So how, exactly, do we get from the boy-child’s skating lessons to me being on the ice in full hockey gear? The progression of logic is as simple as it is horrifying: Boy-child needs ice time; Skate and shoot is recommended; I should be on the ice with him and should...

Now I haven’t skated much over the years … maybe twice a year since 1995 or thereabouts, so I’m okay, but not great. I can make it around the ice reasonably quickly, snowplow stop and if you watch long enough (or possibly use a time-lapse camera) you can see me making...

Proper shin and elbow pads, plus a jersey one of the coaches gave him last week and T is starting to look like he means business. At the public skate after class he keeps his shin pads on and starts going to his knees and sliding like they taught him in class today,...

We arrive at the ice and I have him wearing his bicycle elbow and knee pads … I haven’t had time to find some for him and Play It Again Sports doesn’t have any used. Well, he heads for the far end of the ice where the highest-level group is and I think, “uh, oh … he...

In a new pair of gloves and used helmet and skates from Play It Again Sports, the boy-child takes the ice for his first learn-to-skate lesson. To my eyes, he seems to be doing okay.  Not falling down a lot or anything. After the class, he tells me he’s getting...

Forty-two years old … Largely sedentary for the last decade … Never played organized sports in my life … Raised in sunny Florida … Obviously I’m the perfect candidate to start playing ice hockey. No? Not obvious? So how did I get myself into this situation? Born in...

There's an old Styx song I've been humming a lot this week:Nothing ever goes as planned ...It's a hell of a notion ...I'm on vacation this week and had "plans" -- the plans were to paddle every morning, do several hours of paddling on different routes and be off the...