Hello (hockey)...it's me.

I think it is safe to assume that unless you've been under a rock or perhaps meditating in Tibet, you've heard the song heralding Adele's return: "Hello." People are obsessed and agree that every lyric on her new album describes every relationship they've ever been in. It's barely been a month and already, parodies abound. SNL's A Thanksgiving Miracle is probably my personal favorite. "Hello" totally saves Thanksgiving. 

But, this isn't really about Adele.

This is about hockey.

Old time hockey, Coach?

Specifically, the journey back. For a long time, hockey was my life. In college, I bypassed boy band posters to adorn my walls with pictures of game faces--black eyes, missing teeth, blood everywhere. My first job out of college was with the Johnstown Chiefs, of Slap Shot lore, where I met the self-proclaimed "real Mrs. Reggie Dunlop." That gig got me connected with youth hockey camps, so then I did hockey camps every summer. In season and out, I knew what players were on the move, who was up and coming, and who was on the ever growing out-with-concussion list. On deadline day, I hunkered down in my cube kind of working, but mostly watching TradeCentre. Without meaning to, I scared would-be suitors away with hockey talk. My all time favorite was probably the guy who tried telling me he played for the Rochester Amerks. Imagine his surprise when I asked him about guys I knew that played in Rochester--guys he didn't know. Ooooo. Busted, dude. Bye now. 

Hockey and I were tight. I didn't so much have team loyalty as I had good-game loyalty. Give me a good game. I want to see guts. I want to see a battle. I want to see fighting in the corner for a puck. Show me you work for it. Give me the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. Sports are the equivalent of chic-lit in my family. Forget Steel Magnolias. The ladies want sports. Give me hockey over a rom-com any day. Watching two grown men trying to kill each other for a puck is like having two knights fighting for my hand. (Okay, maybe that's a bit dramatic. But it could be an argument worthy of further exploration.)

And then one day it stopped.

Almost overnight, it was over.

I don't know who turned away first, but hockey suddenly became a stranger. I kept my distance. I was polite, but noncommittal when it came up in conversation. Maybe it was another lockout. Maybe it was the distraction of life away from hockey. Maybe it was a certain boy liking a certain girl that certainly wasn't me. Maybe it was the economy and me losing my job once every 18-24 months. And of course all of this set against the backdrop of your typical quarter life crisis. The gap between the expectation vs. the reality seemed to be an ever widening expanse. Facebook was full of coupled friends with 2.5 children and a dog. I reached the age where camp moms started asking me where my kids were. I was too busy to date and oh my gosh, now people are asking me about kids? Do I look old enough for a kid? For multiple kids? I can count on one hand the number of boys I've kissed and now people are asking me about kids? I quit camps that next summer, claiming them a thing of my 20s and relegating them to memory. Looking back, I should have quit after the camp I worked with Bill Butters. Funniest dude ever. 100% genuine. You never have to guess what he's thinking. I should have just given hockey camps a high five that year and called it a day. It was all downhill from there.

But like every downhill slide, you can't fall forever. In the midst of my hockey fervor, my dad got connected with an ECHL team as their chaplain. My mom handled the cooking--providing home cooked meals to fill their bellies while my dad did his best to feed their souls. So even while I tried to hold hockey at a distance, it was there. I couldn't completely get away from it. Because every season, I inherited 20 little brothers.

In early 2014, when a job became available in Phoenix it seemed right. And maybe this would finally kill the pull of hockey on my heart. The hockey gods had at last seen my indifference and saw fit to send me to the desert. It seemed a poetic ending. Cleaning out my stuff in storage, I found my old skates, boxed and in dire need of sharpening. I handed them to my mom and advised her to donate them to a youth hockey organization. Get them to someone who will love them. And with that, I washed my hands of hockey. It was time to move on. I started over in a new town that worshiped basketball and had little to no interest in hockey. And I was happy. I didn't even know who played in Arizona. Or who sat where in the standings. People that knew me and hockey would ask me about it and I could honestly claim ignorance. I didn't have a TV for half a season and even if I did...it wouldn't be on anyway. I avoided TSN. I avoided CBC sports. I avoided NHL.com. And Arizona made it easy.

Then as suddenly as it went away, hockey reappeared. It didn't arrive with the sounding of trumpets or the blare of a goal horn. It came with a sweet, gentle whisper. On a trip home, I noticed by skates were still there, waiting for me to fall back in love. On the same trip, my mom, my sister, my grandmother, and all the aunties went to a game. I closed my eyes and took it all in. The smell of the ice. The press of the cold against your face. The scratching sound skates make across the ice. When I opened my eyes again, the animosity wasn't as strong as I remembered it being. And slowly but surely, I felt hockey starting to wrap itself around my heart again.

Kid tested. Auntie approved.
Props to my sister's long arms and selfie skills.

After a year, I found a hockey friend in AZ. A Buffalo native, so obviously legit. Last night, we ventured across the city to see what hockey in Arizona was like. It wasn't a sellout crowd like the games I was used to back East. If I hadn't known from looking at my ticket that the Sens were in town, I would have guessed Arizona was hosting the Flyers. Or the Pens. Or the Jets. Or the Sharks. Or the Wild. I think every team in the NHL was represented at the game, as well as the Hartford Whalers and every iteration of the Coyotes' jersey in existence.

Game Recap: The fans behind us had no idea what was going on neither on the ice nor in Canada. Highlights include: "Ottawa is the capital of Ottawa"..."Quebec is the capital of Canada"...and "I've been to Manitoba." Big perk: the Gila River Arena has a poutine place and makes a home for not one, but TWO Tim Hortons. It was like I'd died and gone to Canada. The next closest Tim Hortons is probably 2,000 miles away, so I think two in one arena is only fair. It was a pretty tight game, complete with momentum shifts and breakaways and so many more things that make hockey great. There was a hat trick, the joy made complete when a fan tossed a full-on Cinco de Mayo straw sombrero frisbee-style to the ice. And one of the AHL call ups took a puck to the face right in front of me. Gosh. The hockey gods sure know how to woo me.

Wooed.

With just a few home games left before I head back East for the holidays, I'm not sure I'll see any more Arizona hockey until after the New Year. But I'll have plenty of hockey when I'm home. So hello, hockey. It's me. I've been in Arizona dreaming about who we used to be. Maybe we can make this work. Turns out that for me, it isn't over. (Continue with Adele lyrics of your choice.)