Looking back upon this summer, the lunchless days in court hustling from one criminal defendant to the next, the days sitting around the jail waiting to listen to bogus stories from some mentally-questionable characters, the days in a windowless office entering in new court dates onto the public defenders computer system, they all sort of blend together into one monotonous glob. One day, though - one day that would make Ferris Bueller proud - sticks out as the day I'll always remember from this summer.
It was a Monday morning. I was driving down the country road I like to take, rather than the less-than-picturesque view of the freeway, to court in Ann Arbor. I had attended my first NASCAR race the previous day with my dad, my uncle, and my cousin for father's day, so needless to say the Miller Lights and images of jort-city were still lingering with me the morning after. The prospect of work grew less and less appealing the further I got into the country, as I watched the summer sun bloom over some farm fields. Shortly thereafter is when I decided work was not, in fact, happening that day. Irresponsible? Maybe. But it was perhaps the best decision I made this summer.
Unwilling to return home and attempt to explain my reason for not going to work - I didn't really have a legitimate reason - I embarked on a day of activities that would return me to my past and make me genuinely smile. I went to memory lane.
I walked around Ann Arbor. By my old college house and by the stadium. I thought about my old friends and how separated we had become and wondered how two whole years had passed since I had graduated. Yet I didn't feel sad; rather, I felt happy for the memories I had with those great college friends. Then I walked by East Quad and saw some bright-eyed and innocent-looking incoming freshman, walking around with a dazed look in their eyes and the lanyards around their necks - the dead giveaway of the freshman. They had no idea how jealous I felt as I watched them in their confusion. I thought about how the next four years would unfold for them, and about how it would probably be the best four years of their lives.
I went to Hines Park and to the old ballfield. I watched two little boys riding their bikes down the trails, adjacent to the river where I spent my boyhood days. I watched them, without a care on their minds, on that summer day, and wondered just how in fact so many years had passed since that was me. Indeed, it seemed like it was only yesterday that my friends and I were carrying our baseball gear down those trails, the only worry on our minds being who would win that day's ballgame. For a moment I sat down on our old baseball field and felt the June sun beat down upon me, and for a moment it was as if all of the gang was there and we were just kids again.
When life becomes monotonous, sometimes you need a day like that. A day to remind you why we're truly here on this earth. A day to remind you to savor those memories with your friends, because soon it will be years later and you'll be missing these very days. A day to remind you that, as Ferris Bueller said, "life goes by pretty quick, if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you might miss it".
Monday, August 6, 2012
Friday, June 15, 2012
Life and Loss with the Red Wings
"It's a chicken-and-egg kind of thing. How your team plays echoes your innermost feelings, what you already "know" — but what you feel and know to a large extent comes from your team, because how they do is if nothing else a weird running pantomime of a fan's life. Their play is in your earliest memories and reflections; it challenges how you look at things." - Kent Russell, via Grantland
In some of my earliest memories, I am sneaking into my living room where my dad is watching the Red Wings on the television set on frigid February nights. Darkness fell early on Millwood Village on those two-dog nights, and us kids were called in from play before the last dinner plate was cleaned off. This phenomenon left me restless and curiously snooping about the house. Dad throws logs onto the fire during stoppages of play - the crackles of the fire and the low drone of Mickey Redmond's voice composing the soundtrack of those wintry evenings. "Number Nineteen," my dad says - I didn't know he'd seen me - "he's the heart of the team". And like that, Detroit sports are passed down from generation to generation on those cold, dark February nights.
Little did I know that it would be upon those red uniforms that I would begin to formulate my identity in this world; it's funny how those small moments can blossom into something much bigger. Fandom is a hobby for some people. A passion for others. And for some, it is the marrow of life. I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I curiously snuck a glance at what my dad was doing on those winter nights.
As Kent Russell illuminated to me, "how [your team] does is if nothing else a weird running pantomime of a fan's life". Like a best friend, we've been through everything together, the Detroit Red Wings and I. Through the happy moments, when you seem to be walking on airs, that make life worth living: the Darren McCarty breakaway goal in game 4 of the 97 Finals, or the moment I yelled "Ozzie" at the top of my lungs in my college house when they replaced Hasek with Chris Osgood, my all-time favorite Wing, in the 2008 Stanley Cup playoffs - a move that would prove fateful. And through the tragedies in life: my first taste of reality when I woke up one morning in June to hear about Vladimir Konstantinov's limousine accident, or in 2009 when the Penguins took game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals and the other interns I worked with in Chicago that summer couldn't quite understand why I had to be by myself that night.
Growing Up
Before Detroit became the capital of the hockey world, Hockeytown was but a fledgling civilization. Names like Probert, Yzerman, Coffey, and Fedorov were fighting - Probert quite literally fighting - to erase decades of futility. As the Hockeytown video goes, "In the early 1990's the Red Wings seemed to assemble a team that could challenge for the Cup, but the following seasons only brought more heartbreak".
