Category Archives: Life

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Part of the Writing Journey

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I’m not sure why I don’t put more in here about my writing, especially since it’s such a significant part of my life. I think I’ve wanted to try and balance my interactions with the world in a one-to-one sense (like emails) and a broader sense (like Facebook or blog posts).

I’d be lying if I didn’t say that there’s a rather high level of anxiety associated with the latter. Posting to a broader audience feels like it’s too one-sided. Like you get to know this about me, but I don’t know what’s going on with you. It’s like you’re cheating.

But I can’t say that’s why. If I had to pick something it’s likely Imposter Syndrome. Like I’m not sure when I’m going to feel like a real writer. I had a short story published in an anthology magazine, The Stringybark Stories. So everybody reading this, go buy that and write a nice review for them. David’s an awesome guy and does some really good work with Stringybark, and more folks need to tell him that.

Stringybark Stories

I entered a short story Crazy Witch Woman and while I didn’t get into the Top 3 prize winners, I did get a “Highly Commended” and included in the published book. So that’s pretty cool. Wifeage gave me a kiss and told me she was happy to be the first to call me a “Published Author”.

I rather liked that.

So I laboured over what to do with the book I’d written. It turns out it’s bloody hard to get people to read it and give you feedback. I sent it out to over 10 people and got actual feedback from 2. 20% is not a great rate. But I also worked really hard on my rewrites and after finishing the sequel, I went back and applied the knowledge I’d gained of the characters to the first book. I really felt like they’d come alive in the second novel and I wanted the love that had grown to be applied to them retroactively.

I think it worked. But I’m not sure. I’ve since gotten more feedback but it’s insanely disheartening when NOBODY* talks about how much they like the book and instead talk about it’s problems. And they’re all different problems. Some of them are even kind of genre-specific and I wonder if these people just don’t like reading thrillers.

* Not nobody. Family Matty really quite enjoyed it, and that was the very first draft. Which, to be fair, was not a very good book. But he helped me heaps with what could make it better and I’ll always have much love for him for that.

But my goal was to self-publish it by the end of the year. I’ve written these dystopian, sci-fi, speculative fiction thrillers under a pen name, one that I’ve built all of the online profiles for, and my plan was to finish the two other novels I’m working on (crime thriller and coming-of-age drama) and try and pitch those to publishers/agents and maybe get traditionally published.

Not that the plan was always to get The Council onto Amazon via self-publishing. I queried some agents, you betcha, but they all turned me down with either ignoring me or saying “Yeah, not really my thing.” Which is fair. I don’t know what’s wrong with it, I know it’s not for everybody, but it really seems to put some people off. Which is hard to hear, because *I* sure like it. I liked writing it, I liked reading it later.

So the plan evolved into just taking this one series and putting it on Amazon. Some brilliant advice I got from a great guy I know, one of those author-types, said start with the first book for sale, then tease the sequel, then when the sequel drops make the first book FREE to hook readers and tease the third one. I think it’s a goer, for sure. I’m just wondering if anybody will even purchase the book in the first place.

That will be something I’ll have to work on. Getting people to read it, then leave a review (a good one, preferably) to boost interest, and maybe I’ll get lucky and catch the algorithm in the right mood. Heh.

Anyway, the first book is up on Amazon, but it’s not finished yet so I’ve set it to “draft”. I’m still gathering feedback and some of it is so good that I can’t officially publish it until it’s ready. When your 15-yo daughter blazes through it and takes notes in the margins and draws pictures of the characters, you know ignoring that type of thing is for people with No Soul.

So if you want to read the 7th draft before the 8th (and hopefully FINAL) draft, and have your valuable insights calculated and most-definitely, not-at-all ignored, then drop me an email. Otherwise, just wait patiently, I’ll update here when it’s ready.

A little about what my life looks like.

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I am crippled. Broken. I have various bits of my body that don’t work well anymore. Some of them are my doing, living the life I did. Some of them are an accident of birth, genetics, fate. Neither of those differences ultimately matter though. What matters is pain.

