The Weight of Icy Absence

For thirteen years, hockey was my art, my freedom, my thrill. 

The world outside the rink dims to a distant hum, bringing forth a sharp clarity—a hyper-awareness so intense that stray thoughts are devoured before they can form. 

I close my eyes and can recall clear as yesterday, skate blades scything across the smooth, glistening sheet of ice, artfully toying with the puck at the end of my stick.

There’s no time to pause, no space for calculating analysis or overthinking…

There’s only split-second decisions made while in instinctual motion, surrounded by a blur of speed, impact, sweat, and the thunder of razor sharp blades slicing ice.

And at the game’s focal point:

That devilish puck—a tiny black disc containing a kind of pure, condensed chaos that every player knows intimately… A beautiful chaos that demands every ounce of skill, aggression, collaboration, and art you’ve ever cultivated.

You go full tilt or you go nowhere—hockey demands that of those who play.

Over a decade later, I remember practically everything… The religious 6am practices and countless weekends spent travelling for games… The snap and sizzle of skates cutting through ice… The crunch of body-on-body… The sound of rubber ringing iron… The collection of aches, pains, and bruises… The thrill of landing a perfect saucer pass, throwing a big hit, or scoring a much-needed goal for your team…

What I didn’t know back then was that those memories would become a wellspring of joy and sorrow in equal measure—a reminder of something I once had, and lost.

I’d known since my early teens that making the NHL wasn’t likely, and as time passed, that reality grew sharper, more certain. At age 18, I reached a crossroads.

I’d aged out of minor leagues, left with only one option if I wanted to keep playing:

For one of Vancouver Island’s Junior B teams, the Campbell River Storm.

But there was no glory there, no future—just a team with a tarnished reputation, questionable coach, and a handful of other guys clinging to the same dream I’d let go of. So I did what I thought was best. My choice was simple, if not easy.

I hung up my skates, left the rink behind, and set out to begin the rest of my life.

But sometimes the simplest decisions haunt you the most. I soon discovered that nothing gave me the same pulse-pounding rush, the feeling of living on the razor’s edge, the all-encompassing presence of the game I loved so dearly.

Nearly eight years would pass before the full weight of hockey’s icy absence settled in—a slow, quiet grief that crept up on me in the still moments. I realised how deeply I missed the grit, adrenaline, physicality, and mental sharpness hockey demanded. 

In a desperate effort to recapture the feelings I found myself craving, I explored, I searched, and I dabbled in hopes of finding a similar sandbox to play within.

The gym kept my body active and strong.

Yoga, surprisingly, brought me some of the fierce-yet-calm focus I yearned for.

But boxing was my greatest success, the ring serving as a different kind of rink, where the violent chess match could replicate the aggressive rhythm of the game. 

I was mostly successful in recapturing the feelings I craved for three months—before injury, life circumstances, and a global pandemic reared their head in unison. 

Thus, I haven’t donned my boxing gloves since 2020.

Even so, despite sharing a violent physicality and being tense battlegrounds where energy, determination, grit, and focus are unleashed, boxing was a partial remedy. 

Hockey was a portal to a kind of aliveness I haven’t been able to replicate since. 

The freedom of movement, camaraderie of teammates, physical artistry of gliding on ice, and the release of primal aggression… I’m haunted by the knowledge that in some long-lost parallel life, there’s a version of me who’s still on the ice.

While I’ve moved on in life, there’s a deeply-rooted part of me forever skating, forever eyeing the perfect shot, forever craving the rush of the game.

With love from the forest,

~ Alexander

(AKA: Wiz, WOW, and The Wizard of Wordcraft)