The Day I Forgot My Pants at Hockey Practice

The Day I Forgot My Pants at Hockey Practice

I’m not sure how many times my boys have run out of the locker room or texted me they forgot some major piece of equipment before a hockey game or a practice.  I’ve raced back home, I’ve gone to the hockey equipment store, and rummaged through the lost and found at many rinks.  I’d always yell the same question, “How could you forget your pants/skates/gloves/stick…etc?!” Well on one day a couple months ago, just my second of working to become an official member of the St. Louis Blues Warrior Hockey Club, it was my turn. I got that sick feeling in my stomach my boys must’ve gotten every time they opened their bag and realized something was missing.  I forgot my dang hockey pants.

NOTE: “The St. Louis Blues Warriors are a hockey organization in the Greater St. Louis area, under USA Hockey’s Warrior program.  This program provides an opportunity for disabled veterans to play the sport of hockey, regardless if they’ve played their entire life, or never put a skate on the ice.  Our goals include expanding the support of both hockey and veteran awareness issues in the St. Louis area.  St. Louis Blues Warrior Hockey will provide an opportunity for disabled veterans to come together to support each other, enjoy camaraderie and compete against other Warrior league and charity teams.”https://www.stlblueswarriorhockey.com

I had only been to one practice thus far and then COVID hit the team and we had to take two weeks off.  I had been washing all the boys gear plus mine and somehow my pants didn’t make it in my bag and I made the same rookie mistake. I didn’t check the bag before I left at 0530 (that’s 5:30AM for you civvies) for the rink.  This was going to be my first practice with former NHL player and St. Louis Blues Alum Rob Ramage as coach.  All I knew of Coach Ramage from his playing days was him being one tough and scary dude. 

I had already stripped down to my jock shorts and had my shin pads and socks on. Also due to COVID no locker rooms, so we just grab chairs in the hallways six feet apart of course.  I’m 6, 12, 24 feet from people I have never met before.

Do I text my wife and ask her to hop up outta bed and grab my pants from the garage and hustle down to the rink? Well I probably would have if my phone worked in that hallway, but it didn’t.  I decided of course I can’t play hockey without the pants. All I had was the cargo shorts I wore to the rink. It was time to strip off the equipment I had on, pack my bag, and do the walk of shame out of the rink in front of all these vets. The guy next to me and another down the hall asked me what I was doing.  I admitted being pants less and they both said, “So?” “Just wear your shorts dude and try not to fall on your ass.” Huh.   

I thought that was silly as I would be made fun of mercilessly by people who absolutely rule at ridiculing their fellow veterans and I could not even imagine the impression I would be making with Coach “Rammer” Ramage. It’s bad enough I am a complete crap skater, but now he will see I can’t even bring my pants? I’m going to skate around in my camo cargo shorts? After these two guys assuring me not a word would be said, that’s exactly what I did. 

Let me back up and give you some context for this situation as you may be thinking, “this dude hasn’t published a blog for months with COVID, election season, and the war on police and he’s writing about hockey pants?”

First off, hockey as far as I am concerned is the premiere sport for “chirping” which is the hockey term for trash talking.  Hockey players will trash each other’s play, their wives families, and anything else that comes to mind there are very few boundaries even amongst strangers.  The St. Louis Blues Warriors are teams made up exclusively of disabled veterans. There is no group of humans on earth that can belittle their fellow Soldier/Sailor/Marine/Airman like we can.  No one. There are no limits, codes, or morals when it comes to said ridicule.  Some of us have been trained specifically in embarrassing our troops for the “greater good.” Now I’m heading out on to the ice with 40 or so hockey playing veterans and a former winner of the Stanley Cup and 2,000 plus penalty minutes with no pants on?

The coolest thing ever happened. Not one single person on or off the ice mentioned the pants/shorts situation. Not ONE. I kept waiting for it to come, but it never did.  What I did hear from Coach and the rest of the team for the entire hour were things like, “good job, great play, good pass, and hey you know how to stop…awesome. Can you teach me.” It was one of the best hours I have ever had at an ice rink and that is saying something as I’ve spent I don’t know how many hours, days, years’ worth of time I’ve spent in hockey rinks. When I stepped off the ice I knew I had truly found an exceptional group of people and an environment I could feel comfortable in.

