Hockey Dads, Make Room

I just got back from the sporting goods store.  It surprised me how quickly someone can be transformed into a hockey player.  Well, at least look like one.  One of my coaching expressions is to inform my players that there are people who play hockey and then there are hockey players. Their goal is to be one of the latter; a very rare athlete indeed. 

Now back to my shopping excursion. My daughter, Avery, is a mature 12 year old, a honour student, and, as of today, a Peewee.   Perhaps inspired by the gold medal winning Canadian Junior Hockey Team or by watching my Northeast Bantam B's last week, she decided she wants to play hockey.  Peewees are larger than Atoms (don't tell that to Einstein), gigantic compared to Mites, but smaller than Midgets and Bantams. (What's a Bantam anyway?)  Throw Juveniles, Tykes and Juniors into the mix and one begins to realize that maybe size does matter after all.  (I hope my wife doesn't read this, she'll know I've been lying to her all these years.)  

Avery knows the game better than most kids her age.  Her only obvious deficiency, when she finally hits the ice next week, will be that she can't skate.  She says she can go forward, stop a little, and definitely can't go in reverse.  Even with that fairly honest self assessment I think she is being somewhat optimistic.  Confidence is a great asset, but I hope when reality body checks her ego this coming Wednesday that she will get right back up on those blades of steel and persevere.

That truly is my hope, that Avery sticks with it.  Long enough at least,  so that when I donate her equipment to the minor hockey association I can tell them that it is "used" equipment.  Unlike her older sister, who found her sporting fit to be competitive swimming at a young age, Avery continues to try things out.  I love her enthusiasm and willingness to explore, but my garage is starting to look a lot like the sporting goods store I left this afternoon. Soccer, basketball, swimming, volleyball, rowing, and softball have all been favourite sports during Avery's short life.  Can hockey stay in favour?  That is the several hundreds of dollars question.

Lynda wondered why I just didn't just go get used equipment for Avery.  If any of you know Lynda then you would realize that position is totally unlike her.  Normally, Lynda would be totally against her kids wearing anything that someone else had so close to their skin.  Her thinking would be along the lines of "Who knows where that equipment has been and what heebie-jeebie creatures are lurking behind the layers of protection."  The fact she questioned that I outfitted Avery in all new equipment hints that Lynda also habours doubt that Avery will be the next Hayley Wickenheiser. Lynda wasn't an athlete, so she doesn't understand.  You have to look good to play good.  You need to be different than everyone else, but that is in how you play, not in how you look when you play. You can't have a Koho hockey stick when everyone else has a PMP 5030.  Your helmet must not be red when everyone else is wearing black.  You first need to fit in, then you work to set yourself apart from the pack by playing the game the way it was meant to be played - like a hockey player.

Avery may turn out to be a girl who plays hockey or a girl who played hockey once.  It matters not. What matters is that she is excited about trying.  Almost as much as I will be to watch her.  After all my years involved with the game, today I became what I thought I may never be, a hockey dad.  It sure feels special, but it sure was expensive.

One last thought before the final buzzer sounds on this story.  Lynda's dad, Ron West, was a famous, perhaps infamous, local hockey referee.  My first game misconduct, while playing hockey school hockey, came at his hands and that was long before I even knew he had a daughter.  I got the last laugh on him (or did I?). Just kidding, dear.  I hated Ron, the ref.  I've had my share of run-ins with many refs, both when I was a player and now as a coach.  It's not that I don't respect them, it's more that they are just so wrong so often and I don't mind telling them.

I wonder if my attitude towards hockey refs will be carried on by Avery or will she turn out more like her grandfather and be a sympathizer of the folks in the zebra shirts?  I'll be okay with whatever path she chooses.  I can tell her that all that time I spent in the penalty box allowed me to see the game from an entirely different perspective.  Getting punched in the head repeatedly does that to a person.  I am thankful that Avery is more like her mother and is a lover not a fighter.  I think even Ron West would have approved. On that he would have be right, for the first time ever. Touché, Ron!

