A Holiday Note From Burnside On Hockey To You

Happy Holidays to all those who have stopped by Burnside On Hockey.

It’s been an eventful time on a lot of fronts but I wanted to share some thoughts as people, hopefully, take a small break over the holidays.

I come by my affection for the game of hockey in the way that many fans come by it, having learned it from my parents.

My parents grew up in rural Eastern Ontario and my father spent many winter hours playing on ponds and in local arenas. His father, my grandfather, was a goaltender.

They did not have money for real pucks and sometimes used horse apples as pucks for their regular pick-up games on the pond near Hazzards Corners across the road from the white clapboard church that is still home to the occasional service. You can look it up, but suffice it to say it’s not a practice that can be employed during a warm spell.

My grandfather often strapped catalogues to his shins as makeshift pads during these games that would see people come from around the neighborhood.

In our home, my father, brother and I played for hours with a tennis ball in the garage or on the driveway. We played until there was no netting left in the goal, just a metal frame. When I went to university to study journalism in Ottawa, the walls of the garage at our home outside Essex, Ontario were festooned with the circular marks left by hundreds of shots.

When my son became interested in the game as a boy we, too, played in the driveway even though we lived in the south and often played on sunny December days. I would provide the play-by-play of our imaginary games. Somehow, I always seemed to lose by a goal, almost always in overtime.

One Christmas, the driveway was chock full of players including both grandfathers, my wife and I and of course our son who was in his glory having so many people to divide into teams. I’m pretty sure my side lost by a goal, in overtime.

Once, during a rare snowstorm in Georgia, we made snowmen in the backyard and dressed them in my old hockey jerseys. One snowman sported a referee’s jersey to keep order.

Even now the three of us regularly gather to watch NHL games when my son is home from college or we’re visiting him at school. We laugh at how often one of us will make a comment on a play or player-- and moments later the broadcast crew will make a similar comment.

We joke that we could do our own television show with mock commentary like the fabulous Mystery Science Theater 3000 program that featured snarky commentary on old B movies.

In those moments, watching games together, I wish I could capture that sliver of time: the three of us together in the game.

That’s not how it works, of course.

So, in lieu of stopping time, I try not to take these moments for granted.

And maybe that’s the beauty of the gift of the game, that it is a gift that keeps on giving no matter where you come from, no matter how or when you came to love the game.

Hockey is not perfect, of course. It can leave us disappointed or mad or frustrated. Sometimes all of the above. It has certainly been so in recent months.

But with hockey there is a kind of constancy about the game, too, something that connects us in sometimes magical ways from the little tykes at the local arena to the best in the world at the Olympics or in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

At its best, hockey connects families and friends and acquaintances and, yes, even perfect strangers.

It has that kind of power.

Some of my closest friends in the world are friends I met during college playing on a makeshift men’s team in Ottawa. And yes, we still joke about who won ‘player of the game’ honors in long-ago tournaments or who was offside most often. (Okay, that would be me.)

I am hopeful my son will have the same kinds of memories and tell the same kinds of stories when he is my age.

At this time of year I try to take good care of those memories and to remember to embrace the things that enrich our lives and make us happy and joyful.

I hope that you all find such moments over this holiday period and are able to savor and enjoy them with those closest to you, too.

Scott Burnside

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