Getting out of bed is pain. Getting into bed is nice, but still pain. Making the morning’s first hot drink, for me or Wifeage, is pain. Needing to sit on the toilet for an extended time is annoying for its base reasons, but it’s also pain. Doing nearly everything always involves a level of pain. And I am sick of it.

Except writing. Writing isn’t really painful. Not usually anyway. A new malady in my left arm has hampered things, but I’m learning to work with it. But if it meant giving up writing for the barest hope that this new pain would lessen, I would not. Fuck that. I’ll fight through the pain, and I’ll let the tears fall later when I am confronted that this, my last vestige of pain-free sanity, is now tainted with the same niggling electrical pulses that fuck with every other aspect of my day.

I’ve done The Right Things. I’ve seen the GPs enough that they’ve sent me to others who purport to want to help me. One of them plans to cut me open, fix or fuse or replace the bits that no longer work, and I remain hopeful this holds an answer to all this pain.

For now though, I have only the pain, and the hope. There are no answers yet. Writing is my only answer, and I plan to cling to it forever.

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Thanks, Corona

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After bravely donning masks, goinking our hands with “anitiser” at every entrance, and exit, for months. Nay, YEARS. We have finally fallen.

I have the younger one trained well, he dutifully puts his hands out when he sees me getting a goink from the hand sanitiser stations at the front of stores, and he always wears his mask unless we’re at the park. Alas, it was the teenager that was our undoing. Cooped up at home and longing for socialisation, contact, we thought we’d hit it for six when we found the Pride and Progress Ball going on in early November.

We got her dolled up, we went out for an evening of young people who were so incredibly FREE to just… be, that I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything quite like it. It was beautiful. But… they had free ice cream. And when the mask came off for that and she fled from Dad’s Protective Space to go out and make her own way like the Independent Teen that she is, the mask stayed off.

The very next day came the Pride Fair in the city. Same deal, really. When walking up, Dad said that since we’re outside, the mask wasn’t a 100% thing, but “when among other people” it goes back on. Instructions that were lost amongst the din of potential friends, freedom, and more ice cream.

A week later and she’s not feeling well, complaining of a sore throat, then lots and lots of headaches, the kind that panadol wasn’t touching. Then aches, and even though it’s insanely-difficult to tell with a fifteen-year-old, lethargy. Then a few days after that and I’m feeling coldy. I even whinge to Wifeage about how I’m coming down with something and she better not. But then she’s asking if my headaches were the same, and she’s a bit achy. Dammit, so she’s got the cold too, I’m thinking, poor dear.

Then she’s got aches in her legs, just above her knees, and she hasn’t gotten that sort of thing since… her 3rd Vaxx. Which got her thinking, and she takes a RAT. Now, I’d done a RAT already, standard practice these days, but I’d forgotten to give one to teen. So when Wifeage sends me a pic in Messenger and says that even though it’s only been 5 minutes, she’s SURE she can see a line.

I give me and teen another RAT.

FUCK.

My line’s still faint, but it IS there. Teen’s is as strong as Wifeage’s, who gives me another one from a different box, just in case.

Nup. We’ve all got the COOVE. Just like that, our fight is over. All our efforts, in vain.

Oh, and it sucks. Like it really sucks. We’re through the headaches and now just into body aches territory. Which, for two people that already battle that shit on a daily fucking basis, is fucking Turd City man. Bugger.

At least we’re not puking, shitting ourselves, or not breathing and dying. We’ve managed to avoid that, thus far. But I’ll keep you updated if we die.

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Maybe it’s just me.

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Maybe it’s just me, but if I were a man (and I am) and I was white (and I am) and I was interested in keeping my life as good and as full and as blessed by my chosen deity as possible, I might think about the best ways to do that.

If I get to do a whole lot of whatever I want, I’ve got to make sure I get to keep doing that, and I think the best way to do that is to make sure other people keep doing what they’re doing, which is letting me.

The world used to be structured in such a way where I, as a white dude, got to do ANYTHING I wanted, even if it meant to somebody else. No restrictions.