I cannot express in words what that means to me, but I am about to try. 

Probably ever since my first few training ops as a heavy weapons troop (an additional duty not listed in the Air Force recruiting brochure for Security Police) and definitely after my first deployment I have never felt comfortable or that I could be myself, whoever that is around my own family or lifelong friends that have not served.  The longer my military career went and the more screwed up things I was called on to do, see, or not do or see, the more isolated I felt in civilian company. 

Then thankfully they took the big gun duties away and made me Management. With this new career they also handed me a Top-Secret clearance and I walked into a whole new world of nefariousness by other governments and our own that I will keep to myself forevermore under penalty of death.  I am not being dramatic here.  If I tell you one of us will have to die.  I have signed several dozens of pieces of paper swearing this statement.  Well not that I’d have to kill you, but they could definitely kill me. 

I thought peace keeping in third world countries was dangerous and evil, that has nothing on working within our classified arena between intelligence agencies and the military industrial complex. I have been ordered to lie, cheat, and steal by our good old Uncle Sam.  Then keep my mouth shut as we are fed what they need to feed us on the news knowing full well what is really happening or will happen. It’s not nearly as sexy as I thought it would be when I signed the clearance paperwork the first time.  And just like the mafia once you are in you are in.

My brain is always fighting in two directions.  Trying to act “normal” is extremely difficult in situations in a corporate job or even at family get together.  Especially before I understood I had PTSD and that took me 19 years to admit and be diagnosed.  That’s a long time to pretend to be someone you think other people want to know when you cannot stand yourself. 

I never feel completely at ease around regular people.  In my mind I am wondering if they are judging me. Can they tell how guilty I feel that I am still here and others are not? Do they know the awful things I have had to do when I had no idea why I had to do them? Have I made an utterly dark, cruel, or completely inappropriate joke or comment that would be deemed completely unacceptable in a civilized society? How do I keep those comments to myself when they are racing through my head at almost all times? They are things that active service members, veterans, and first responders only say openly amongst each other.

Since I was forced to medically retire five years ago, I have been completely cut off from any groups of people I’d be comfortable sharing those types of things with or let down my guard for more than a few seconds.  The day I forgot my pants, without knowing more than a couple first names, I knew I had found that group of people.  We’re not sitting around hashing out war stories.  We are learning to play the most demanding mental and physical not to mention dangerous sport there is. It’s the kind of activity people like us looked for when we enlisted or were commissioned.  I saw that I am not nearly alone.

A couple of months later now and my initial feeling of comfort has only grown.  We are a unit made up of a hugely diverse group of services, ranks, ages and combat/non-combat experience. Volumes are spoken between us on and off the ice even in just simple military jargon, an eye roll, or a laugh in a completely inappropriate conversation.  No one judges each other’s time in service or how well they can or absolutely cannot (yet) skate. Now that I’ve watched one of our teams play and played a game with my own team that feeling of camaraderie gets stronger by the shift (ice time). I had no idea how much I was missing being in a “unit” until our teams had to be separated and we dropped from two days of ice a week to one.  We are now back up to an additional rotating sheet of ice, but I was really upset when COVID rules forced us to split our group and our ice times together.

I look so forward to Warrior practice it’s not even funny.  Now we’re tailgating some and that has even made things more fun and easier to talk when the Zamboni machine isn’t chasing us out of the rink. I am feeling incredibly blessed at a time I was mostly angry and frustrated with the ‘Rona business and politics etc.

I am sure I have told this story before, but here it is again to illustrate somewhat how important this team is to me, not just as a group of people to feel comfortable with, but to learn to play the sport I love and respect most in the world.

We lived in Southern California until I was 10 years old.  I don’t even remember ever hearing anything about hockey until we moved to St. Louis in 1982.  Two of my hard-working drywall taping uncles got super drunk and took me to my first Blues game and I have been a hockey addict ever since. I wanted to be one of those guys on the ice so bad. They were fearless, tough, and at the same time so skilled and talented I couldn’t believe what I was watching.

