Frozen Dreams, Part III: Hockey Soup For The Soul

"So dear, dear Katie
What have you done lately?
I've heard it's all gone wrong."
James Blunt: "Dear Katie"

"...but you and I...we know the reason why
I'm gone, and you're still there"
Rachael Yamagata: "The Reason Why"

"even when your hope is gone
Move along, move along just to make it through"
All-American Rejects: "Move Along"

The last part of Frozen Dreams dealt with the beginning of my first (and so far only) "proper" relationship with a girl. And this one, following the rules of logic and also the eternal truth that "all good things come to an end" will deal with the end of it. Not directly-it didn't actually end at a hockey game or anything like that (which is perhaps a small mercy-after all, it's bad enough to have your heart casually tossed into a dustbin when you're by yourself, never mind when you think a few hundred or even a few thousand people might be aware that here is someone who is, to use the so-cruel-but-so-apt phrase, being dumped, in public.)

Although, amusingly and perhaps somewhat weirdly, hockey did manage to find its way into my life even at the very moment I was being dumped, given that it happened outside the Coventry Skydome (which had become our meeting-place given that we spent so much time there during the season, when I wasn't in Germany) and the painful "here's anything of yours I've still got" moment had hockey overtones, given that even this moment saw her hand me back, amongst other things, a Marc Lefebvre replica white jersey (which she'd bought for me the previous Christmas). I no longer have that jersey-it ended its days a few months later on a bonfire in the back garden after I, fuelled by a mix of one of the rare times I've ever drunk too much alcohol and miserableness, decided that there was simply no way I could keep it).

That last sentence may have given you some sort of clue as to my general state of mind entering the 06/07 hockey season. I'd just come back from a year in Germany, lost my girlfriend literally days afterwards (wonderful timing on her part-it might have had something to do with the rumours that she'd been less than faithful while I'd been away, but hockey-rinks are the kind of place where everybody knows everybody and so the whispers floating around really didn't help much), and after the bitter infighting and arguments which had taken place amongst the Blaze fans and God only knows what else, I'd come within an ace of taking a year off. Hockey was, to all intents and purposes, ruined for me.

Yup. Autumn 06 was not a good time for your friendly blog-writer, folks.

And so, come the first game of the new season, I had to, for the first time ever, force myself down to the rink. As for the game itself? The team, the league and indeed anything to do with the sport were the furthest thing from my mind.

I went through the first few months on autopilot...which was a shame given that the Blaze had Danny Stewart, Jon Weaver, Sylvain Cloutier and Neal Martin tearing up the ice in front of us, as well as Reid Simonton throwing hits left, right and centre and an exciting battle with Belfast for the top of the league.


However, come March, and me possibly at my lowest point-even to the level where a Challenge Cup demolition of Sheffield and finally coming out on top in the league race against Belfast barely registered a flicker, the playoff quarter-final against Newcastle was the last game of a season that had almost passed me by.

Most Blaze fans remember that rainy March night due to the amazing Blaze comeback after Newcastle had gone 3-0 up inside ten minutes, capped by Ashley Tait scoring an overtime winner that was almost the exact double of his playoff-winning goal in Nottingham. I remember it for a different reason.

I'd turned up more out of duty than anything else-after all, the feeling was worry given that the Vipers had won the night before, so nothing less than a victory would do-and when Longstaff, Weaver, Morgan and Payette put the Vipers firmly in the driving seat so that the end of the first period was a time for bitter recriminations in the crowd.

Then came the fightback. Over the next two periods, the Blaze played with a fervour and passion that even penetrated my frozen consciousness, so, for the first time in ages, I found myself actually caring about a hockey game again, yelling encouragement, heckling and generally getting back to the way I'd been when not wallowing in the depths of a broken heart. Although, even then, every time Newcastle went forward I feared that they's score again and bring me back down to the depths of despair.

But they kept scoring. 4-1 (Martin). 4-2 (Cloutier). 4-3 (Stewart). 4-4 (I can't remember the scorer, worryingly) and suddenly, OT beckoned.

And then, Ashley Tait went through, beat Ladi Kudrna again in the same way as in Nottingham, and the crowd roared with a pure, primal, unhinged bellow that contained a mixture of relief, joy and just a hint of madness. And, for the first time in a long, long while, my voice yelled along with them.

And, a year after a nasty break-up, at the end of a year in which I'd fallen well and truly out of love with hockey and indeed life in general, that split-second was the exact, pinpointed moment when, finally, the healing of the wounds caused by the death of first love, and also the tearing-away between me and hockey in my soul, began. And, to a small degree, it might still be the reason I'm watching today...just in the hope of more moments like that.

Keep keeping your eye on the puck...