But some of the Somebody Else’s decided they didn’t like me doing anything I wanted to them. They started going on about their right to have a say in what I did to them. They started to restrict what I could do, and I didn’t like that. But more and more of the Somebody Else’s got together and decided they all agreed to restrict me.

I started getting to do a whole lot less of what I wanted, so I really needed to come up with a plan to make the Somebody Else’s believe they were getting what they wanted, while I still got what I wanted. It took a lot of planning and some really, really subtle ways to go about things.

It wasn’t easy. But I wasn’t just going to give up all the good things in my blessed life. But I couldn’t just openly fight back either, there are now far too many of the Somebody Else’s for me to outright aggress them. I have to convince them they’re getting what they want. Since I can’t change their minds about what I was doing to them, I have to change their minds about whether or not it was even me doing it.

Then, the idea came to me like a voice from the heavens.

I can take somebody that most of the Somebody Else’s trust but doesn’t ever speak on their own. I’ll take all the things that I want the Somebody Else’s to do for me and I’ll say that our mutually-believed-in deity said for them to do it.

Maybe it’s just me, but this sounds like an excellent plan.

It just gets better and better too. Because not only do I have a peripheral someone advocating for the stuff I want, but I can use all the deity’s associated documentation. Brilliant! The single most popular book in the world will back up what I’m saying, I just have to find ways to creatively quote it so that it says all the things I need it to.

This plan was perfect, and it’s working like a dream.

Until the Somebody Else’s go and get loud again. Which, for the most part, is manageable. It’s actually pretty easy, I just make sure I focus on what’s different about them, and I make sure that corresponds with whatever I want my deity to say through that most-popular of books. Simple.

If their language, culture, region or skin colour are different, I’m all set. The plan is working beautifully still, and I’ve got everyone convinced that it’s not me doing it, it’s just the will of our unseen deity.

The plan took some big hits though. The Somebody Else’s were suddenly everywhere. In my house, in my bathroom, in my kitchen, in my very bed. This was a real problem. It had been managed for time immemorial but this time the problem was unprecedented in scope. Because I had always had leverage, I’d always had the final say over them when it came to one very fundamental difference between us.

They were the ones responsible for growing and producing life.

I tried, but there was no way I could do it on my own. I needed them for this. And since there were so many of them, easily as many as there are of me, this was a real problem.

Maybe it’s just me, but if I was going to keep getting all the good things I really needed to call upon the words from the most-popular book. I really needed to make them sound like they were straight from the deity. I really needed to keep the Somebody Else’s from thinking too much about this on their own, so I distracted them with other parts of the most-popular book.

I hit them right in their virtues. I made the most-popular book all about being good. Not just regular good, there’s not enough inspiration and pressure and distraction behind that. No, I made it about being better than regular good. A level of good that was nearly unattainable. Something we all were striving for. I even convinced everyone that I was equal to them in this regard. I never believed it, but they did, and that’s all that matters.

And this plan was working. For the most part.

But then the Somebody Else’s really threw a spanner in the works of my plan. They didn’t believe me any more.

Not enough anyway. They tried to tell me that the words I was using from the most-popular book weren’t really about me getting to be the only one to have all the good things. They started reading the most-popular book in ways I had never foreseen, using my words in their surrounding context in the most-popular book instead of in their gloriously sound-bitey ways I’d worked out.

They even pointed out that my behaviour in my daily life didn’t match up with the unattainable good we were all supposedly striving for. All I was doing was just enjoying all the good things in the solitary manner I was accustomed, and the Somebody Else’s started using my words and interpretations against me.

Then the worst thing happened. A whole bunch of the Somebody Else’s stopped believing in the deity with me. Well, they stopped believing enough, anyway. They started believing in their own ways, not in mine.

This was a disaster. Something needed to be done.

I’ve spent centuries making sure that the Somebody Else’s knew they weren’t as good as me, that they didn’t just get the good things that I got. That it was more than the issue of if there was enough for everyone. That I needed to be the only one having all the good things, that was the deal. That’s always been the deal, actually.

I told them in every way I could that still convinced them that it was them, not me. I subtly made laws, changed financial structures, changed entire societal structures. I still did whatever I wanted to the Somebody Else’s, I just had to hide it more. And it was working.

