Rememberance Day -2010

It is Rememberance day - this is the first one Beth and I have not attended in person since we got married. We went out for a little walk in the Water Shed park and have just got home and are watching the service from Ottawa on the TV. I was reading my Uncle Wilfred's letters from his hospital bed in England to his Mother, last night. So sad, he was so full of hope to be home for Christmas. But the doctors knew that would not happen. In fact as we learned later from Wilfred's Doctor (who just happened to also be a Canadian, and amazingly also from Saskatoon) Wilfred had a piece of shrapnel in his heart and and it was a miracle he lived at all.

Well, since I received the shots in both knees last march, they have so much better.

I decided to give hockey (or at least skating) another try. Went down to a little rink in Delta called Tillsbury (close to where Sandra works). The manager let me go out on his newly flooded rink by myself for a few minutes - he insisted I must wear total hockey gear - which when you havent skated for a few years and are old and have peripheral nuropathy in your feet is a rather good idea.
I did notice as I was getting dressed I could lace -up my skates much easier than the last time I tried it when I was still getting the hormone shots (and the little girl offered me her mittened hand for support) - I have lost about twelve pounds since then. The skates were very cold and hard, not flexable and looked like a bit of rust on the bottom, but I eventually got all my stuff on.

So holding my brand new Super Store 8$ hockey stick firmly with my new Hockey gloves I gingerly stepped out on the beautiful glistening fresh ice- I have always loved that feeling getting out on fresh ice. The first thing that happened was my skates seemed to stick to the ice and I almost fell on my face - luckily I had the hockey stick. Then as I moved a few feet I almost fell over backword, then almost on my face again. I shuffled out to the middle of the rink and slowly tried turning, each time I almost fell, but as my muscle memory and I guess balance memory slowly kicked in I felt more confident and after about ten minutes I was actually skating and turning, albeit more like a 4 year old than a NHLer. So I packed it in for the day, but felt pretty good with the progress.

As I was leaving the manager mentioned there was drop-in hockey the next morning.

I gave it some thought the next morning, (yesterday) I had been planning to attend the church men's coffee morning. But I figured if i didnt go out with a few guys and at least pass the puck around I might put it off and not see if I could improve.

So I did go and did skate with several teenagers, I continued to improve and after about 20 minutes I was skating and shooting the puck resonably well - all in all I am thrilled - I figure a couple of more times and I may be able to go back and play with john and my old timers group.