One of my fav lyrics from a 1998 song “Closing Time” is “every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end”. And so it is with hockey seasons.

This past week drew the curtain down on my Thursday morning and Friday aft shinny schedules. As I drove to the rink around 6:30 AM Thursday morning, coffee slowly pressing the start-up buttons within me, I noted how it was closer to dark than light and how different it all seemed to just a few shorts week ago. Change, eh? Just keeps comin’.

The Friday aft drive to the rink didn’t have the same contrast since summer season for that group blurs and merges into winter season without skipping a beat starting up next Friday. Still…a slight shift in puck drop time (from 4:30 to 3:30) is a small marker on this line we humans made up called time. The more things change, the more they stay the same perhaps?

The plan is to play 4 times a week this fall / winter season, as it has been for past few years. The Sunday night season starts on the 13th, the “W” on the 21st and as mentioned above, Friday aft group starts this coming week. There will no doubt be some “maintenance days” where the pull of the couch is stronger than the pull of the rink but hopefully the big injury fairy will stay away and there aren’t too many heavy dinners that tip the scales in the wrong direction of “game time decision”.

And so with sticks taped, the blades assessed as having at least one more season in them despite having many miles on them now, the gloves having a few holes suggesting an upgrade will be required one day soon, the bucket having considerable rust on the cage and one shin pad missing a strap, I am a go for another season. Lookin’ forward to it!