I thought of the most effective ways to get my message across and I was so good at it that after a while it was doing it all by itself. It became bigger than just me. It became a system. A big, beautiful self-sustaining system designed to make sure I get most of all the good things.

Still not perfect, but it was working. They were convinced and all my words and the most-popular book enforced it. But then it started to weaken. The fatal flaw in my plan of convincing the Somebody Else’s that they didn’t get all the good things because they weren’t being good enough was that they started to compare themselves to me.

This was one of the worst possible outcomes.

And I faltered. I was finally forced to irrevocably share some of the good things. Convincing all the Somebody Else’s to give only me the good things wasn’t working like it used to. I’ve been very good at convincing them they were getting some of the good things like I was, but then they all started sharing information every which way, and they stopped being as convinced. I had it all, and I was being forced to share.

The Somebody Else’s had exploited a loophole in my previously-perfect plan. They tried holding me to account.

This was not acceptable.

It was time for me and the other white dudes to really take control. To make a real display of power so that even if the Somebody Else’s got loud and fought back against it, I could just flex my muscle. I could remind them in a heartbeat that no matter how many of them there are, even if all the combined Somebody Else’s outnumbered all the me, I was still the one in control.

The Somebody Else’s needed to know that I still had all the power. I’ve always had it.

Sure, the plan wasn’t working anywhere near as well as it has for so long, but it was still working well-enough.

Plus, the plan was built around us having all the good things because we had all the power and vice versa. This self-sustaining system was built to always support that one very fundamental and important aspect: That I keep all the good things and all the power and it’s still up to me whether or not the Somebody Else’s get any of it at all. One part might fall off a bit, but the other part will prop it all back up.

And don’t let any of the Somebody Else’s fool you. I’ve still got all the power. I still get all the good things. That’s not changing.

Just watch and see what happens when there’s even a hint of threat. I’ll always have the plan. Because I’ll always want to be the only one getting all the good things and doing whatever I want, even if it’s to Somebody Else with no restriction. That’s not changing either.

**

So yeah. If I were like that, that’s how I’d go about doing things.

But maybe that’s just me.

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It’s okay for them to die because they’re old.

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It’s one thing to throw the doors open and invite Rona into our previously COVID-free state, but it’s another entirely to simply drop nearly every Safety Precaution (AKA “restrictions”) and just let the shit run free.

And it IS.

17,033 new cases today. Another new record. Pretty sure we’re breaking the previous record every day now.

1 in 40 West Australians are in isolation because of COVID.

Since the start of 2022, there have been 161 deaths.

But nobody cares.

Nobody cares because nearly all of the people who have died are old. The average age is something like 75.

These people are dead, and no one cares.

A teenager dying made the headlines, as did a man in his 30’s. But they were small headlines, and always accompanied with the phrase “pre-existing conditions”.

Well holy fuck. If you pare it right down, there’s a heap of us that have pre-existing conditions.

Take me, for example, as I was pre-diabetic at one point. I am 47 years old. I am overweight. I am male.

Each of these PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS ups my chances of serious illness or DEATH as a result of catching COVID-19.

I’ll say it again, just in case there’s any confusion: I have an increased chance of DYING from catching COVID.

So naturally, I don’t want to catch it. I don’t want anyone I love to catch it. I don’t really want anyone to catch it other than Clive Palmer, and probably that fuckhead Paul Papalia.

But nobody else feels that way. Because nobody cares.

Where they would wear their masks underneath their noses, if at all, before, they now walk around free and unencumbered with forced accommodation for those of us that DON’T WANT TO DIE.

I honestly don’t even know why I’m writing this other than to document the fuckery.

This is completely fucked.

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Western Australians all getting COVID because of Federal Election.

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Bear with me. Slap on the tinfoil hat if you must. But I believe that our Labor Premier, Mark McGowan, was strong-armed from multiple directions into not only opening WA’s borders, but in dropping nearly every COVID Safety Precaution (or “Restrictions” if you’re one of those).