It was on those nights in the early nineties that I was leaving my coloring books behind and sneaking a peak into the living room to see what my dad was cheering about on those February nights. And it was on those nights that he started to explain to me, piece by piece; "Number ninety-one, he can score some pretty goals"; pretty soon he said, "If you're so interested, we've gotta get some tickets so you can get to see a game in person". Any fan has those fateful moments, when the life-changing moment of fandom comes into focus. Those were those nights.
In my own mind, the Wings didn't win a Cup in '95 or '96 because of lack of talent. They didn't win because they were waiting for me to grow another year or two, so that I would be that perfect age in which I was just old enough to appreciate that magic, just old enough to remember that night forever. In that way, the Wings and I were growing up together, building up to something really special.
The Golden Years
In episode 1 of The Wonder Years, the narrator remembers, "In a way, those really were the wonder years for us there in the suburbs. It was kind of a golden age for kids." He was talking about the sixties, but he may as well have been talking about the nineties in Millwood Village, the place where I grew up.
To this day, when I hear the word summer, my mind harkens back to June nights in Millwood Village. June nights are like a Bruce Springsteen song - there's an intoxicating feeling in the summer air and anything seems possible. Neighbors gather together in a backyard lit by tiki torches, the smell of charcoal cooking hot dogs and hamburgers sifts through the humid air, and a Jimmy Buffett song plays from the stereo. The adults sit out on the patio drinking bottles of beer talking about things that don't make sense to us kids, while neighborhood boy chases neighborhood girl, and vice versa. We laugh and run and play, stopping to catch fireflies every so often, our energy level never running low thanks to a limitless bucket of soda.
I remember a particular one of those June nights, when the neighborhood flocked to my house, all dressed in red and white. We barbequed, tossed water balloons, and played outdoors in anticipation of game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals. There was a sense of quiet, though; everyone was calmly giddy with the idea that something truly special could happen that night. I don't remember much of the game, but I remember, quite distinctly how, as the seconds ticked down on the game clock, shouts and screams of joy echoed throughout Millwood Village, adults rejoiced like little kids, and beer glasses clanged against one another in a toast of celebration. I don't think it really affected any of us kids as we played the rest of that night; we were just happy we were allowed to stay up past midnight as the celebration continued for the adults. And it's funny the way those moments work. There are no voices that call out to savor every second of the night, or that it will be one of those few moments in life that remains forever etched into your memories. The night just goes on, and only later on do you look back and realize how special that moment was.
Center ice at Joe Louis Arena still reads "Hockeytown". Yet it's not quite the same. During the magical 1997 run, Detroit reached fever pitch: you couldn't take a 5 minute drive without seeing 2 or 3 Red Wings flags waving from other vehicles, Yzerman, Shanahan, and Fedorov jerseys engulfed Southeastern Michigan in a sea of red, and frenzy ensued while octopi danced upon ice with each passing day. Those truly were the golden days of Hockeytown.
The Lost Years
The early aughts were a strange time for both me and the Red Wings. I guess that's the way adolescence goes: at one point you're basking in the glory that is pure, unadulterated life and before you can stop to tie your shoelaces you are a couple years older and starting to recognize the unfortunate realities that accompany us on this journey.
I don't remember a lot about the early 2000's. I don't know if that's a subconscious choice or just the fact that a teenager's mind is racing too quickly for it to really stop and grasp much. Either way, it was a time of identity crisis. That's just the way it goes. I was searching for the person I was supposed to be; I look back on those early teen years and sometimes wonder just what the heck I was doing. Chalk it up to puberty.
The Red Wings were going through an identity crisis of their own. Stumbling through the Stanley Cup hangover period, the Wings played musical chairs with a number of goalies through those years, always looking for the franchise goaltender but never finding him. In the early aughts, they shuffled through Curtis Joseph, Ty Conklin, Manny Legace, Joey MacDonald, and Dominik Hasek. And that's the thing about growing up: what the Red Wings didn't realize was what they were looking for all along was within themselves in the first place - Chris Osgood.
Detroit won a Stanley Cup in 2002. Yet it's the Cup I remember least and appreciate the least. It was sort of a phony year. Taking advantage of the pre-salary cap era, the Wings assembled a conglomerate of veteran superstars and easily glided towards the Stanley Cup in '02. But when I think about the Red Wings, none of those guys are true Red Wings in my mind: all-stars like Brett Hull, Luc Robitaille, Chris Chelios, and Dominik Hasek all pale in comparison to grit players such as Darren McCarty, Kris Draper, or Joey Kocur, for me. But I guess that is the way those junior high and high school years are. You try hard to impress people that don't matter, try and be someone you aren't, until you realize what's truly important in life.
Resurgence
I will never forget the exact moment when Mike Babcock yanked Dominik Hasek from the goaltender's net in game 2, round 1, of the 2008 Stanley Cup Playoffs with the Red Wings trailing the Nashville Predators two games to none. I was in Ann Arbor in my college house, watching with my best college friends. It was springtime on campus, one of those beautiful May days with the flowers blooming and the girls walking around in sundresses, a collegiate day perfectly suited for day-drinking and playing cornhole outdoors. I had just finished my sophomore year and was living the free and pure lifestyle of a college student yet to worry about the realities of finding a stable girlfriend, a paying job, or of anything, really. Chris Osgood skated towards the goal and patted Hasek on the back as he skated towards the bench.
