Tuesday Night Skates with Dad
Tuesday night skates mean something a little different to every one of us at VG. Sometimes the guys showing up are former pros or college players looking to skate, avoid the nonsense of beer league, and enjoy the game again after a long layoff. Sometimes they’re so new to hockey they can barely skate. We get every kind of player you could imagine.
What I love most about these skates, though, is the chance to skate with my son.
I mostly played roller hockey growing up and didn’t switch to ice until I was 18 and could finally afford it. My son started young and is way better than me. There’s no chance the two of us would’ve been playing against each other if we were the same age, and that’s part of what makes these skates so special. We split the teams up as evenly as we can, and the really good guys spend the night seeing how many assists they can rack up, while those of us who are a little more “skill challenged” celebrate like we just won gold when we score an “ADP goal.” Side note – an ADP goal is what I call the goals I score against Brock in net. Since I do payroll at work, I’m convinced he lets me score once a week to keep me happy and make sure his paychecks keep going through. I hope I am wrong but also wouldn’t be surprised if I was right.
It can be hard to find ways to connect with your kid sometimes, and I’ve always believed sports are one of the best ways to do that. I coached him for years in other sports, but when he played hockey, he always had other coaches. I think sports teach us how to fail, how to succeed, how to think about those next to you in the grind, and how to care deeply about something even when we’re not very good at it, often without even realizing you’re growing. There’s a lot to balance with sports too with teaching kids to balance friendships, dating, sports and school. There are a million metaphors in sports, a million opportunities for deeper conversations, and constant chances to check on your teammates and make sure they’re doing okay while you’re together as well.
But what I really love is the ritual and how it brings us together.
Mark and I get our bags together in the garage, tape our sticks, decide which gloves we’re wearing, and pick a jersey nobody’s seen yet when we skate – we do it all together, talking about the day and a ton of other things. Then comes the car ride. He always has something he wants to play and absolutely has to have aux. We both love endless chirping in the locker room – I think it’s how you show your buds you love them when you can’t always say it outright. Then we laugh and sweat for an hour and forget about all the other stuff going on in our lives.
We always have to get a group shot and Mark tries to get close to me when do it and then all get back to the locker room and check the scores and slowly get everything off to head home. You hear the advice about holding onto the puck a second longer because you’re better than you realize, or the reminder that three-minute shifts in a pickup game are never okay. It’s all perfect. Its bonding time. Teammate time. Whatever you want to call it – they’re becoming less and less frequent with him away from home for college now, but they’re times that are so valuable to me.
- VGHC Dad, Mike Haydis
