I stopped playing hockey until I moved to LA

I'm pretty surprised as I type these next 2 very unexpected sentences.  I'm at a bar watching a hockey game.  I'm watching a hockey game because I'm not at one getting ready to play in my men's league championship game.  Not odd things if you've known me over the course of my life but supremely odd if you live in my brain over the past 5 years.  Hockey.  It's what people I know talk about, especially people that know and assume things about me, and I like to be able to talk to people so I watch.  I suppose growing up as a hockey playing Minnesotan you just kind of expect hockey to be a part of your life... always.  On the flip side people expect you to care about hockey and I suppose I kind of do.  I have a tendency to ask myself often, though, why do we care about anything?  Religion, sports, politics, etc.  Most often we care because we are told to and are surrounded by a cloud of ignorance.  I'm not here to hate on ignorance I'm just saying.

My earliest memories are of hockey.  Video and pictures show me playing hockey from the age of 3 until I graduated college when I was 24...

The only thing I cared about at this moment in my life was the game and how cool each one of the Varsity players was.  New Ulm, MN, Winter 1989

... Twenty-one years of year 'round training.  That shit cray.  By the time I was done playing at St. Olaf I was DONE.  I'm not sure when it happened to me but I think it was in Juniors (two years I spent ONLY playing hockey between high school and college for those of you not in the know) when I stopped caring.  There was something about living my life on a bus playing a game and not really living by any rules that didn't sit well with me.  It turned out I liked school more than I thought.  At the time it seemed like a necessary evil in order to move on to college hockey and everyone else at my talent level was doing it, so I did it.  I tried hard and loved the competition but the continued indoctrination of hockey culture drove me absolutely insane.

When I received a call from a coach recruiting me to St. Olaf College I officially started my detachment from hockey.  The reason why/how a recruiting call could detach me from the sport I was being recruited for and simultaneously attract me to that same school was because of how little they talked about hockey and how much they hyped up the nerdery of the school.  I'm not sure if they got the memo on me or if they were just aware that they were a .500 team with a shitty rink and facilities, but I was finally happy that a college that wasn't feeding kids to the pros was honest with themselves and the kids they recruit about the actual reason they exist, academics.  I was ready for the full experience.  I was about to enter the real world and it would be best if I picked a school that prepared me for it, not just extended the illusion of a professional hockey career.

Following my last game as a collegiate hockey player (2008) I would skate only once a year if at all.  One year it was the pond hockey championships on Lake Nokomis another it was on the outdoor rink near my grandparents house in Duluth.  Some summers I would even fill in for a random team's league if they were desperate for a player.  I found my peace on the ice on my time... but I surely did not belong to any men's leagues.  I had taken the time to find other loves and hobbies like cycling and cross-country skiing and with this new awareness of "other" there was no looking back.

When I moved to Los Angeles in 2013 the last thing on my mind was packing my hockey equipment into my car.  I already had my bikes on top and besides clothes I thought nothing else mattered.

#nadaworry and surely not one about hockey.

It was a big space saver and obvious leave behind as I packed my Subaru for the trip out west.  The entire reason I moved out here was because back home I had a path laid in front of me that I wanted to veer off from.  I was offered jobs in Minneapolis and Wisconsin, but they were what I knew.  They were jobs I was told I would do well in, in places I would do well in.  But I didn't know about other places and other things.  I had begun in my adult life to venture off course with purpose and LA was one more opportunity.  Hockey in my mind was something that needed to be left in MN, there were way too many new experiences to be had in this sunny new land.

Even with all this anti-establishment nonsense I built into my thought patterns, when I got out here I couldn't help but listen to my grandpa when he would continually ask me about hockey every time we would talk.  He would tell me that I need to find a rink and go meet some people... you know... good people... hockey people (even though I had already found a solid community of co-workers and friends of my girlfriend at the time).  I pushed back but eventually had my parents ship my gear out.  Next thing I know I'm sitting at a rink in Culver City asking random dudes if they'll let me play on their team.  I made the cut at the Culver City league.  In the locker room after a few games one of the guys said they had another team in a little bit more competitive league and were wondering if I would join that too.  2 games in one week?  Seemed a bit excessive but I said I'd be happy to try it out and then decide later on which one I would stick with...