Just one minor problem with me wanting to be a hockey player is that it is expensive, I mean EXPENSIVE and my parents didn’t have anywhere near the resources they would have needed to put me in hockey.  In St. Louis at that time and to some extent even still hockey was a rich kids’ sport. Which I was not by any stretch.  In fact until the sixth grade and for a long time after that I only knew one kid that played hockey for a real hockey club and for high school and he had to play for a rival high school, because ours didn’t have a hockey team.

I did find a group of Blues fans in junior and senior high that found a way to play some form of hockey at every free moment we could get together with whatever equipment we could buy, borrow, or steal. I learned to play goalie with a catcher’s chest pad and two old couch cushions duct taped around my legs.  We played on tennis courts and in the street. When we got jobs we were able to buy inline hockey skates and taught ourselves to play roller hockey. 

Not until I was at Scott AFB and much later at Boeing did I play on actual organized roller hockey teams.  Not until Ashley was old enough did I start renting ice skates and with Liz taught myself and my daughter how to skate.  Liz was a rich-ish kid and had her own skates already growing up😉.

Playing and watching hockey was a way to vent some of the frustration and pent up violence I had inside of me. Even as a kid there was plenty to go around with my parents marrying and divorcing each other twice and going to nine different elementary schools in three different states. I am not super proud of that fact, but it is a fact. Hockey by its nature can be violent and I enjoyed that part of it very much right up until my sons started playing that is.  Not until I signed Logan up to learn to skate and got out on the ice as a volunteer coach did I let even a flicker of hope in my head that I might be able to play ice hockey someday.

There are beer leagues, “Bad-Dad” leagues, and beginner leagues for sure, but they are made up mostly of guys and gals who played in high school, college, and some even professionally.  Some of them have no problem whatsoever in calling out how bad you are and go as far as to recommend you not ever try again.  Even when they tell you, “come on out we’re not that good,” inevitably I would get embarrassed and want to punch someone in the face.

I figured the kids/parent games at the end of each season for the boys would be as close as I would ever get to playing any kind of organized hockey. The thought of wearing the Blue Note was too laughable to even pop into my mind for a second. Then one of my favorite people who just so happened to serve in the same unit I retired from told me about the Warriors. She said I should come out and I felt like Charlie Brown knowing that if I went out to play with this team Lucy would be yanking the football or in this case the puck right out from under me and I’d be getting up at the crack for no reason other than to be humiliated.

She kept at me thankfully. She told me there were people who had never even put on ice skates before, much less attempted to play hockey.  She’s one of my military sisters, so I trusted her and filled out an application and at least managed to bring all my equipment the first day.  She wasn’t kidding about the skill levels. Yeah there were some college level skilled players out there, but they couldn’t be more patient and encouraging to those of us less gifted skaters.

Coach Rob Ramage must have gotten every pennies worth of those 2224 (I think) penalty minutes.  All his anger must have been left out on the NHL ice, because he is the most patient, encouraging, and dedicated coach I have ever met.  He always coaches with positivity no matter how bad we mess up.  He always has a smile on his face and even bakes treats for us to have after practice?! Never would I have imagined any of that.  I get frustrated with us and I am as bad as everyone else. I always want to be the best at what I do and Coach has taught me that even he is still learning the game after a lifetime of getting paid to play it. Slowly, excruciatingly slow, I am learning to be patient with myself and more importantly my teammates.

I never ever imagined I would be playing in a game at one of the rinks I spend every day or every other day and or weekend at for months with the boys, but I did.  And I got to do it wearing an official St. Louis Blue Note. I am being coached by a former St. Louis Blue I grew up watching as a kid (sorry Rammer I’m old not you). The St. Louis Blues have given us their symbol and name to wear. I am an official St. Louis Blue. Bucket list check mark.  I cannot tell you how awesome it feels to wear the Blue Note in a real capacity.

In a time of not being able to talk to people because of quarantine or they’re so mad at me politically we cannot talk, this team could not have come at a better time.  I already kind of isolate myself for long stretches of time due to the self-loathing and rehashing of old horrors the military gifted me.  When COVID started it got bad and I got really low not even being “allowed” to leave the house for a beer. Trying to entertain or God help me teach school to the boys when I felt like staying in bed depressed all day was torture.