We were COVID free, you see. Our borders were closed. You couldn’t even book a ticket unless you were double-vaxxed and you couldn’t leave isolation until you tested clean after 14 days. We were getting it done.

Then Delta hits Australia and everybody over east is getting COVID. Tens of thousands test positive, thousands are very sick, hundreds die. We’re still safe in WA because we don’t let anybody in.

Well, technically that’s not true. We let plenty of people in, you just had to have done the right checks and applied appropriately.

Naturally, the media pushed the message that WA doesn’t let anybody in.

Mark McGollum and his Hermit Kingdom was pushed rather hard. The yobs here pissed and moaned about it, everybody over east pissed and moaned about it. Nobody pointed out that just about anybody could get in, they just needed to test clean, be vaxxed and quarantine.

They just didn’t fucking want to. They just wanted to fly in and get off the plane.

So then Omicron sneaks through with some French backpacker. Do we lock down? Do we get crazy and seal up? Nope. We carry on with all of our relaxed ways, but Mighty Mac is pressured, left, right and centre, to open the borders. The loudmouths and their protests here, the jealous shitstains over there, it’s coming from all sides.

So we do. We make a plan to get everybody vaxxed, then set a date. And Omicron blows up. So we move the date.

And you’d have thought he’d shot the fucking Queen.

Now it’s coming from everywhere, WA media especially, even Auntie ABC is shitting on McGowan whenever they can, calling his decision to postpone the date a “backflip”. Fuck me, it got stupid.

Then Mighty Mac throws the gates open and we buckle down. He’s weathered all the shit thrown at him for all the vaccine mandates (and some of those, yes, were a bit poorly-handled) and reckons we’re ready to get hit right in the face with the Viddy.

But that wasn’t enough. Because now the pressure, in my opinion, was internal. The Federal Labor Party.

See, a Federal Election was sure to be called soon. And Labor needs to win this one. We can’t have a MAJOR Labor Leader be seen as some asshole in the west that doesn’t let even his own Party in!

“Oh, and when we get there, we can’t have a bunch of press conferences and photo ops with us in fucking masks.

NO MORE MASKS, PLEASE.”

And the next thing you know, WA is hitting a COVID peak like nothing we’d ever seen.

**

So just in case I get Assange-inated. I’m writing this shit down.

I hope the families of the 131 people in WA that have died in 2022 of COVID personally write to the new PM (please be Albo, please) and remind him that when he wins the fuck out of WA, he’s done it with blood.

Maybe this’ll be different.

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I had sent word to my dad to let him know when I’d be coming home for a visit after one of my earlier years of college, and I hadn’t heard back from him for several days. While never one for prompt correspondence, it was slightly unusual. But unlike other times when he’d explain his absence with a two-part summation involving an activity and location like “ice climbing” and “Mount Rainier” or “kayaking” and “Bighorn River” this time he simply said that he was sorry he hadn’t gotten back to me because he’d been “out of town for Sibyl’s funeral.”

That was how he told me my grandmother, his mother, was dead.

The years showed that this was neither out of the norm of the level I was involved nor the worst way he could deliver news, so it’s actually a perfect example.

Now I’m actually reeling, completely unprepared emotionally for what I’m feeling, in reading actual messages from the former family. I’m so out of the loop I had to ask my son who this person was with the cool name only to find out it’s my wife’s youngest brother, my boy’s own uncle. It sounds for all the world, for the first time, that someone out there that shares her blood is willing to set aside any and all of the ridiculous bullshit that’s kept them apart, for the sake of coming together.

And I don’t know how to feel about that.

That’s not actually true. I know how I feel about that. I’m elated. Overjoyed. Buoyed. Hopeful.

But those are all incredibly dangerous emotions when you’re already weakened, beaten down. Vulnerable.

Her grandmother passed on Sunday. How we found out is too pitarded and inane to let only these words at, so I’m foregoing that part. We found out and it wasn’t directed towards us, ’nuff said.

Now Uncle CoolName tells my son that my wife’s auntie, long-estranged for reasons no doubt as stupid as ours, died the Thursday before. Cancer.