This other league was a bit of a drive from Hollywood (15 miles and 45 minutes if there was traffic) but it was at the Toyota Sports Center which is the practice rink of the LA Kings.  It's located right by LAX and very close to Manhattan Beach which was super convenient for 9 months of my 2015.  It's one of the nicer rinks I've skated in and has a bar/restaurant between the NHL and Olympic rinks which makes post-game pop's and socializing quite convenient.

Toyota Sports Center.  Every Wednesday.  Puck drop 10:15 p.m.  

...On the night of the first game I showed up early to meet the guys.  As I was getting ready to exit the locker room and hit the ice a familiar face walked in and caught me WAY off guard.  The straggler that the guys were sure was going to show up but were sure he might be late was none other than my teammate and carpool mate for 2 years while playing Juniors in Billings, MT, Matt Charbonneau.

The Carpool, L to R: Matt, Brian Kaufman, and Me.  Billings, MT 2002.

Matt and I hadn't seen each other since May 11, 2004.  I know the date well because he, 2 other buddies, and I decided on that night (my 20th birthday) to drive from his house to a casino after having a few brews.  Our sober cab got us down there but before we could even hit the tables he and I were busted with minor consumption tickets (certain parties not to be named "forgot" their ID in the car and managed to escape the night with their record unscathed).  The next morning we had some breakfast, chatted about how we each were going to have to deal with this "minor" setback and then I went on my way.  That was it, somehow we had managed to completely lose track of each other's lives, then 10 years later we walk into the same hockey locker room in LA.  Turns out that early in the summer he was at his neighborhood bar in Hermosa Beach when some drunk goalie noticed he had a hockey hat on and was wondering if Matt was any good because his team needed a few extra skaters.  So that's how it happened, neither one of us knew anyone on the team.  Pretty wild.

At this moment probably thinking (falsely) that "I've still got it"

After 5 full seasons of men's league hockey in LA I've come almost full circle (okay maybe just partial circle).  I pay attention to how the MN Wild are doing and I even conceded a trip home this year to watch the NCHC championships at the Target Center to cheer on the University of North Dakota for the Klava household.  That's about as far as I've fallen back into the world of hockey but it's enough to keep me afloat in the conversation of the clan.

Hockey as a weekly activity in LA has turned out to be a surprise blessing.  I have a fairly big but very established group of people to call on outside of work when I feel I need to, it helps me blow off some steam in a way that men need to from time to time, and has reconnected me with a good friend.  Now that my original Cali-family (Mol, JJ, and Fran) has split up and moved on I feel comfort and at home in SoCal with my new one.  I don't tend to pay attention to holidays or milestones anymore but it's nice to have the Charbonneau's around for such occasions.  Looking back over the past 2 years at least I think I've spent every holiday with them.  That has been supremely comforting considering I'm not sure who else I would be spending those with, but whoever they are I probably wouldn't feel as comfortable around.  There's something about being around people that grew up in the same community of competition and that knows parts of your past that others don't that adds some level of comfort to your life.  I think this is understandable only if you've ever found yourself without family where you live for a long period of time.  We all need a clan and we come to it in different ways.

Here's the California Holiday clan on Easter... Ivonne, Duke, and Matt... with Trip and Molly not giving an F about the picture.

So, in the end I hold no grudges for the amount of time that I dedicated to hockey growing up.  It taught me a lot of valuable life lessons that I believe I'm able to translate to everyday life.  I think all competitive sports can teach you certain skills and all in all I'm happy with the people I've become connected with as a result of hockey being my main sport.  I just like to be a little "anti-" from time to time, okay!?!  I've learned through my re-connection with a sport, though, that what you think really matters just doesn't.  What I think matters for sure does not.  And in the end, what I think doesn't matter probably will.  The circle of life.