Hockey Love

Growing up I was a total girly-girl.  While my sister was busy riding bikes and playing soccer with the boys outside, I was perfectly content to stay in with my barbies, cabbage patch kids, coloring - you name it, if it was an indoor activity, I was probably doing it.  My favorite part of girl scouts was the crafts.  I remember being bored out of my mind the year my sister played soccer and we had to go to the park during practice.  It's not that I didn't enjoy the park, but I was tired with it before practice was over.  I enjoyed riding my bike and roller skating, that was about it for my outdoor activities.

Somewhere along the line I surprised myself when I discovered hockey.  We were at my grandparents house for dinner and I think I was at age where Nikelodeon was too young for me, and since we didn't have cable TV, I hadn't yet discovered MTV.  There was an LA Kings game on, and for some reason I stopped and watched a bit of it.  I remember thinking, 'they suck, there should be way more goals scored.'  When we got home that night I recall watching the evening news and for the first time ever, actually paying attention to the sports report to see the final score of the game to make sure the local team had won. 

That is how it all started. 

My grandpa and I learned the rules of the sport together.  He bought me a book, we read about the Kings in the newspaper, and watched games together.  I loved babysitting next door because I could put games on their big screen TV when the kids were napping and after they had gone to bed because they had cable.  It was the 1992-1993 season and boy did I pick a good year to want to follow the sport!  The Kings went to the Stanley Cup finals but lost against Montreal.

I'm not sure if it was that year, or shortly thereafter, but the Anaheim Mighty Ducks joined the NHL and since the Pond was within bike riding distance from my house, it was fun to follow the progress of building an arena and an expansion team joining the league.  Prior to their existence I had never been to s professional hockey game.  This was back in the Kings silver and black days and there was that gang association with the jersey, I never asked my parents to take me because I figured they wouldn't, so when the Ducks came around, it was my chance to go to games often since it was about a 10 minute drive from our house.

Around 1999 or 2000 my brother was playing roller hockey when my dad came home one evening all excited to tell me that there was a women's league.  Did I want to play?  Umm, heck YEAH!  Well, I really wanted to play ice hockey but had no idea where to start and I knew it was expensive, so I figured roller hockey was my way to go.  For years I played, at one point I was even playing on three different teams at three different rinks.  Women's and co-ed, in Anaheim, Brea, and Huntington Beach.  I was playing everywhere and loving it!  I was the definition of rink rat.  I even got Adam playing because everyone knows it's way more fun to play than sit in the stands and watch.

Eventually a friend from my very first job, Jason, who also loved hockey and had started playing, started up an ice hockey team.  By this point in time I had graduated from college and was working full time so I could actually afford to upgrade and go with the more expensive version of the sport I loved.  :)  Unlike my roller hockey career, I played all my ice hockey in Anaheim at the Ducks practice facility and I didn't stop playing until mid-2010 when I had to give it up because we wanted to start a family.  I fully planned to go back after Sebastian was born too, even signing up to split a season with Adam so one of us to be home with the baby but my stupid tumor had other ideas.  My neurosurgeon very strongly advises against me ever playing again.  One big hit (even though the leagues are non-checking) or a bad fall and I could end up very seriously injured.  They're adult leagues, 98% of the players are men, so all 5"2 of me wouldn't win in a collision and the risk it too big. Now I hope I can look forward to Sebastian wanting to play hockey because I'd love to be a hockey mom.

Top row: Playing on NHL ice at the Pond (2005), Sofa Kings team (2008), final Kings home game of the season (2007)
Bottom row: Sitting on the Kings bench at Staples Center (2008), my 10-game weekend season tickets (2010)

Oh, and to bring this long post full circle, I've been a Kings fan since that 92-93 season.  :)  There were lots of miserable years, but since I followed the Kings before the Ducks even existed, I wasn't about to switch my loyalty.  This year was an amazing year to be a Kings fan too because they finally won the Stanley Cup.  I was watching and cheering (and maybe crying) the whole way, and loving every minute of it.