I have only had one real dream in this lifetime; I don't think I will ever really have another one quite like it. That dream was to attend the University of Michigan, mostly so that I could be a face in the crowds that I watched on Saturday afternoons as a boy with unrivaled passion. I took a lot of AP classes in high school, some that were a bit above my learning level. I joined various clubs such as the yearbook staff and played as many sports as possible. I passed up a lot of afterschool hangout activities so that I could hit the books. I didn't do those things because I wanted to, but because I had resolved that I would get into Michigan, no matter what it took.
The springtime of 2008 found me quite literally living in that dream. But with Michigan football performing poorly, I was clinging to the Red Wings more than ever. And a resurgent team led by names such as Datysuk, Franzen, and Zetterburg made that spring a season to believe in.
As Chris Osgood - a guy no one will ever replace as my favorite Red Wing of all time - heard Babcock tell him to go in, as he put on his goalie mask and opened the bench gate to skate out on the ice, as he did his goalie warmups in that blue crease, surely somebody a block away from 933 South State Street heard the cry, "Come on Ozzie!!!". The rest is history.
End of an Era
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"And if people are allowed to grieve when they are passed over for promotion, or when they fail to win an Oscar, or when their novel is rejected by every publisher in London - and our culture allows them to do so, even though these people may have only dreamed these dreams for a couple years, rather than the decade, the half-lifetime, that I had been dreaming mine - then I was bloody well entitled to sit down on a lump of concrete for two minutes and try to blink back tears after the Arsenal loss". - Nick Hornby, Fever Pitch
In June of 2009, I found myself alone in the maze that is the Chicago nightlife. I was lost with no idea how to get back to my dorm and didn't care. I tried to hide my tears from passersby, but after about a minute I stopped caring and let the tears fall. And they fell onto my Red Wings jersey.
Earlier that night the other interns of my pre-law program agreed to go out with me for Game 7 of the Wings game. After a couple of weeks with me, they had started to grasp what these playoffs meant to me after seeing me come home drunk on weekend nights and rabble on about how this could be a special year. They grasped some of what it meant to me, but that night they would grasp just how much it meant.
In the closing seconds I mumbled to my new friends that I needed to take a walk. A couple of my closer friends from that summer internship group tried to follow me out; they saw me starting to cry outside the bar. I said I just needed to be by myself that night.
I guess I should've realized then that it was the end. The end of an era. The end of college approaching. The end of a Red Wings era approaching. But I didn't.
Last summer I said goodbye to Chris Osgood, as previously mentioned my favorite Red Wing ever, and Kris Draper, another staple of the Red Wings glory days. This summer I said goodbye to Nick Lidstrom, the last remaining piece of those glory years. The Red Wings I had grew up with were gone. Gone forever. It didn't seem right.
This past year has been a year of goodbyes for me, too. My best friend from college moved to Virginia. Most of my other college friends moved elsewhere, as well. The proverbial "one that got away" got away. Life as I knew it was over. I looked to the Red Wings to tell me that it wasn't over, but I should have known better. A five game loss to the Predators in this springs 2012 Playoffs told me it was over. Over forever.
The Next Chapter
"At some point you are not what you were, and then you are nothing. It's at this point people start putting themselves together, once you have had that year where you do too much of something—drink, play video games, feel sorry for yourself, brick threes, fumble—feel terrible after, and then do too much of that something again." - Brian Cook, writer of Mgoblog
Sometimes good things end. I don't believe that everything happens for a reason, but I do believe that things tend to work themselves out in the end. I've done a lot of soul-searching this spring and summer; I sort of lost who I was this past year. And I'm learning to redefine myself. I've started going for 10 mile hikes down the trails of Hines Park. I've started to appreciate those times I get to hangout with the guys I grew up with a little more. And I can't lie, during those times I've thought a lot about the golden years, when Michigan football won a national title and the Red Wings won a Stanley Cup in the same year. I've hoped that I could go back to those days, those simpler days.
But time marches on. And you have to roll with the punches time throws. The Red Wings are going to have to do the same. The nucleus of the golden years is gone. They are going to have to redefine themselves if they wish to keep "Hockeytown" written at center ice. Supposedly a new hockey arena is in the works for Detroit, which almost makes sense looked at in terms of my life. I didn't want to rebuild, but eventually you just have to leave the Joe.
24 years or so of fandom has taught me a lot. I know that there will be another 2009 moment of sadness. I know that I will turn to the Red Wings when a close family member dies or some other tragedy strikes. But I also know that there's another 1997 moment somewhere up ahead. And I know that somehow, the Red Wings will be peaking on the day I get married. And somehow they will be doing good when my first child is born.
Because how your team does is, if nothing else, a weird running pantomime of a fan's life.
Here's to the next 24 years.
