And So It Begins...
I was writing down the schedule in my little pocket planner book the other day and here it comes, hockey season. Those of you who are not hockey compatriots (why are you reading this?) I'll see you in the spring.
Confession time. This summer, as some of you know, I had the most amazing vacation, a 7-day Alaskan cruise. To say it was life-changing is a bit dramatic and yet kinda accurate. For those 7 days I didn't have (easy or free) access to internet. No Facebook, no Twitter, no blogging, no email, no nothing. For the first 12 hours or so I had some anxiety--what was I missing? What was going on that I didn't know about immediately?? That feeling went away. And it was fabulous. I loved not being connected, not being accessible. I vowed to step away from the World Wide Web when I returned home. Not entirely, of course, that'd be ridiculous. But it turns out I don't NEED to know what everyone is doing at every moment, nor do they need to know what I'm doing at every moment. I also found I didn't particularly care about what everyone was doing at every moment. That's not to say I don't care about the people I'm friends with on FB or follow on Twitter, but it just seemed so...unimportant. So unimportant. I did a huge friend purge on the Spacebook, did a purge on the Twitter. I'm not off the grid, just more selective. Are FB and Twitter still fairly narcissistic time-sucks? Oh yeah, but at least now it's not a complete waste of my time.
Other confession--the cruise made me think about priorities. And I had to toss around if hockey was truly a top priority in my life. Turns out, it's not. I love it, I love the sport, I love the games, the intensity. It's a great organization and a great group of guys. But when looking at priorities money is always an issue. I am so very grateful to have a job I love. But I have taken a pay cut so times are a bit tight. When that happens the first thing that should be cut is entertainment. It's not a necessity for life like food, shelter, and so on. But I couldn't bring myself to do it, even though I know I should. It's a nice escape for me and most of my bestest friends are my hockey friends. That's really the part I didn't want to cut out of my life.
So why am I confessing these things here? Hockey is still a priority, just a much lower one. Social media is still a priority, just a much lower one. What does that mean for this blog? I don't know yet. I can't seem to figure out what I want out of this space. There are times it has felt like maintaining it and posting is a 2nd job, one I'm not compensated for, which becomes a chore. At the same time I feel obligated to my readers (I LOVE YOU ALL) to keep posting. But there are days the creativity, if there ever was any, is gone. For that I apologize. Most days (but not all) I enjoy writing here, especially when I have something to write about, not just cut and paste quotes and links. Some days I want nothing--absolutely nothing--to do with I Mean, We Got Guys... I'm not sure where the blog is headed this season, we'll see where the game takes us I suppose.
Final note then I'll get to hockey stuff, the last part of all this concerns the liveblogs. There's times when I love the ability to have a place to come together with other hockey people and talk hockey and talk about the game going on. There's times I despise the liveblogs. So much rage builds up. When the boys are losing which duhhhh happens sometimes there was so much negativity. I hate negativity. Bums me out, man. But who can predict ahead of time if they're going to win or lose? I have debated with myself as to whether I want to continue hosting the liveblogs. Part of the reason for owning a blog rather than a message board is to make it mine. MY little corner of the internet. Is that arrogant? Sure. Sharing that corner during the liveblogs is essentially having to share, which I'm not good at, and having to give up control, which I'm also not very good at. As of now, liveblogs are still on, we'll see how it goes. But you've been warned, they may go away.
Ok, let's talk actual hockey! Tonight is the first night of the Red Lion tournament and the Americans will be taking on the Kootenay Ice. The Ice are the defending WHL champs so it should be a good match. It's pre-season obviously so teams will be using this time for player evaluations. Hiller will be mixing-and-matching since some players will be gone:
Hiller will have to piece together lines this weekend as six players take off for NHL camps, including defensemen Sam Grist (Flyers), Matt MacKenzie (Sabres) and Zach Yuen (Jets), and forwards Patrick Holland (Flames), Adam Hughesman (Islanders) and Brendan Shinnimin (Rangers).I'm pretty excited to see the newbies. I've heard great things about Williams and Malte. And of course I have to make important decisions--who will be my hockey bf this year? Who will be worthy of a sign now that Drew's gone? Yes, these are the things that keep me up at night.
"We have a number of guys going to camp, but that gives us a chance to look at some of the other guys," said Hiller, who has 31 guys in camp. "You are always excited and optimistic about the young guys. We expect them to make an impact their first year."
Standing out among the crowd have been rookie forward Brian Williams and European players Malte Strmwall (Sweden) and Michal Plutnar (Czech Republic).
"Brian is competitive," Hiller said. "He was playing against guys who were bigger than him, but he was going to the net and playing hard.
"We feel fortunate to have the quality of players like Malte and Michal. We expect them to get nothing but better. They each scored last weekend, and that's always nice when you come overseas to get that first one. Malte has a lot of passion and he has a good personality. He wants to be a good hockey player."
While Hiller has been concentrating on getting the right line combinations and defensive pairings, goalies Eric Comrie and Ty Rimmer have quietly gone about their business. They split time on goal during both games last weekend.
"We take it day by day," Hiller said. "We have a lot of belief in both of them. We know they are both good goaltenders." (Herald)
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