The 5 Second Rule of Engagement - featuring Butter Bowls & Mother's Roles

I have never considered myself to be an overprotective parent.  I frequently...okay, always abide by the "5 second rule" whenever my kids drop an item of food on the floor or ground.  I don't even bother to count if the landing area is a lap, car seat, or the top of the dog's head.  If the landing zone is sketchy then I'll just count to five faster so not as many germs get a chance to hop on for the ride.  So far, it seems, this approach seems to have worked well - the kids are still alive and kicking.

My lovely wife, Lynda, does enough "mothering" of the kids for the both of us.  Case in point was this very morning. I was heading out the door to pick Kendall up at the swimming pool and then drop her at school when I was handed a larger freezer bag containing a copious amount of Cheerios in a reemployed butter container that was now full of skim milk.  Don't worry, a spoon and some napkins were cozily nestled next to the cereal and milk too.  Lynda must have seen the "What the..." expression I was wearing at that moment so she explained that Kendall had said that she hadn't much time in the mornings and wasn't eating her breakfast.  No sense questioning.  Twenty something years of marriage and fourteen plus years as a father has taught me that.

So as Kendall jumps into the car and buckles up for the commute to her junior high school, one that takes no more than five minutes, even in the St. John's' version of rush half hour traffic, I show her the freezer bag that her mother has prepared.  Now it is Kendall who has the 'What the..." look on her face, which appeared as no surprise to me.

I tell Kendall that her mom wanted to make sure that she had her breakfast before going to school. Kendall laughed and went on to explain the recent conversation she had with Lynda that may have been the catalyst for her mom's concern. Kendall had recently mentioned to Lynda that the lineup at the pool's Tim Horton's is often way too long and that she would be late for school if she tried to order from there.  The school's breakfast program, although awesome, is usually out of her favourite breakfast food, bagels, by the time she arrives and that she is usually stuck with having to eat a bowl of cereal.  Somehow Kendall's version of events was interpreted by Lynda as "pack breakfast for Kendall and make sure it is cereal and milk that she will eat in 3 minutes or less with a small plastic spoon while sitting in a car driving up to 70 kph on the Parkway and stops and starts suddenly for traffic lights, traffic, and pedestrians".

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What do you think the odds are that a 14 year old girl would take the chance of wearing her breakfast rather than eating it and showing up to junior high with a huge milk spot on the front of her blouse?  I have found that milk doesn't adhere very well to the "5 second rule".

I'm writing this morning from Starbucks, where wifi is free, offers bottomless coffee with my Gold Starbucks card, and the leather chairs are comfortable, even if they do have more than their share of milk stains. There's no chance I'll be adding to those stains today.  This butter container is actually a very good cereal bowl so the milk will go precisely where it is supposed to.  So tasty and I'm saving $3 by not having to order the bran muffin.  Just one caveat though,  On the off chance that I drop a Cheerio or two on the floor her at Starbucks, then to heck with the "5 second rule".  Some rules are okay to break. I think even Lynda would approve.

Depot was Home

 A young and mustachioed Constable Nixon can be found as the 3rd guy in, on the right hand column.

Twenty-five years ago this past week I became a member of the RCMP.  Four years ago this week I also became an ex-member of the RCMP.  It's those earlier years that I'd like to focus upon today. More specifically, I'll recount a few of my more vivid recollections of those first six months as a Mounted Policeman.  Those were the Depot days, on the fringes of Regina, Saskatchewan.  By the way, Depot is not pronounced the way we say it when referring to the retail store, Home Depot, nor does it sound like Dee-Pot.  It is Dep-po (the first syllable rhymes with "step" and in the second the "t" is silent).  Get it right or you'll find yourself CB'd next weekend!  That's confined to barracks.  Or maybe it'll be a week of "Bozo Parade" - 6:30 a.m. full uniform inspections in the drill hall, conducted by a crusty, loud, caffeine deprived Corporal, who, in the world outside of Depot is merely a low level supervisor, but within the confines of the RCMP Training Academy, a corporal is a demigod.

