One of the last places that I ever thought might make me cry is hockey practice.
I didn't cry, but the feeling was getting close.
Kyle transferred to Drexel halfway through his freshman year. He is clearly, and I mean very clearly, at least an order of magnitude better than any other players that we have on the roller hockey team here. He had actually gone to school in Carolina first, and after a number of things basically realized that he didn't want to stay there and also didn't want to be so far away from his family. One of his close friends was killed by muggers outside of a bar within his first few weeks of going to college, and he had to come back home for the funeral.
He also had suffered a series of concussions when he was in high school. I think he said that is was his sophomore or junior year when he had a his first major concussion and was forced to sit out for a long time. He came back to play more eventually, but kept getting hit hard enough to give him minor concussions, and kept sitting out for periods of time to make sure things were healing up there. His doctors had told him that if he suffered another concussion, and especially a major concussion, he could suffer lifelong consequences from it, and some of them may be immediately apparent, as well.
One of those times that he came back -- I think it might have been his first game back after his major concussion -- was on the night of senior night, where his school was playing their rival, who apparently wasn't very good. He said that there were hundreds of people in the audience, and he ended up scoring a whole mess of goals. I can't remember exactly what he said, but at least three, and possibly up to six. He said that it was one of the best feelings of his life; not just getting back to play the sport that he loved, but also to do really well at it at the same time, and also to be doing it in front of a crowd of people cheering him on every time he got on the ice.
Earlier this year, there was a fight at our hotel when we went near New York for a tournament. A team member that I'll just call by his nickname, Beans, got pretty violently drunk, got in a tiff with another teammate named Jeff, and then demanded his keys and said he was leaving. He was clearly extremely drunk, though, and nobody was going to give him his keys. In fact, they had already been hidden. For some reason during this, though, he zeroed in on Kyle and demanded that he tell him where the keys were. Kyle truly didn't know.
I should also say that Beans is about 6'3" and maybe 200 pounds, and Kyle is maybe 5'9" and about 135 pounds. It would not be a fair fight at all. Beans can also get extremely violent and extremely angry, and he's not a weak guy, and he was very drunk to boot. He yelled at Kyle to tell him where the keys were, and got progressively louder, and then balled up his fist and raised it back and said something to the effect of, "I'll fucking kill you if you don't tell me where the keys are."
Of course, Kyle wasn't particular afraid of getting killed immediately. But he was afraid that a huge blow would land on his head before anybody was able to pull him off. If that happened, those lifelong consequences would become an immediate possibility. Somebody jumped on Beans from behind and tore him away before a blow landed. Kyle ran out of the room and came back to the room both he and I were staying in, where I was on my computer, probably bopping about or talking to friends.
To say that Kyle was not alright would be an extreme understatement. He was not alright for many hours, which is to say that we were all awake until about 2:00 AM. Beans somehow escaped arrested, was kicked off the team, and I have never seen or heard of him again.
Anyway, I'm getting a little distracted.
This Sunday, we were playing Neumann College for PCRHL. They had a power play, but Kyle, who is a great digger and very fast, wrestled the puck away from the kid and took it down to the other end. After missing a shot, he got to the puck first and pinned it against the board to kill time. Number 71 from Neumann came up behind him and cross-checked him into the boards with a significant amount of force. The referee's arm went up and the whistle blew immediately, but Kyle was already on the ground and slow to get up.
He was already a complete mess by the time he got back to the bench. It's hard maybe for other people to understand, and maybe even for me to understand, but every time something like that happens, Kyle literally sees his life flash before his eyes. Sure, the kid was not going to actually kill him with a cross-check, but he could have killed his ability to form new memories, or to recall things from more than a few minutes ago. That's just as bad as dying. So Kyle was basically have the reaction that probably anybody would have after an 18-wheeler just ran over their car and missed your head by less than a centimeter.
He left during the first period. The game got very ugly. Even I got pissed off, and I never get pissed off. I had a chance to nail the s*** out of #71, but for some reason I didn't do it. It was instinct, though I'd say that in this circumstance, it was the wrong instinct. I wish I had plowed him. I'll get another chance, though.
Someone drove his car back. Another kid took him to the hospital. He was there until about 1:00 AM. His parents came down from their house to be with him. He was cleared of a concussion by the doctors there, although a concussion doctor who was actually at the game said that he may very well have had a concussion.
He didn't come to the game on Monday.
He came to practice on Wednesday. The coach gathered us all together before we changed and said, "Kyle has something he'd like to say."
I don't remember verbatim. But he said basically, well, you all saw what happened to me on Sunday, and I think that you all know my history, and you know the way that I reacted to that and probably know why. And the truth is that I just can't let myself take a risk like that anymore. Even though it turned out okay this time, I know that it might not always be the case, and I can't take that chance. So I'm going to stop playing hockey. You've all been friends to me, and I'll still be there at the games wishing you luck and opening the doors for you, but I can't play with you anymore.
He means more than that, though. He will not play hockey again forever.
And that's what brought on the feeling. Sometimes I have these nightmare fantasies about something happening to me that stops me from doing a thing I love, like losing a finger somehow and not being able to play piano, and even that sends shivers up my spine. It's really difficult to imagine what my life would be like knowing that I could never play piano again. And honestly, even if I couldn't play hockey ever again in the rest of my life, I think I would be a bit of a wreck over that because seriously I just love to do it. And I know that however much I love it, Kyle loves it the same or more. And it really sucked to see Kyle, who I like very much, have to force himself to stop doing something that he loves for the rest of his life.
