Hockey culture has many sacred elements, the things of legend that the ordinary can only dream of at night. The late nights on the bus, playing cards, having a few frosty ones. The locker room chatter, stories, and pranks. The epic on ice battles, only won by coming together as a team and struggling to victory. The legendary parties, after such games. Then there is another sacred bond held by a few beauties on the squad. These lads share in the time honored tradition passed down from the previous select few beauties. The tradition of having a chew with these select few.

Stop. This is a hockey journey, so if your not a hockey player then you won't grasp what this all means. If your a true hockey player please read on....... It's 6 AM and I wake to the nudge of a familiar hand on my shoulder. I roll out of bed, wiping the sleep from my eyes, and struggle to place my feet in my sandals. I smell the sweet aroma of bacon from the kitchen, and I'm drawn to it..

An arm hits my shoulder and I awake, my legs do not want to wake up with me. I kick my toes out as if to summon them to walk for me. Within minutes I throw on my hoodie and trackers, slip on my flippers and I begin to walk with my roomy to the rink. Practice every day, sometimes I don't feel like skating, but I want to get in the room to tell the boys about what happened last night at that party. The locker room is always fun to walk into it. I sit down with my twig and launch a plastic tape ball over at Lawsy in the corner. He chucks it back even harder. I am a 16 year old rookie playing Junior "A" hockey, and so far I'm not that homesick. Right now, this locker room is as good as home and I can;t wait to get my name up in my stall. I think I might like it here. If only I knew what lied ahead of me.

September fell upon us a few months ago, which ment all the lads were geared up rarin' to put all that off season training into action. Well 4 months has passed and another christmas will be upon us, this means the boys will be coming home to see mom and dad and the rest of the family on a short break from daily practices and games. This however is when the real hockey is being played, lord knows that every Christmas morning I have had the pleasure of waking up to open presents, eat a hearty Christmas breakfast and head to the ODR for a few hours of outdoor puck followed by Turkey dinner.

A cool winter breeze from a poorly insulated window gusted into my room, and I awoke immediately. Even with three blankets (one being wool) I still couldn’t keep warm. The old farm house was heated by a wood stove, and each morning around 7 am as the wood from the night before died out, the place became frigid.

I went upstairs as each step creaked with anticipation of the next. Once upstairs, my eyes squinted and fought with the bright light of a cold Canadian winter landscape outside. Small snowflakes fell, but I knew they would stop soon. Last night had been one of the coldest nights of the year, and I knew the pond would be in top shape. The sizzle of bacon sent crackles across the room as I came around the corner to see my mom cooking up a storm –God it smelled good. Growing up on a farm, breakfast was by far the most important meal of the day. You don't miss breakfast in this house, plain and simple. We had a farm with about 200 milkers, 50 beef cattle, and a coupe full of annoying chickens. Every morning a days worth of work was put in before most people even crawled out of their beds. After the work was done, it was time to play –it was Saturday and their was only one place to go....

During this past weekend two of my buddies and I took the Gf's out to "THE ULTIMATE HOCKEY COMEDY SHOW" at the Roxy in Vancouver. It was one of the many comedy shows going on in Vancouver for the Vancouver Comedy Festival. Since this would be my first comedy show I have ever been to, I didn't know what to expect. As we were sitting at our booth waiting for the show to start, I see a man wearing glasses walk by us and I notice that it's Mr. Brian Burke. I point him out to my buddies and we were all hoping that he was one of the guys tonight.