Auf gefrorenem Blog

Ein Hafen für das Hockey unterernährt

Die kältesten Tage wärmen gut mein Hockeyherz

The brain and heart order the legs to rocket launch into the disruptive forecheck or spirit-breaking breakaway, but in our aging elevator shaft the once smooth ride today encounters jarring turbulence around floor seven.

The good news is that there are correctives, recourses to combat nature’s cruel and uneven intrusion on our recreating. The bad news is what they are. I told Tim to cut back on weekend beers and to initiate a regimen of stomach muscle strengthening exercises that require the diligence of morning and evening execution in bed. Each and every morning and evening.

Tim replied with an electronic nod of agreement and appreciation but was still mystified at this sudden fall to perceived mediocrity. “I still run great,” he told me. But running isn’t skating. I told him of now-in-retirement Lance Armstrong’s participation in next month’s New York City Marathon. How many athletes — even elite ones — take up power skating at 35?

The cruelest aspect of this body’s insurrection against itself is that near 40 our sharpshooting and playmaking skills remain largely undiminished. Tim told me that his passing is as crisp, accurate, and productive as ever, and I told him that I am as lethal picking corners now as I was in college. In time and space we still do damage, it’s just that our escort to it now is more jalopy than Jaguar.