In some of my earliest memories, I am sneaking into my living room where my dad is watching the Red Wings on the television set on frigid February nights. Darkness fell early on Millwood Village on those two-dog nights, and us kids were called in from play before the last dinner plate was cleaned off. This phenomenon left me restless and curiously snooping about the house. Dad throws logs onto the fire during stoppages of play - the crackles of the fire and the low drone of Mickey Redmond's voice composing the soundtrack of those wintry evenings. "Number Nineteen," my dad says - I didn't know he'd seen me - "he's the heart of the team". And like that, Detroit sports are passed down from generation to generation on those cold, dark February nights.
Little did I know that it would be upon those red uniforms that I would begin to formulate my identity in this world; it's funny how those small moments can blossom into something much bigger. Fandom is a hobby for some people. A passion for others. And for some, it is the marrow of life. I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I curiously snuck a glance at what my dad was doing on those winter nights.
As Kent Russell illuminated to me, "how [your team] does is if nothing else a weird running pantomime of a fan's life". Like a best friend, we've been through everything together, the Detroit Red Wings and I. Through the happy moments, when you seem to be walking on airs, that make life worth living: the Darren McCarty breakaway goal in game 4 of the 97 Finals, or the moment I yelled "Ozzie" at the top of my lungs in my college house when they replaced Hasek with Chris Osgood, my all-time favorite Wing, in the 2008 Stanley Cup playoffs - a move that would prove fateful. And through the tragedies in life: my first taste of reality when I woke up one morning in June to hear about Vladimir Konstantinov's limousine accident, or in 2009 when the Penguins took game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals and the other interns I worked with in Chicago that summer couldn't quite understand why I had to be by myself that night.
Growing Up
Before Detroit became the capital of the hockey world, Hockeytown was but a fledgling civilization. Names like Probert, Yzerman, Coffey, and Fedorov were fighting - Probert quite literally fighting - to erase decades of futility. As the Hockeytown video goes, "In the early 1990's the Red Wings seemed to assemble a team that could challenge for the Cup, but the following seasons only brought more heartbreak".
It was on those nights in the early nineties that I was leaving my coloring books behind and sneaking a peak into the living room to see what my dad was cheering about on those February nights. And it was on those nights that he started to explain to me, piece by piece; "Number ninety-one, he can score some pretty goals"; pretty soon he said, "If you're so interested, we've gotta get some tickets so you can get to see a game in person". Any fan has those fateful moments, when the life-changing moment of fandom comes into focus. Those were those nights.
In my own mind, the Wings didn't win a Cup in '95 or '96 because of lack of talent. They didn't win because they were waiting for me to grow another year or two, so that I would be that perfect age in which I was just old enough to appreciate that magic, just old enough to remember that night forever. In that way, the Wings and I were growing up together, building up to something really special.
The Golden Years
In episode 1 of The Wonder Years, the narrator remembers, "In a way, those really were the wonder years for us there in the suburbs. It was kind of a golden age for kids." He was talking about the sixties, but he may as well have been talking about the nineties in Millwood Village, the place where I grew up.
To this day, when I hear the word summer, my mind harkens back to June nights in Millwood Village. June nights are like a Bruce Springsteen song - there's an intoxicating feeling in the summer air and anything seems possible. Neighbors gather together in a backyard lit by tiki torches, the smell of charcoal cooking hot dogs and hamburgers sifts through the humid air, and a Jimmy Buffett song plays from the stereo. The adults sit out on the patio drinking bottles of beer talking about things that don't make sense to us kids, while neighborhood boy chases neighborhood girl, and vice versa. We laugh and run and play, stopping to catch fireflies every so often, our energy level never running low thanks to a limitless bucket of soda.
I remember a particular one of those June nights, when the neighborhood flocked to my house, all dressed in red and white. We barbequed, tossed water balloons, and played outdoors in anticipation of game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals. There was a sense of quiet, though; everyone was calmly giddy with the idea that something truly special could happen that night. I don't remember much of the game, but I remember, quite distinctly how, as the seconds ticked down on the game clock, shouts and screams of joy echoed throughout Millwood Village, adults rejoiced like little kids, and beer glasses clanged against one another in a toast of celebration. I don't think it really affected any of us kids as we played the rest of that night; we were just happy we were allowed to stay up past midnight as the celebration continued for the adults. And it's funny the way those moments work. There are no voices that call out to savor every second of the night, or that it will be one of those few moments in life that remains forever etched into your memories. The night just goes on, and only later on do you look back and realize how special that moment was.
Center ice at Joe Louis Arena still reads "Hockeytown". Yet it's not quite the same. During the magical 1997 run, Detroit reached fever pitch: you couldn't take a 5 minute drive without seeing 2 or 3 Red Wings flags waving from other vehicles, Yzerman, Shanahan, and Fedorov jerseys engulfed Southeastern Michigan in a sea of red, and frenzy ensued while octopi danced upon ice with each passing day. Those truly were the golden days of Hockeytown.