And I had one of those instant thoughts, the kind that make you anxious that they’re inappropriate or weird or wrong. My first thought was, “Did Nan know? Somehow, through her dementia, did it make it in that her youngest daughter was dead? Did that cause a ripple effect that eventually moved her on as well?”

Suffice to say that anytime in your late 90’s is a perfect acceptable, needs no explanation, time to pass on. But still. The thought was there.

And in this, the time afterward, where we’re floating and stuck and forgotten and neither she nor I nor our children have ANY FUCKING IDEA what it was that we did that was so awful, so despicable, so unforgivable, that we were simply excised from the entire family. In this time, I wonder to myself, what comes next?

Where do we go from here?

The truth is probably that people that have been shitty are still going to be shitty, and people that were neutral or ineffectual or fence-sitting are probably going to still be like that too. No one has really changed, nor will they. They were what they were and they are what they are, and maybe it’s our foolish egos that keep wondering what it is about US that makes these people be this way.

I mean, there’s nothing in any way to suggest in my life that I wouldn’t want to know about my Grammy passing on, yet my father simply didn’t think of that. Maybe it’s something similar with people that have never considered even the smallest of things, like the fact that everyone in the entire family knew who Nan’s miniatures were meant to go to rightfully.

Maybe all these things just never occur to them. And here we are wondering what it is about us that’s gotten us here. Maybe the truth is: Nothing. This is just who they are. This is just who we are.

Maybe if we’re all better at accepting that, moving forward into this, the time after The Great Nonsense, we’ll do better at doing it together.

Fear.

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The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.
– Elbert Hubbard

This.

This is me.

When I was younger, a boy growing up in rural Montana, I had little to no real joy.  I simply existed, in fear, from one day to the next.  I had little to look forward to and little to enjoy, particularly with anyone else.

I still live in fear.  Fear of not just making a mistake (or many) but also fear of the unknown and unforeseen Bad Luck.  It’s hit before and there’s no reason to think it won’t hit again.  Despite my inner belief that fear and anxiety draw negativities towards them with the same prevalence that joy and positivity attract good things, I sometimes can’t shake the worry, the fear.

I’ve never played to win, really, only playing Not To Lose.  It’s a shitty way to do this Life thing.

The first time I ever actually played to win, throwing myself completely into something, was hockey.  Hell, for a long time that was the only thing.

Then I met her.  And I didn’t just throw myself, I cascaded headlong into the abyss.  I rocketed towards her with everything I had and I’ve never looked back.

No.  Not once.  Not ever.

And it’s been hard.  And it’s been miserable at times.  It’s been a constant barrage of shit at times.

And I’ve never looked back.

Sure, there’s been fear.  But it’s the same silly fear that is simply nameless, faceless anxiety that sits in the back of your brain and says ridiculous things.  Like the ghost of Elvis in the bathroom mirror, taunting you while you rinse your face, it’s back there.

But it’s not present, front and centre, and she is.

And THEY are.  Four of ’em.

The fear is there with them especially, but the joy is louder.  The joy is there and even though there are times that I have to dig it out with a pickaxe, I can find it.

I frequently tell them that I know I’ve made mistakes and I’ll make many more.  So will they.  Living in fear of them is, in and of itself, a mistake.  Let’s just live.  Find some joy.

Without fear.

It’s not just an ice rink, it’s our home.

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From the AIHL’s Sydney Bears to The Hills Shire Council,

Hockey to us is a lifestyle. It’s waking up every morning after dreaming you’ve scored a big goal in an even bigger game. It’s about giving it your all on the ice even when your mind tells you to quit but your heart and pride tells you to carry on. It’s about the blood, the sweat and the tears you sacrifice day in and day out for your team. It’s about losing your mind when you win and the pain you feel when you lose. It’s about the friendships you forge with your teammates. It’s not just a game, but also a tradition. We love hockey. It has given us joy, it has given us pain but most importantly, it has given us a home. This is what you want to knock down for a profit. Not just an ice rink, but our home.

