giving in.

(a rambling pissed off late night post after losing a poorly played hockey game...)

every once in a while it hits me, like a ton of bricks, that i should really give up playing hockey. really. at 43 i feel like an old man out there and after games like tonight's - where i played very poorly - i want to nothing more than put my hockey gear in the closet and forget about it. basketball great charles barkley recently said during an interview that it didn't sem to matter how much he works out, he just continues to get fatter. i feel like that. i go to the gym, cut lawns, play hockey, and am as fat, or maybe fatter, than i was at the start of this year. and that hurts. if i catch a glimpse of myself naked or at the very least without a shirt on, say in a mirror or at the gym or...wherever, i want to shoot myself in the head. when people send me pictures they have taken of me at some recent event, i can't delete them fast enough. but i digress. hockey. at one time i was pretty good, or at least an asset in some regard. now, not so much. i know what should be done out there, but i just don't have it anymore. and it think a large part of that is the drive aspect. part of it, a large part - and i have said this before - is gone for good. i loved playing for thr bombers this last spring but am now re-thinking my part in the upcoming winter session. i think i'll have to drive around and think about it. cut some grass and give it real thought. maybe being a spare is a better idea, or take a season off and just go to the gym. i told corie tonight that at least on the treadmill i only have to be good for me, not the team.
i was shit tonight. i wouldn't say the reason we lost was my fault, but i sure wasn't helping the cause much. i'm tired of the infighting, the looks after i take a shot instead of passing - something i have been told to do more of, etc...i take it all very personally, even though i know i shouldn't. i think my real game is a solitary one - at the gym, riding a bike, walking, staying away from people. i may need to give into my old age, or at least my middle age.
sure, it's late, and i feel like shit and i wish things had gone better tonight, but they didn't and it's only gonna get later. i think i'll wash my gear, put it away, and forget about hockey for a while. the winter league will come along and i can revisit it then and see if i want to drag the gear out and play. and if i don't i think i'll be ok with that, and i know it will be ok with the others as well. sometimes you need to step away, know when to say when, 'know when to fold 'em'....or something like that.
i've also decided to give something else up for six months or so - mishi knows what this is - and tonight i feel pretty good about it. like it will be a cakewalk. i may even go longer than six months and se how i feel...

ok.

thanks bombers for a fun spring session. you're a great bunch of guys. i couldn't ask for a better bunch of guys to play hockey with.

g. xo