The Lost Years
The early aughts were a strange time for both me and the Red Wings. I guess that's the way adolescence goes: at one point you're basking in the glory that is pure, unadulterated life and before you can stop to tie your shoelaces you are a couple years older and starting to recognize the unfortunate realities that accompany us on this journey.
I don't remember a lot about the early 2000's. I don't know if that's a subconscious choice or just the fact that a teenager's mind is racing too quickly for it to really stop and grasp much. Either way, it was a time of identity crisis. That's just the way it goes. I was searching for the person I was supposed to be; I look back on those early teen years and sometimes wonder just what the heck I was doing. Chalk it up to puberty.
The Red Wings were going through an identity crisis of their own. Stumbling through the Stanley Cup hangover period, the Wings played musical chairs with a number of goalies through those years, always looking for the franchise goaltender but never finding him. In the early aughts, they shuffled through Curtis Joseph, Ty Conklin, Manny Legace, Joey MacDonald, and Dominik Hasek. And that's the thing about growing up: what the Red Wings didn't realize was what they were looking for all along was within themselves in the first place - Chris Osgood.
Detroit won a Stanley Cup in 2002. Yet it's the Cup I remember least and appreciate the least. It was sort of a phony year. Taking advantage of the pre-salary cap era, the Wings assembled a conglomerate of veteran superstars and easily glided towards the Stanley Cup in '02. But when I think about the Red Wings, none of those guys are true Red Wings in my mind: all-stars like Brett Hull, Luc Robitaille, Chris Chelios, and Dominik Hasek all pale in comparison to grit players such as Darren McCarty, Kris Draper, or Joey Kocur, for me. But I guess that is the way those junior high and high school years are. You try hard to impress people that don't matter, try and be someone you aren't, until you realize what's truly important in life.
Resurgence
I will never forget the exact moment when Mike Babcock yanked Dominik Hasek from the goaltender's net in game 2, round 1, of the 2008 Stanley Cup Playoffs with the Red Wings trailing the Nashville Predators two games to none. I was in Ann Arbor in my college house, watching with my best college friends. It was springtime on campus, one of those beautiful May days with the flowers blooming and the girls walking around in sundresses, a collegiate day perfectly suited for day-drinking and playing cornhole outdoors. I had just finished my sophomore year and was living the free and pure lifestyle of a college student yet to worry about the realities of finding a stable girlfriend, a paying job, or of anything, really. Chris Osgood skated towards the goal and patted Hasek on the back as he skated towards the bench.
I have only had one real dream in this lifetime; I don't think I will ever really have another one quite like it. That dream was to attend the University of Michigan, mostly so that I could be a face in the crowds that I watched on Saturday afternoons as a boy with unrivaled passion. I took a lot of AP classes in high school, some that were a bit above my learning level. I joined various clubs such as the yearbook staff and played as many sports as possible. I passed up a lot of afterschool hangout activities so that I could hit the books. I didn't do those things because I wanted to, but because I had resolved that I would get into Michigan, no matter what it took.
The springtime of 2008 found me quite literally living in that dream. But with Michigan football performing poorly, I was clinging to the Red Wings more than ever. And a resurgent team led by names such as Datysuk, Franzen, and Zetterburg made that spring a season to believe in.
As Chris Osgood - a guy no one will ever replace as my favorite Red Wing of all time - heard Babcock tell him to go in, as he put on his goalie mask and opened the bench gate to skate out on the ice, as he did his goalie warmups in that blue crease, surely somebody a block away from 933 South State Street heard the cry, "Come on Ozzie!!!". The rest is history.
End of an Era
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"And if people are allowed to grieve when they are passed over for promotion, or when they fail to win an Oscar, or when their novel is rejected by every publisher in London - and our culture allows them to do so, even though these people may have only dreamed these dreams for a couple years, rather than the decade, the half-lifetime, that I had been dreaming mine - then I was bloody well entitled to sit down on a lump of concrete for two minutes and try to blink back tears after the Arsenal loss". - Nick Hornby, Fever Pitch
In June of 2009, I found myself alone in the maze that is the Chicago nightlife. I was lost with no idea how to get back to my dorm and didn't care. I tried to hide my tears from passersby, but after about a minute I stopped caring and let the tears fall. And they fell onto my Red Wings jersey.
Earlier that night the other interns of my pre-law program agreed to go out with me for Game 7 of the Wings game. After a couple of weeks with me, they had started to grasp what these playoffs meant to me after seeing me come home drunk on weekend nights and rabble on about how this could be a special year. They grasped some of what it meant to me, but that night they would grasp just how much it meant.
In the closing seconds I mumbled to my new friends that I needed to take a walk. A couple of my closer friends from that summer internship group tried to follow me out; they saw me starting to cry outside the bar. I said I just needed to be by myself that night.
I guess I should've realized then that it was the end. The end of an era. The end of college approaching. The end of a Red Wings era approaching. But I didn't.