********

This is my excerpt, from the petition I signed on Change.org this morning:

Because Australia is more than roos and barbies and crocs.  It’s rapidly gaining international recognition as a place to send budding hockey stars to get some more experience.  With the increasing exposure through livestream’s the sport is growing now more than ever before.  Facebook has shrunken the world and the AIHL is only going to get bigger.

Plus, let’s not forget the people that frequent this rink.  The families that enjoy an afternoon skate every now and again, the kids learning to bonk around in pads for the first time and little Jessica, who is 7, and wants very much to be both a ballerina on ice and a goal-scoring right wing.  With this rink near her house, she’ll never know that she lives in Australia and there’s no natural ice here and that ice hockey isn’t a native sport.  She’ll have every opportunity that little Emily has in Moosejaw, Saskatchewan, but with our Aussie life.

Finally, let’s not forget that industrious corporate ambition rarely does ANYTHING GOOD for this planet and the people that live on it.  The vast majority of this kind of action is designed to do one thing: Make Someone Richer.  That’s right, “richer” because they’re never Not Rich to start with and they NEVER undertake these projects thinking, “Ya know, I’d like to build some affordable housing around here to give something back to the community…”  They do it for greed, pure and simple.

So this is me, one man, one voice, asking you not to forget these things.  I sincerely hope you don’t.

********

So go there and sign this thing.  It’s a good thing to do.

Nobody ever had to beg me to play hockey

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“You know,” my roommate said to me over the wind and traffic noise in his CJ7 Jeep as we blasted down the highway, “Nobody ever had to beg me to play hockey.”

We were roommates and teammates on Colorado’s 2nd-ever team in the Major League Roller Hockey comp. The 1st-ever team was the region’s Golden Boys, the top players and shiniest roller hockey heroes in Denver’s surrounds. The Rocky Mountain Wolverines boasted years and years of collegiate and junior ice hockey talent and the leftovers, politically and otherwise, tried out for the “other” team in a bit of a coup (or a fu-coup, as it were).

Our coach/owner was as ragtag as we were and we all loved the idea that nobody expected us to even form a team, let alone win anything. Coach was as full of big talk and big promises as he was empty when the bar tab came around. We exchanged looks at times, but we all believed because we wanted to play so badly.

We started out as the Mile High Moose and we played a couple of interesting games against the Wolverines to kick off MLRH’s sophomore season, even besting them in the second game (while their best player was at a tournament in Vegas). Coach played with the team finances and had plans for our compensation comensurate on selling merchandise and tickets. We were sure we could do it, even if the money was tight. Coach hired out buses to haul us to our “home rink” an hour north of Denver in Greeley for our games and sometimes even practices.

The questions on his suitability in regards to finances began immediately and this didn’t help. A string of canceled home games against neighbouring state’s teams brought even more questions. The Fort Worth and Salt Lake City teams were both hesitant to make any trip to play the newcomers, even the highly-touted Wolverines.

Cinderella Falls Flat

Only a few weeks into the season and the bottom dropped out. Practice was canceled when the rink owner came and told us all to either pay up or get out. Coach was nowhere to be found, nor was he answering his phone, and every entity the team had contact with came forth with bills showing all that we owed. We were a team that hadn’t paid a dime to anyone but had made promises to everyone. We were dropped like hot rocks and had all gone home to cry in our beers while the impressive Wolverines kept playing and kept winning and kept impressing.

We as a team, had all ponied up our hard-earned dough to become a part of something with the promise that we’d get our gear comped, our rink time covered, our travel covered, and a nice check at the end of the season. We’d lost it all.

Then our phone rang. It was one of our captains, a former college player who was our lockerroom leader, if not the one wearing the actual “C” on his jersey. He’d spoken to the head of the league, just for giggles, and wanted to gauge interest in continuing the team for the season under new ownership. Player ownership.

He’d barely made three phone calls before the word spread like bushfire through the entire team. We were back on and all was forgiven at the rink, if not the bus depot. Roommate and I jabbered excitedly to each other in-between phone calls to teammates and sponsors, even members of the Wolverines!