I lived in D Block.  My home for those six months consisted of a 12 inch slab of foam on a metal frame for a bed, a few drawers and a closet.  There was also room for the tickle trunk, which was pretty much the same size, shape, and style of trunk that every RCMP officer since 1873 has had the honour of owning.  There was an expansive community bathroom and shower area just down the hall. What more could a 24 year old bachelor ask for!  Well, maybe a few walls?  You see, my room was also the bedroom of 31 other guys.  Sixteen beds lined one side and sixteen the other. We were alphabetical.  Nice and orderly.  The RCMP way.  We weren't 32 individuals.  We were Troop 20 - 1989/1990.  All for one, one for all.

In some strange way I actually enjoyed Depot.  I was in great physical shape going there and after 6 years of university I had learned a thing or two about cramming and the nuances of how to study effectively.  I found out I was a natural marksman and all those childhood scrapes with my sister had toughened me for the rigors of ground fighting sessions during our self defence classes.  Some of my troop mates weren't as prepared, so that made for a hellish first few months. The thing about the RCMP is that they instill a sense that your troop is only as good as your weakest member.  It certainly provided an incentive for the guys who needed to get better at pushups, running or swimming to put the extra hours in a night.  It also taught us to help one another and not to only think of yourself.  For those who didn't buy in there was no where to hide. Your harshest critics or your biggest supporters were an arms length away....literally....day and night.

It was interesting that I shared my living space, or pit as it was known, with Roy Nishimura, a Japanese Canadian from Edmonton.  Roy was.....interesting.  The normal 5:30 a.m. wake up for the troop just wasn't early enough for Roy.  At 5 every weekday morning, Roy would begin pruning and preening our pit.  The first few times I thought I was experiencing a nightmare, one where a monster with one bright red eye was preparing to devour me.  It made a menacing, hair raising, swishing and swooshing sounds that surely had to come from a relative of Godzilla.  No, it was just Roy.  With a mini flashlight clenched between his teeth and his steam producing flat iron in hand, Roy was getting a head start on his daily chores.  He was ironing the blanket on his bed. Yup, you read me right. Believe it or not, the actual act of ironing one's bed is not abnormal in the Depot world, but doing it before the lights came on, when sleep is a very precious commodity not to be wasted, is very strange indeed.  I may have razzed Roy somewhat but I didn't stop him.  It turned out to be a great move. Each and every weekday morning, by the time I had gotten up, showered, returned from breakfast (or Bozo Parade), Roy had not only tidied up his part of our pit, but mine too.  I never dusted once trying my entire stay at Depot, although I did iron my bed a few times, but usually just with the flat edge of a metal clothes hanger to get out the major wrinkles.

Here's something funny too.  I never slept in my bed, ever.  We learned from more senior troops that sleeping ON the bed is a better way to go.  Sleeping in the bed meant body hair, messy sheets, and dirty pillows, all things that were easily spotted during the daily inspections of the lurking corporals. The way around this was to buy a comforter and pillow and use them exclusively.  During the day, those non-RCMP issued items were then hidden in our tickle trunks. Nothing is sacred when you are a recruit, nothing that is but the inside of your trunk.  That was off limits to everyone.  It was the part of a recruit that helped protect and maintain his or her individuality.  We all dressed alike, were given identical haircuts, had to conform to rule upon rule, but the trunk remained that bastion of who we truly were, Twenty-five years later I still have my trunk.  I always will.  I no longer have the pillow and comforter though.  They went in the garbage on June 4th, 1990, the day I was presented with my badge and was unleashed on the world as a rookie cop.

I have lots of fond and some not so fond memories of life at Depot and of living with 31 other guys. I'll save those for another day.  In case your curious, Roy Nishimura was posted to Whistler, BC after graduation from Depot.  I guess the Force figured that with so many Japanese visitors to that resort town, it would be a good idea to have a friendly and familiar face wearing the uniform with the yellow strip down the leg.  Perhaps it didn't really matter that Roy couldn't speak a word of Japanese, nor did he know how to ski. The RCMP must have known what I had known, that Roy did a pretty good impression of a beloved Japanese folk hero - Godzilla.  What the RCMP failed to realize is that Roy's Godzilla wan't visitor friendly at all, as it only came out just before dawn.  They also should have known that Roy's dusting skills may have been better served somewhere on the dry and windy prairies.  All they had to do was ask me.  I could have been found at Bozo Parade.