Hockey withdrawal - it was H-E-double hockey sticks

Now I know that I'm not Canadian (although people from Pittsburgh swear that I sound Canadian), but I love ice hockey.  It developed on later in life.  Okay, I should rephrase.  I'm not that old.  Why, I'm only 24.  So I should say it developed later in my young adult/teenager life.  Now some background, I'm from Erie, Pennsylvania.  Erie happens to have their own hockey team - The Erie Otters (you otter be there).  The Erie Otters are a part of the OHL (or the Ontario Hockey League - basically high schoolers play each other in a professional league.  (other fun random side note, when I was growing up, I had NO idea that the league was Canadian.  I knew the other teams were from Canada and I always thought that it was very nice of the Otters to play the Canadian national anthem.  And then in college I realized that they would always play the Canadian national anthem because it was the ONTARIO Hockey League.  Mind blown!  And discovering that when the London Knights would play the Erie Otters, they were not actually from England.  MIND BLOWN AGAIN!!))

So this one time in college, my friends and I (all back from our universities for the holiday/semester break) decide to attend one of Erie's attractions - An Otter game.  And this was the first game many of us had attended since elementary school when they would have game nights.  You could buy discount tickets and sit with your school.  While Grandview Elementary School never did manage to get a yellow and green out, it was still fun to sit and watch the hockey game, and more importantly to see what your other 2nd grade classmates' families looked like.  So anyway, my friends went to a game and  MIND BLOWN THRICE!!!

I knew what I was missing in my life.  It was like a missing piece just fell into place.  How could I have not noticed this beautiful sport before?!  IT WAS AMAZING!!  The action, the pace, the way the game was played, the amount of physical endurance needed, the skill - it was all there and it was incredible.  And at that point, I became slightly obsessed.  And then I went back to college, with a new love for ice hockey and a new love for the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Okay, so fast forward to Utrik and island life.  There was no ice hockey on Utrik.  Geez, there was no ice.  (Okay, some houses had ice boxes where you could fish, coconuts, chicken, beef/steak, and ice cream!)  And it was hard to explain what ice hockey was because both ice and hockey didn't really exist on island.  So I asked my parents to send me any information in any media form that had to deal with hockey and the Pittsburgh Penguins.

And they did.... sort of.  I guess I should have been more specific.  I should have said to send recordings of games (any teams would have been fine at that point) and information about the Pittsburgh Penguins as a whole team.  The things I got in the boxes where articles about Sidney Crosby's brain (he just had a concussion the year before and his brain rattle incident was still top news) and how he was adjusting or not adjusting to stuff, Slap Shot 3, and the Pittsburgh Penguins Stanley Cup 2009 DVD movie thing.

http://covers.box3.net/newsimg/dvdmov/max1227378841-potlaccd-cover.jpg

What a great ZEN movie!!!

So I guess you could say that my hockey withdrawal process was getting better.  I had some hockey exposure to get over the fact that before, I had nothing.  The one thing that I absolutely hated was the Stanley Cup DVD of the Penguins winning.  THERE WERE NO GAMES ON IT!!  It was just a bunch of interviews about their season and how the playoffs were - "Game 5 was the game that like never happened.  No one was feeling jittery and there was a feeling of calmness.  And then we hit the ice and I don't know what happened.  It was like the game that never happened.  And afterwards, Mario came to our locker room and said just told us to shake it off."  (Now, I have to admit, its pretty sad when I can almost quote this.  It just shows how much I liked yet hated it).  Now I hasn't a fan of the interviews, and to be honest, Sidney's voice slightly gets on my nerves - eh.  But it was something that dealt with the Pittsburgh Penguins, so I was okay with it.  I did however love the microphone set up with Billy Guerin.  That was cool.

And the articles my parents sent me, they always dealt with Sidney Crosby's brain and how it rattled.  Okay, I know that a concussion is a very serious injury and not taking the correct steps in healing and recovery can result in some very serious problems.  I get that, and I award him for waiting for his comeback and waiting for his brain to get better.  But my issue was about the team.  The team still played, even if Sid did not.  The team was winning or losing game, but I never heard any of it.  Thats because I kept getting articles about the concussed captain.  I'm sorry, but there are many other extremely talented and athletic players on that team, so why is the focus just on one guy?  If I was on that team, that was get under my skin so much.  And that is what irks me as a fan.  

But at the same time, I was reading about hockey.  So it was all good.  I feel that I went through a 12 step recovery program to get over my addiction and came out a stronger, interested but not super crazy fan of hockey and the Pittsburgh Penguins.  And I guess it was a good thing that this happened because now the players and owners where at a stand off, so there was no hockey.  I guess the world (okay, probably just Canada) had the wonderful opportunity to experience what I experienced - hockey withdrawal.  And just to let you know, there is no pill to fix it.