Cinderella Gets Back Up

Our first practice was the only rinktime we could get, 6 PM on a Tuesday. That meant ditching work early for us paid-by-the-hour fellas and a horrific hour+ drive in rush hour to Colorado’s smelliest city. We couldn’t have been happier to do it.

Top-down, sunburnt and running late, we piled out of the Jeep and into the lockerroom excitedly looking forward to seeing all of our teammates. A little over half were there, with apologies from 3 more. That was it. The absence of our former captain, a friend of the coach’s, was notable.

Reeling a bit, we took the Sport Court and practiced anyway, and it was grand. We stopped a bit early so that our “new” captain could address the team with all the specifics. We were now MLRH’s only player-owned, player-managed, team, and we were allowed in the league that season on a highly-probationary status only through the good graces of the league chairman and his belief in us. He reckoned we showed heart and he wanted to see what we could do, even covering the rink fees in the early stages.

We were now the Colorado Mustangs, and we were ready to actually get serious about winning.

Captain wasn’t done with the announcements either. One of the Wolverine’s golden boys, a friend and teammate on their top line, was dissatisfied with how that team was going. He wasn’t happy with the owner and he didn’t like the egos that swelled the second a paycheck was mentioned. His ice time had shrunk, sure, but he reckoned we showed heart too, and he wanted in.

Mustangs Ride

Roommate and I were excited but needed closure, so I used his for-work-only cellphone to ring each of the guys on the team that had missed our first official practice as a Miracle Team.

Responses, as expected, varied.

“Aw yeah, I ah… couldn’t ah… couldn’t get out of work, yeah.”

“Was that today? Oops. I’ll make the next one… I guess.”

“Yeah, I’m cool with the team and all, but driving to Greeley?!”

The former captain was at least up-front and candid with me, telling me that he’d lost his money too and was too damn old to go hanging on to “foolish hopes and dreams”.

Reaching the end of the list I hung up the phone and looked at Roommate, my face showing precisely how I felt about their responses. He just shook his head and pointed the Jeep south, toward our ramshackle place that reeked of hockey equipment and dog.

“You know, nobody ever had to beg me to play hockey. Never in my whole life have I ever had to be begged to play.”

I never have either

I’ve played on blistering blacktop in the height of a Houston summer, sweating so much that my equipment bag gained 13 pounds in one game. I’ve slept 14 to a double-bed room in a dive outside of Austin. I’ve hallucinated about seeing giant hockey skates covering the pre-dawn highway while driving a truckload of sleeping teammates back from an all-night tournament in Dallas. I’ve played 4 straight games in a tennis-court league because nobody’s goalies showed up on a 100-degree day.

When I left Texas A&M for Denver, I spent my unemployed days doing odd jobs, looking for work and parked in the stands of the roller hockey rink, sitting next to my bag and holding my stick aloft in adverstisement of my goaltending availabilities. I’ve played 5 nights a week for 6 teams while working and going to Uni full-time. I’ve played semi-pro roller hockey in the Major League.

The Colorado Mustangs won every game the rest of that season except our last two, losing to the Wolverines in the Regional Semi-final, with the winner promised a trip to Buffalo to take on the East Coast’s best.

I slept in shithole dives in Dallas and in the back of a truck in Salt Lake City. Whereas our first coach had told me unequivocally that I was only there in case his precious starting goalie got injured or shellacked for 20 goals and that I would probably NEVER see playing time, this “new” team saw me splitting time with that precious goalie and posting better numbers during our road trips, despite being 10 years older.

And nobody ever had to beg me to play.

Save the Canberra Knights

The AIHL’s Canberra Knights ownership has folded the team, first claiming monetary issues and then talent issues after informing the players via Facebook earlier this week. News stories abound and the Facebook discussion is as fervent as the supporter’s pledging money on the team’s crowd-sourcing page.

I just listened to Jordie Gavin’s interview on Canberra’s Sports Radio. He and the rest of the boys just want to play.

They just want to play.

And I don’t think anybody should stand in the way of that.

Good luck boys, I’m here if you need anybody in net during your Perth trips.

Here’s that DONATE link once again: https://www.mycause.com.au/page/canberraaihlteam