1. I am very opinionated
2. I LOVE Florida...It is my home, and it will always be
3. I'm a cracker boy and proud of it
4. I LOVE nature
5. I love to kayak and hike
6. I love the South
So take those little facts and compare them to what I am about to tell you...
Prepare yourself...
...
I am a rabid hockey fan.
Yeah, that's right, you read me.
I love hockey.
Weird, eh?
You don't meet too many Southern Florida Cracker boys who have a liking of a sport played on ice. Why, do you ask?
Well..
1. Hockey is the toughest, most physical professional sport played in this nation(don't you football people give me any crap...you have lots of pads, lots of nice play stoppages, and no crazy Russians.)
2. It is by far the most culturally and nationally diverse sport in this nation.
3. The players are comparatively humble for the most part, and they do not make the HUGE sums of money that a lot of football, basketball, and baseball players make.
4. And, last but not least...THERE'S NOTHING MORE EXCITING TO SEE A BUNCH OF EUROPEANS, RUSSIANS, CANADIANS, AND AMERICANS SMACK EACH OTHER AROUND!!
So now you know something else about me that I KNOW none of you would have guessed. I can often be found early in the morning or after dark on my roller skates, with gloves and stick in hand, attempting to refine my street hockey skills that I lost a few years ago after I quit playing for a while. I would love to play ice hockey, but I have never seen ice outside of the freezer...and I have never even seen an ice rink before. I guess that's one of the few downsides to living in Florida :-D.
My two favorite players and my favorite coach. (From Left: Sidney Crosby, Michel Therrein, and Evgeni Malkin.)
5 comments:
I personally think bull riding could beat out hockey for toughest, most physical professional american sport. After all, bull riders go up against animals that are bred to be the meanest, rankest bulls in the world. Not to mention, they aren't competing against other humans, but beasts that weigh in at around ten to twelve times their riders weight, or more. There's a reason one of the promotional comercials is 'it's not if someone get's hurt, its when, and how bad'. When a broken neck is listed as a 'common injury', you know you are involved in a tough sport.
There are - or were, I'm assuming they're still there - two ice rinks in Jacksonville. I think there are about 30 or so rinks in FL.
Keep your stick on the ice.
You know, the more I think about this, the harder a time I have even beginning to imagine it. I mean, the kayaking (spelling looks off on that) and taking photos of nature that you do makes sense. This...ehh...maybe not so much. Somebody has got to take a picture of you playing street hockey, because this is just something I think I've gotta see to believe. Of course, a, did you use the term rabid?, bull riding fan in the capital district of NY isn't so common either and there is me.
paint - I will actually have to agree with you on that...I suppose I was referring to the more popular sports in America (baseball, football, hockey, basketball, soccer, racing, etc.) But you are 100% right when you say bull riding it tougher and more dangerous. I should have known :-D I'll get someone to take a picture of my showing off my mad hockey skills (chuckle) and I'll be sure to post it.
By the way, you spelled "kayaking" right :-D
Sophie - I know only of one open to the public, which is at Skate World off of I-95. Unfortunately, that is about a 50-minute drive from my house. Obviously there is the Veterans Memorial Arena, which is home to the Barracuddas, but it's not open to the public. The main reason I don't play ice hockey is that I just got too late a start (didn't start playing street till I was about 11.) Usually you need to start pretty early in order to keep up with the competition. Oh well :-(
Bull riding is gaining rapidly, surprisingly enough, in popularity. The first event this year in teh PBR's Built Ford Tough Series was in Madison Square Garden. Big time action. And apparently Chad Pennington now owns bucking bulls. It is starting to get big, really big.
And I can't wait to see that photo. It should prove interesting.
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