For the first time ever I cannot wait to get up at 0500 hours and put on stinky hockey gear.  Gear I could have never even dreamed of as a kid. I remember sitting in class or in front of the Sega playing NHL ’94 just imagining being able to have my own hockey skates. A few weeks ago I got fitted and special ordered a pair of high end skates for my mutant wide and flat feet. I am not bragging, I am just proud I have gotten here even if it took 47 years.  I was ridiculously excited to earn my practice jerseys after five practices.  When my string of practices got held up by COVID I about had a major fit.  I could not wait to get those jerseys.  This week we get our official game jerseys which I didn’t even know we were going to get.  A special “Thank you” to those that gave to our organization. You helped pay for those.  I may skate bad, but I am going to look like a pro doing it thanks to you.

I know this isn’t my funniest or thought-provoking blog ever.  I apologize for that.  I have written quite few that were funny (to me) and extremely political.  One I even posted to Facebook but deleted about five minutes later as I could already read the nasty comments in my head that would have ensued.  People are being way too hateful to each other and I need to write something positive though a bit dark. Again my apologies.  I go dark only to show you the light this organization has brought me.

Some of my best friends and family don’t even know I have hidden them on Facebook and or Instagram, but I can only take so much before I have to shoot my mouth off over how dumb you think I am versus how stupid I think you must be. That’s just not very pleasant or helpful. I hope we can all agree regardless of which “side” you are on that American politics have reached an all time low.  I don’t care who you will be voting for in a couple of weeks, but I will question your sanity if you don’t feel sick when you do it either way.  How have our top candidates for President come to these two? We can at least agree on that right?

If we can’t agree on that maybe, we could agree that there are tens of thousands of people feeling isolated and that no one cares about them.  Many of these people are veterans who signed up to give their lives for all of us.  Some even feel all alone in a house or social setting surrounded by friends and family. They feel that way because they have been sent off somewhere their friends and family will never see and would not believe.  They have experienced things no one should ever have to experience.  We get sent home, discharged, or retired out into a world that doesn’t make sense to us anymore.

We come home changed. Sometimes we don’t even know we have changed until our first panic attack in a crowded stadium or the first time we throw up watching a bloody movie even though we’ve been ankle or elbow deep in the real thing.  We cannot imagine anyone being a “Karen” about anything. It is difficult for some vets to hear you complain about getting your bill messed up at a restaurant after they have marched through villages of starving children. You want me to wear a mask? Fine to make you feel better I will, but don’t push it. 

We spend hours and hours that turn into years being trained by the ACTUAL government experts on infectious diseases, bio-chemical, and nuclear weapons every year.  We go to the desert, swamp, jungle, mountains, and the city in a real mask.  A military issued gas mask which we have been drilled into knowing that it’s the only thing that stops an airborne contaminate. We sweat in those things for days on end waiting for someone to gas us or put a virus on us, and we wear full chemical suits we have to be able to put on in seconds in the dark.  I for one will wear your silly mask, but do not shame me or pick a fight over it, because you will receive a fight. 

See that was only quasi political and it got me mad.  Don’t even get me going on racism, oppression, and sexism unless you have served with certain allied military groups or in a country that follows certain religious laws.  They’re still buying and selling each other, openly molesting children, raping, mutilating, and stoning women.  It’s happening right in front of your troops you claim to support. If we step in or in any way try and stop it we find ourselves getting court martialed or otherwise hushed up.  And then we come home and they kick us out in to civilized society and expect us to act civilized. Easier said than done.

These are not made up conspiracies, you can Google any of them. Or I can tell you about it to your face.  I don’t recommend asking another vet about it unless you are super close to that person.

I only bring these awful things up to drive home how important programs like this hockey team are. We need a lot more of them. I am trying to tell you how special it is for me to be able to just look at a teammates face and know they have been “there.” We don’t even have to speak about it.  Around it maybe, but never directly unless we need to.  And if /when that day arrives I know I have an entire hockey team’s worth of people to talk about it to.   In the meantime we are having a blast playing hockey together and you don’t even have to wear pants.