Last summer I said goodbye to Chris Osgood, as previously mentioned my favorite Red Wing ever, and Kris Draper, another staple of the Red Wings glory days. This summer I said goodbye to Nick Lidstrom, the last remaining piece of those glory years. The Red Wings I had grew up with were gone. Gone forever. It didn't seem right.
This past year has been a year of goodbyes for me, too. My best friend from college moved to Virginia. Most of my other college friends moved elsewhere, as well. The proverbial "one that got away" got away. Life as I knew it was over. I looked to the Red Wings to tell me that it wasn't over, but I should have known better. A five game loss to the Predators in this springs 2012 Playoffs told me it was over. Over forever.
The Next Chapter
Sometimes good things end. I don't believe that everything happens for a reason, but I do believe that things tend to work themselves out in the end. I've done a lot of soul-searching this spring and summer; I sort of lost who I was this past year. And I'm learning to redefine myself. I've started going for 10 mile hikes down the trails of Hines Park. I've started to appreciate those times I get to hangout with the guys I grew up with a little more. And I can't lie, during those times I've thought a lot about the golden years, when Michigan football won a national title and the Red Wings won a Stanley Cup in the same year. I've hoped that I could go back to those days, those simpler days.
But time marches on. And you have to roll with the punches time throws. The Red Wings are going to have to do the same. The nucleus of the golden years is gone. They are going to have to redefine themselves if they wish to keep "Hockeytown" written at center ice. Supposedly a new hockey arena is in the works for Detroit, which almost makes sense looked at in terms of my life. I didn't want to rebuild, but eventually you just have to leave the Joe.
24 years or so of fandom has taught me a lot. I know that there will be another 2009 moment of sadness. I know that I will turn to the Red Wings when a close family member dies or some other tragedy strikes. But I also know that there's another 1997 moment somewhere up ahead. And I know that somehow, the Red Wings will be peaking on the day I get married. And somehow they will be doing good when my first child is born.
Because how your team does is, if nothing else, a weird running pantomime of a fan's life.
Here's to the next 24 years.
Friday, April 27, 2012
The Right Place at the Right Time
Have you ever felt like you were destined to be in a particular place at a particular time? That feeling is a rare occasion in life.
I haven't felt that way in a long, long time. I've spent a large portion of the past year brewing with bitterness over how royally screwed over I was in terms of my living situation. I could be in Chicago, meeting new people and opening myself up to new experiences. I could be in Washington D.C., where a couple of my best friends live, having a good time with those guys. For better or for worse, though, I'm in my hometown for the time being. Most of my college friends have moved away and the social scene is lacking around these parts.
But the other day, I got that feeling that I was meant to be here, in this exact spot at an exact time. I've developed a routine of falling asleep to a television show every night just so I can avoid those thoughts that plague your mind late at night. I had just finished all of the seasons of How I Met Your Mother and was embarking upon the first episode of Frasier. The closing line of that first episode is Frasier, a talk-show host psychiatrist, giving this bit of advice to a woman still mourning the loss of a boyfriend 8 months after the fact:
"But you're not mourning the loss of your boyfriend. You're mourning the loss of what you thought your life would be. Let it go. Things don't always work out how you planned: that's not necessarily bad. Things have a way of working out, anyway."
Laying in bed, I couldn't help but think that quote was written specifically for me. It describes the last 8 months of my life to a tee. More importantly, it was what I needed to hear.
With summer fast approaching, it's time to finally leave the pessimism behind. I may never be able to forgive what happened to me, but dwelling on it isn't going to make things any better. I always used to cringe when people optimistically spurted off the motivational line, "Attitude determines everything". But I've come to embrace it. This summer, I'm going to dive head first into life with a positive attitude. I'm going to drive to Lake Michigan on a spur of the moment just to admire the lake, I'm going to take a drive down a country road and enjoy the scenery, I'm going to savor the moments with my my best friends - the friends I grew up with.
Attitude determines everything.
I haven't felt that way in a long, long time. I've spent a large portion of the past year brewing with bitterness over how royally screwed over I was in terms of my living situation. I could be in Chicago, meeting new people and opening myself up to new experiences. I could be in Washington D.C., where a couple of my best friends live, having a good time with those guys. For better or for worse, though, I'm in my hometown for the time being. Most of my college friends have moved away and the social scene is lacking around these parts.
But the other day, I got that feeling that I was meant to be here, in this exact spot at an exact time. I've developed a routine of falling asleep to a television show every night just so I can avoid those thoughts that plague your mind late at night. I had just finished all of the seasons of How I Met Your Mother and was embarking upon the first episode of Frasier. The closing line of that first episode is Frasier, a talk-show host psychiatrist, giving this bit of advice to a woman still mourning the loss of a boyfriend 8 months after the fact:
"But you're not mourning the loss of your boyfriend. You're mourning the loss of what you thought your life would be. Let it go. Things don't always work out how you planned: that's not necessarily bad. Things have a way of working out, anyway."
Laying in bed, I couldn't help but think that quote was written specifically for me. It describes the last 8 months of my life to a tee. More importantly, it was what I needed to hear.