Peace out.
I didn't cry, but the feeling was getting close.
Kyle transferred to Drexel halfway through his freshman year. He is clearly, and I mean very clearly, at least an order of magnitude better than any other players that we have on the roller hockey team here. He had actually gone to school in Carolina first, and after a number of things basically realized that he didn't want to stay there and also didn't want to be so far away from his family. One of his close friends was killed by muggers outside of a bar within his first few weeks of going to college, and he had to come back home for the funeral.
He also had suffered a series of concussions when he was in high school. I think he said that is was his sophomore or junior year when he had a his first major concussion and was forced to sit out for a long time. He came back to play more eventually, but kept getting hit hard enough to give him minor concussions, and kept sitting out for periods of time to make sure things were healing up there. His doctors had told him that if he suffered another concussion, and especially a major concussion, he could suffer lifelong consequences from it, and some of them may be immediately apparent, as well.
One of those times that he came back -- I think it might have been his first game back after his major concussion -- was on the night of senior night, where his school was playing their rival, who apparently wasn't very good. He said that there were hundreds of people in the audience, and he ended up scoring a whole mess of goals. I can't remember exactly what he said, but at least three, and possibly up to six. He said that it was one of the best feelings of his life; not just getting back to play the sport that he loved, but also to do really well at it at the same time, and also to be doing it in front of a crowd of people cheering him on every time he got on the ice.
Earlier this year, there was a fight at our hotel when we went near New York for a tournament. A team member that I'll just call by his nickname, Beans, got pretty violently drunk, got in a tiff with another teammate named Jeff, and then demanded his keys and said he was leaving. He was clearly extremely drunk, though, and nobody was going to give him his keys. In fact, they had already been hidden. For some reason during this, though, he zeroed in on Kyle and demanded that he tell him where the keys were. Kyle truly didn't know.
I should also say that Beans is about 6'3" and maybe 200 pounds, and Kyle is maybe 5'9" and about 135 pounds. It would not be a fair fight at all. Beans can also get extremely violent and extremely angry, and he's not a weak guy, and he was very drunk to boot. He yelled at Kyle to tell him where the keys were, and got progressively louder, and then balled up his fist and raised it back and said something to the effect of, "I'll fucking kill you if you don't tell me where the keys are."
Of course, Kyle wasn't particular afraid of getting killed immediately. But he was afraid that a huge blow would land on his head before anybody was able to pull him off. If that happened, those lifelong consequences would become an immediate possibility. Somebody jumped on Beans from behind and tore him away before a blow landed. Kyle ran out of the room and came back to the room both he and I were staying in, where I was on my computer, probably bopping about or talking to friends.
To say that Kyle was not alright would be an extreme understatement. He was not alright for many hours, which is to say that we were all awake until about 2:00 AM. Beans somehow escaped arrested, was kicked off the team, and I have never seen or heard of him again.
Anyway, I'm getting a little distracted.
This Sunday, we were playing Neumann College for PCRHL. They had a power play, but Kyle, who is a great digger and very fast, wrestled the puck away from the kid and took it down to the other end. After missing a shot, he got to the puck first and pinned it against the board to kill time. Number 71 from Neumann came up behind him and cross-checked him into the boards with a significant amount of force. The referee's arm went up and the whistle blew immediately, but Kyle was already on the ground and slow to get up.
He was already a complete mess by the time he got back to the bench. It's hard maybe for other people to understand, and maybe even for me to understand, but every time something like that happens, Kyle literally sees his life flash before his eyes. Sure, the kid was not going to actually kill him with a cross-check, but he could have killed his ability to form new memories, or to recall things from more than a few minutes ago. That's just as bad as dying. So Kyle was basically have the reaction that probably anybody would have after an 18-wheeler just ran over their car and missed your head by less than a centimeter.
He left during the first period. The game got very ugly. Even I got pissed off, and I never get pissed off. I had a chance to nail the s*** out of #71, but for some reason I didn't do it. It was instinct, though I'd say that in this circumstance, it was the wrong instinct. I wish I had plowed him. I'll get another chance, though.
Someone drove his car back. Another kid took him to the hospital. He was there until about 1:00 AM. His parents came down from their house to be with him. He was cleared of a concussion by the doctors there, although a concussion doctor who was actually at the game said that he may very well have had a concussion.
He didn't come to the game on Monday.
He came to practice on Wednesday. The coach gathered us all together before we changed and said, "Kyle has something he'd like to say."
I don't remember verbatim. But he said basically, well, you all saw what happened to me on Sunday, and I think that you all know my history, and you know the way that I reacted to that and probably know why. And the truth is that I just can't let myself take a risk like that anymore. Even though it turned out okay this time, I know that it might not always be the case, and I can't take that chance. So I'm going to stop playing hockey. You've all been friends to me, and I'll still be there at the games wishing you luck and opening the doors for you, but I can't play with you anymore.
He means more than that, though. He will not play hockey again forever.
And that's what brought on the feeling. Sometimes I have these nightmare fantasies about something happening to me that stops me from doing a thing I love, like losing a finger somehow and not being able to play piano, and even that sends shivers up my spine. It's really difficult to imagine what my life would be like knowing that I could never play piano again. And honestly, even if I couldn't play hockey ever again in the rest of my life, I think I would be a bit of a wreck over that because seriously I just love to do it. And I know that however much I love it, Kyle loves it the same or more. And it really sucked to see Kyle, who I like very much, have to force himself to stop doing something that he loves for the rest of his life.
Peace out.
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