My Thoughts on Hockey

From time to time people will ask me why I love hockey so much.

The easy answer is that I enjoy the game. I love the speed, the skill, the strategy, the physicality, and the fact that anything can happen until the final horn sounds.

But if I’m being honest, I don’t think that’s why I keep coming back. The older I get, the more I think hockey has become about something much bigger than the game itself. The older I get, the more I think hockey has taught me some of the most important lessons I’ve learned about life.

⸻

One of the most common sayings in hockey is that it’s all about the guy on your left and the guy on your right. For a long time, I thought that was just another hockey cliché. Now I think it’s one of the truest things ever said about the sport.

Because hockey is one of the few games where nobody succeeds alone. A forward depends on his defensemen. A defenseman depends on his goalie. A goalie depends on the five players in front of him.

Every player is relying on someone else and every player is sacrificing for someone else.

A forward blocks a shot and breaks his foot. A defenseman takes a hit to keep a play alive. A goalie stands on his head for sixty minutes and still gets blamed for the one puck that somehow found its way through.

Everybody suffers., everybody sacrifices, and everybody trusts.

And that’s why I think the best teams are never really about talent alone. They’re about trust. They’re about believing that when you make a mistake, someone behind you is going to help clean it up. They’re about knowing that the people around you are willing to sacrifice for something bigger than themselves.

I think life works the same way.

Nobody gets through life alone. The people around us matter. The people who pick us up when we fall matter. The people who stay when things get difficult matter.

At the end of the day, hockey isn’t really about the puck or the goals.

It’s about people.

⸻

Another thing hockey has taught me is that every shift starts at zero.

You can have the worst shift of your life. You can turn the puck over. You can get scored on. You can make a mistake that everyone in the Arena sees. And then, a few minutes later, the coach taps you on the shoulder and sends you right back out there.

The game doesn’t stop because you had a bad shift. Life doesn’t either.

That’s something I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about. No matter how bad yesterday was, the next shift is coming. No matter how many mistakes you’ve made, the next shift is coming. No matter how badly things feel like they’re falling apart, the next shift is coming.

The question isn’t whether another opportunity will come. The question is whether you’ll be brave enough to step back onto the ice when it does.

I think that’s one of the reasons hockey resonates with me so much. It’s a reminder that failure isn’t the end of the story.

You keep skating. You keep showing up. You keep taking the next shift.

⸻

But if I’m being completely honest, I think the reason hockey means so much to me personally is something deeper than all of that.

I think hockey gives me something I’ve struggled to find in a lot of other places. It gives me a sense of belonging.

I’ve spent a lot of my life feeling like I don’t quite fit in. I’ve often felt like I was standing just outside the circle looking in. Sometimes it’s hard to explain. You can be surrounded by people and still feel alone. You can be part of a group and still feel disconnected.

But hockey has always been different.

For sixty minutes, eighty-two games a year, (longer if my team makes the playoffs) I belong.

When the Canadiens score, thousands of people I’ve never met celebrate at the exact same moment I do. When they lose, thousands of people feel the exact same disappointment. When overtime starts, thousands of people hold their breath together.

The kid watching his first game. The lifelong fan who’s been watching for decades. The person sitting alone on their couch after a difficult day. The family gathered around the television. The fan watching from a different country.

For a few hours, all of us are connected by the same team and the same hope.

And I think there’s something beautiful about that.

For a little while, nobody is alone. For a little while, we’re all pulling in the same direction. For a little while, we all belong to something bigger than ourselves.

⸻

People sometimes say, “It’s just a game.”

Maybe they’re right. Maybe it is.

But I think games can become more than just games. They can become traditions. They can become communities. They can become places where people find connection. They can become places where people find hope. And sometimes, they can become places where people feel like they finally belong.

Hockey has been that place for me.

It has taught me about trust. It has taught me about sacrifice. It has taught me about perseverance. It has taught me about community. It has taught me about showing up when life gets hard.

And maybe most importantly, it has taught me that none of us are meant to do this alone.

So when people ask me what hockey is really about, my answer is simple.

It’s about fighting for something bigger than yourself alongside people you trust. It’s about getting back up after a bad shift. It’s about finding a place where you belong.

And more than anything else, it’s about each other.

The goals are great. The wins are great. The Stanley Cup is fucking great.

But when it’s all said and done, hockey is really about each other.

‍