With summer fast approaching, it's time to finally leave the pessimism behind. I may never be able to forgive what happened to me, but dwelling on it isn't going to make things any better. I always used to cringe when people optimistically spurted off the motivational line, "Attitude determines everything". But I've come to embrace it. This summer, I'm going to dive head first into life with a positive attitude. I'm going to drive to Lake Michigan on a spur of the moment just to admire the lake, I'm going to take a drive down a country road and enjoy the scenery, I'm going to savor the moments with my my best friends - the friends I grew up with.
Attitude determines everything.
Friday, April 20, 2012
Daydreams of Hockey in Small-town Ontario
As the famed, and overused, Robert Frost poem goes:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Outside the pub window, the cold Canadian winter blows through the slushy streets on a small town Ontario night. Small groups of locals, huddling closely to the warmth of their overcoats, march down the streets on their way home from the rinky-dink stadium that resembles a steel mill moreso than a hockey arena. In the distance, a large smokestack puffs gray clouds into the vast Canadian sky. Inside the pub window, comforted by the warmth of the pub heating, I glance over my notes from that night's game while the waitress sets a mug of Labatt onto the cedar tabletop. I begin to jot down a story on my yellow legal pad, as the midnight deadline for the local newspaper rapidly approaches. The loneliness of the bar, empty save for two isolated old men watching the Maple Leafs game on the bar television sets, starts to fade as my story takes shape.
Sometimes when I'm stuck inside the law library, surrounded by thousands of old legal books, as I am now, my mind begins to wander to that small town Ontario town where I might be trying to cut a name for myself as a beat writer for the local OHL club. I think about the forks in the roads I have faced in my lifetime, the path I respectively chose, and where that path has led me. Not to say that I'm unhappy with the career path I've chosen, (I actually am content with it for the first time in a long time) but sometimes I find myself deep into reading a lengthy hockey article - my mind lost in the magic of that unique sport and reminiscent for times up at the schoolhouse in Canada - and wonder how amazing that other career might be.
As Frost said: "Two roads diverged in a wood". Sometimes I feel like we get so far down one of those roads that it's not possible to turn back. Then again, sometimes I feel like I'm still young, and maybe the road I'm going down is just a precursor to another, much bigger, fork in the road.
Carpe Diem.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Post-Grad Drudgery
Man, the past two years have been tough. Being graduated from college has been the hardest transition of my life without question. This is in large part because nobody ever tells you what to expect after college. So I present to you my lessons for post-grad life:
1. Your friends will change. For those four years of college, I had the best friends a guy could ask for. We did everything together. I lived with my best friends, partied with my best friends, sat out hangovers with my best friends, and everything else in between. It's essentially like having a family when you live with your friends. In short, it was awesome.
Now, I see those people that I literally once would call my family only a couple of times a year. Once we graduated, everyone moved away. My friends reside all over the country from New York to Washington D.C. to Seattle. It's pretty tough going from seeing those people every waking minute to basically never seeing them.
Quite honestly, it's pretty lonely without them. When I come home from class, there's no one to joke around with or just watch a TV show with before bed. There's no one to go grocery shopping with. It's just not the same.
2. Hangovers get worse. During my freshman year of college, my hallmates (2nd Elliot at Mary Markley Hall - probably the drunkest hall in the history of dorms) and I drank pretty much Tuesday through Saturday, causing all sorts of ruckuses and having all sorts of fun. I could drink 12 beers on any given night and wake up and make it to an 8:30 class no problem. Those days are long gone. Nowadays if I go to the bar and drink 12 beers I have to fully plan on zero productivity the next day and I have to purchase at least 2 32 ounce Gatorades for the morning.
I also think the worse hangovers are a symptom of the first bullet-point on this list, friends. When I lived at BOX the Sunday hangover was a ritual. Everyone would stumble out of bed and meet in the BOX living room, where we would plop ourselves onto our beer-stained couches for about 12 hours of television and joke-telling that would make the hangover feel a little bit better. Those were some of the best times I ever had, and it was while I felt like absolute trash.
I don't have those friends around to sit around and joke with every Sunday anymore. Now it's pretty much just me and my hungover self sitting around feeling miserable. When your by yourself during a hangover, the depressing feeling induced by the hangover is increased tenfold.
3. It's much harder to meet girls. I in no way mean this to be disrespectful to girls, but in college girls just have very little inhibitions. Girls get drunk and make horrible decisions in college, making it much easier for guys at the bars.
In the post-grad world, (most) girls tire of the getting-hammered-at-the-bar-and-sloppily-making-out with guys scene. Instead, post-college girls want you to take them on dates and actually put in some effort and maybe even iron your shirt for a date.
Moving back home certainly doesn't help anything. The bars that I frequent in my hometown largely feature middle-aged married couples drinking wine who probably already had 401k's when I was born. Even when I do meet girls my age around my hometown, we most likely have nothing in common because those girls have never left home and are probably in community college. Don't get me wrong, there are girls to be met and the process is fun, but it's just not as easy as it once was.
