Ok, long story here, mainly just for my reliving the glory days purpose and reflecting. feel free to comment, or just enjoy reading a story. im back at work by the way! yay!


Minnesota State Hockey Tournament. thats why it depresses me. and for those that aren't familiar with it, i think it would equate to football in texas. its huge here. state tournament being sold out to 20,000 fans around the state. amazing. its a kids dream, one who plays hockey, to play in the state tournament. Well, i played for one of the top programs in the state, varsity junior/senior year. junior year i went to state...wow, what an amazing time, stepping out onto the ice, we lost to duluth east 3-2 in overtime int he semi finals, ended up getting third in state, really...now thats impressive, but you want to win it at all. But being in it was amazing, 20,000 fans, playing on tv at 7 at night. lacing up the skates, putting on the jersey, pretty amazing feeling. big banquet dinner, the whole works.

but the depressing part, senior year. Short back story here:grew up with the youth program, started hockey at the age of 4 years old, usually played with the same kids, grew up with them, best friends, linemates..the whole works. well, sophomore year, the first year of high school hockey...about 5 of my best friends/linemantes went to another school to follow one of our youth coaches who got a coaching job for a private school high school team. they left us. now this team was CLASS A, We were AA. Now generally speaking Class A squads arent as good because they are smaller schools, dont have as much to chose from. but these kids left with the coach. and we thought to ourselves, why? why leave the program and friends you grew up dreaming about??i dont know! and to class a?!?!a step down? fuckers.

anyways, so we always thought how epic it would be to play eachother, but we never would because the different classes, well a few moves by the coach and some MORE recruiting, which noone agreed with...they end up class AA by our senior year and IN OUR REGION. fuck. could it happen? it did. we both make it to the region finals, the big game to go to the state tournament. head to head, "best friends forced to do battle" it was the wierdest hardest game i have ever played. at marriucci, 12,000 fans or so watching this HUGE rivalry, people have been waiting to see this game for the past 3 years and here it finally was...jefferson vs holy angels (jefferson 2 as everyone called them). what a game, we lost 4-2, they got an empty netter on us at the end of the game. lining up against my best friend former teamate/linemate. seeing him on the other side, turning the corner and laying a body check into eachother...both of us ...a look between us thats like "what the fuck is going on"

a hard fought game. but we lost. they went to state. thank god they didnt win and ended up getting 4th. but what a story it was, and what a game. if they would have stuck around, we would have won the state tournament. and to this day it still bothers me!! haha...

so yea, its state tourney time, downtown here, kids running around, teams walking around, the hype is back...jefferson vs holy angels again tonight, although now i dont know anyone on any of the teams anymore!! the memories come back and i wish i still played!

anywho. thanks for listening.

"back to work"

ciao ciao.

Interesting story... same thing happened to me in high school tennis (coach left, people followed him that shouldn't have; big deal, yadda yadda) so I know what that's all about

Thats a cool story, like something out of a movie. But sorry you lost

march madness is a term defining the great college basketball that takes course over the month of march... it was a term invented in illinois for the high school basketball playoffs... hockey and march madness do not go together, so let's clean up this post's title a little bit please

im not a basketball fan, therefore march madness has always been with hockey, especially here in minnesota

I used to think back on my Cross-Country and Track record, state rankings, etc., and I only recently finally set it aside as no longer worth the time to think about because it just make me sad and brings all sorts of "what if's" to mind.

Similar to March Madness making you sad, I have a tendency to cry when the Summer Olympics are broadcast, because I just have nothing but regrets of what might have been.

No one ever tells you, btw, that those who were your rivals during HS might end up your teammates in college. Man, what an adjustment that was

People everywhere learn the hard way that while once a champion and the center of the universe, that all fades and real life more often than not takes over. This happening due to an unavoidable or unexpected injury is the harshest way to learn it because the control relative to "choice" has be completely taken away. That is what makes a guy like Lance Armstrong and his accomplisments over adversity (illness) so frickin' amazing and worth celebrating.

Its sort of like the dialog in National Velvet where the Mom explains "there is time for folly, and then time for everything else" as she shares the winnings from her swimming accomplisment with her daughter to contribute to her riding aspiration. It also reminds me of the Rolling Stones lyric "...when you're old, when you're old, no body will know, that you were a beauty,..."

62strat, ever consider being a coach?

c-

hey, feel free to visit the US and join in on the fun with us