organized hockey program.  Last time I hit the ice before this was 3 years ago

3 years.  

I found out about my cancer right before the season started in 2007.   I remember telling my teammates, that I had cancer.  That was hard.  It was shocking, both to them and to me. At that point I didn't know what my course of treatment was going to be. 

When I finally saw the surgeon and he told me I had to have a port put in I said, what I can't play hockey for two years?  I actually thought that!!  Isn't that crazy?  I know I have written about this moment many times, but that tells you what an important role hockey has played in my life.  

So I really didn't know what to expect when I was told about this coed league.  Like I said before I had played in California.  There were a few women here and there, I had 2 female teammates on my first team I played on.  Some teams had no women on them.  Some didn't like women playing hockey.  There wasn't a sense of camaraderie within the league, only on our team.

The league manager does a draft.  He tries to put different levels of abilities of players together.  Its a C league, which means we have beginners and intermediates mostly, and some people who play very well interspersed within the teams.  There are 4 teams in this league.  I played on Hartman Law.

Now let me tell you this, in California, we had to buy our jerseys home and away, which was fine.  There is nothing like getting your first jersey with your name on the back.  Its an awesome feeling.  This being a small town that I live in now that is not the case.  They have sponsors for the teams.  So they have jerseys already made for the team, kind of a bummer, but that's ok.  I looked in the bin full of jerseys, found one that wasn't too big, it was #6.

 I remember when I stepped onto the ice for the first game I felt shaky, it had after all been 3 years since I played, but it felt good.  

On the ice everything makes sense, you can take all your aggressions, frustrations, anger, happiness every emotion you have and use it to play.  Its a physical sport, and it can change in an instant with the bounce of the puck, a deflection or a pass. Its also a team sport. You can't win the game alone, you rely on your teammates.

We only played 9 games in the regular season, but I was grateful for every second on the ice.  We won 4 games lost one and tied 4.  

We were in first place.

I didn't score a point in the regular season, and I wanted to so bad.  I had scored goals before when I played in California, and in the first game I played when I moved to Michigan, but I really wanted to score a goal or get an assist.  

I didn't during the regular season.

We had a two game playoff.  The first game was close. We won

Holy shit, my team is in the finals.

I have never been on a winning team before.

Until now.

I don't know what the time was in the first period but I scored the first goal in our final game.

It was a one timer.

All I can remember is seeing the puck on my stick then looking up and seeing it hit the back of the net.

My first goal after cancer.  Awesome.

The game lasted 45 minutes.  Just a blip in time when you consider how long I was in treatment for.

45 minutes, and we played hard.

And won.

The cool thing about this league, is the cameraderie.  My team was happy I scored.

But so was everyone else.

Not everyone in the league knew of my battle with cancer, how hard I fought.

How hard I continue to fight during survivorship for myself.

How hard I fight for others, some I have met, some I never will.

The best thing about this season?

It has brought me closer to feeling like me.

 And its about damn time...

 

Mel is the producer/co~host of The Vic McCarty Show. Listen Live Monday~Friday 10am-noon eastern time on wmktthetalkstation.com

Check out my podcast The Cancer Warrior on Empoweradio.com Available on demand and also available on Itunes.