4. You don't automatically feel like an adult after graduation. This has been the toughest lesson that I've learned. I guess I always thought that once I graduated college I would just feel like a dad or something and be completely settled down. That's just not the case. I've had too much to drink on plenty of occasions, made some dumb mistakes, and generally acted like an 18 year old my fair share of times in post-grad life. That's because, quite frankly, I'm not that much different from my 21 year old college self. Growing up simply doesn't happen overnight.
Being single in your mid-twenties can be a weird situation. You want to be settled down and maybe just have a lemonade and watch a movie on some Friday nights, but the ultimate goal is to have someone to be able to stay in with you on those nights, so you feel compelled to go out and meet new people. I guess when I was a little kid I always pictured myself being married and doing yard work and paying bills and being really content at age 24, but life doesn't always agree with the grand plans you've made for yourself.
Monday, January 16, 2012
This Train is Shipping Jobs Out of Cleveland
For a day, college lived again as me and the old college buddies converged upon the city of Cleveland for the (supposed) purpose of watching the Michigan-Ohio State outdoor hockey game at Progressive Field.
Things that happened in Cleveland, in no particular order:
- Dan lost a front tooth. Okay, it is only chipped, but if you can picture Lloyd Christmas in your head, you know that it is just plain bad.
- Zola payed a homeless person $7 to walk him back to our hotel.
- Bartender at the hotel bar refused to serve Paul. Paul stormed off with the exclamation, "Thanks for the service!"
- Dan placed half of his said chipped tooth on the bar and offered it as a form of payment.
- Dan was asked to leave the hotel bar.
- Ross was not seen in over 2 hours, and apparently he was busy walking back to the hotel in a stupod over 5 miles home from the suburbs of Cleveland.
- A complaint was filed at the hotel that "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" was playing too loudly from our room.
- Over $200 was spent on Jager bombs.
Despite all of these occurrences, perhaps nothing was more despicable than the voicemails that my friends left from my phone.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
More Than a Game: Volume II
Returning to Chicago was bittersweet. Going to the Hawks game brought back so many great memories of watching a lot of amazing sports events there and made me miss how great a sports city the Windy City truly is. Returning to my favorite bar just across the street from my old apartment complex brought back a lot of good memories of watching Wings games late into the night last spring. And seeing the bars on every corner of the maize of streets throughout the city brought back memories of nights of limitless opportunities. And, of course, a late-night drunken excursion to the favorite Chinese food place tasted so good.
But it brought back a lot of unpleasant memories, as well. Of lonely nights spent sipping beers by myself while listening to Red Wings broadcasts, feeling homesick for my hometown, homesick for nights with my friends watching Wings games at home, of sitting around my old living room with my dad while a fire crackled in the fireplace and we listened to Mickey Redmond exuberantly announce a goal for the good guys. I thought a lot about those nights in the days that followed that ill-minded yet fun road trip.
For me, listening to those Red Wings broadcasts through my laptop was one of my only connections to my home. Ken Kal, the Red Wings radio broadcaster, was a good friend to me during those Chicago nights. I've never met the man, but he f
elt like family. He brought me back to all those nights in Ann Arbor watching with my college buddies. Back to evenings with my childhood best friends, including Steve, cheering on our beloved Wings. Back to nights when I was young when I would sneak into my garage just to hang out with my dad while he listened on his old radio box to the Red Wings on winter evenings.
In that way, listening to Ken Kal narrate those Red Wings games to me on those lonesome Chicago nights was about far more than sports. It took me back home, albeit virtually, when I needed it most - even if it was only for a couple of hours.
Thanks for everything, Ken Kal
Looking back on my time in America's Second City, it is easy to label that year as a big mistake in my life. But it did maybe the most important thing in my life: it made me realize that I was simply meant to be in Michigan. I think about all of my college friends making lives for themselves in cities with grandiose opportunities throughout the country from Washington D.C. to Cleveland to Seattle, and I realize I'm content with where I am: home in Michigan. Those days in Chicago revealed to me that I am much more a country man than a city-dweller, far more a small-town boy at heart than a aspiring city yuppie.
The other day I was driving aimlessly down the winding, forested trails in Hines Park, and I heard the song "Where I Come From," by Montgomery Gentry:
"Don't you dare go runnin' down my little town where I grew up, And I won't cuss your city lights,
If you ain't ever took a ride through the heart of my town, anything you would say would be a lie".
It echoed much of the sentiment I've felt over the past two years. There's absolutely nothing spectacular about the place I grew up. It's small, a little past it's prime, and void of much in the way of lofty opportunities. But I love it that way. Over the past couple weeks, I've had the pleasure of hanging out at the hole-in-the-wall bars in my town, watching Red Wings games with the guys I grew up with.
As Steve and I drove home from that spur-of-the-moment roadtrip to Chicago, I felt some closure with Chicago. Driving eastward down I-94, the skyscrapers of Chicago growing smaller behind us with each passing mile-marker, I knew this time I wasn't going back. I don't need to listen through my laptop for Ken Cal to take me back home anymore; I'm living in those memories now.
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