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Tonight’s theme like so many of them are often inspired by one or two words that come to mind at the most unexpected times.

Normally I’m pondering what will be in the next theme the morning after I finish playing the set at the rink and tend to start with consulting the usual sources. You know the ones…Spates Catalog of Nameless Horrors or Tobin’s Spirit Guide or whatever is passing for news on the BBC or AP/Reuters news wires to see what’s going on in the music world (or the real one!) that really grabs me.

This was not one of those themes for I already knew what I wanted to play and why I wanted to play these tracks as this was the theme I’d spent a year getting ready to unleash upon the unsuspecting beer league hockey community.

What I didn’t have were the hooks I wanted to play them and that brings me to another source of inspiration and aspiring connoisseur and unabashed consumer of music. As I was driving him to school on Thursday morning and we were listening to Tuesday’s playlist (I can’t get enough of that “Inca Boogie”!), he said the word “friend” and in an instant…I had the answer of how I wanted to explore the concepts of friendship and becoming a most unlikely DJ over this past year.

An old-timer I knew used to tell his students: ‘Find something you love to do and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.’

Arthur Szathmary, Professor of Philosophy (Princeton University)

It’s something I’ve thought of often in that time in an evolution from “oh, you’re Nick’s father” with the unspoken subtext of “who he is desperately hoping you won’t embarra-blast him into the stratosphere by association!” that would occasionally come round to help him out in the booth so he could tend to keeping the score and the statistics to becoming part of the behind-the-scenes team and very quickly discovering that it’s not so much a “job” in the traditional sense but rather a labour of love.

This is one such labour I’ve not only come to really enjoy, it actually feels rather weird when I’m not making that trip to Wake Forest on Tuesday and Friday evenings to spin some tunes and tend to those tasks usually covered with the usual weasel words in standard job descriptions as “other duties as assigned”. 🙂

It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.

President Harry S Truman

What I’m about to say next might sound strange to those dear readers who have never been in the military family (whether you were the one serving or family that was observing said service) and had any experience with drill instructors but you’ll find that those of us who have would likely add “especially as long as it’s not me!”.

Attention like that in the military family often involves being invited to try to alter the Earth’s orbit round the sun by repeatedly pushing upon the surface until you hit the deck out of sheer exhaustion or performing some equally unpleasant and arduous tasks involving potato peelers or tooth brushes… 😉

So in spite of my upbringing, I would be remiss in letting this past year in the booth be finished without calling out a few who have made my time in service to the league far more pleasant and successful than I’d have ever imagined.

Miss Kristina

There’s no way I could start this without giving a huge shout-out to the delightful lady who was kind enough to share not only a not-so-spacious scorer’s booth with someone of the panoramic persuasion but also has been patient enough to share her insights and wisdom as well as more than a few laughs with some impromptu “Coach’s Corner” segments and amusing observations of the action going on in front of us.

It’s her patience whilst she was teaching me the intracacies of the scoreboard controller or the finer arts of not screwing up statistics collection to the point where I’m averaging only screwing up the fact that the teams have switched sides on the ice but not the form I’m collecting the data upon during the second period only about once or twice a night. 😉

Then there’s her in-depth knowledge of the tracks on the official MCHL playlist which in a manner of confession, I maybe recognised ten of the artists/songs on that list when I was collecting them. That list’s genres clearly a couple generations after I’d already checked out from music that was anything close to popular.

Over time, I’ve come to appreciate quite a few of the tracks and especially love those two Poppy tracks that until recently was at the foot the playlist, I’ve really come to appreciate along with some of her suggestions she’s made along the way.

Her efforts in helping me feel comfortable in the booth and training me up toward some level of competence in doing what I do is something for which “thank you” seems woefully inadequate.

Most importantly she’s become someone I admire and respect greatly and it honestly feels weird when I’m flying the scorer’s booth solo and she’s not there. Not that I have much time to dwell on it because there’s plenty of switches and sliders and other things to keep me occupied and out of mischief…mostly! 🙂

The Purveyors Of The Occasional Zebra Eclipse

One thing that became patently clear early on is that there are a lot of personalities amongst the players on the ice ranging from the impossibly happy and chill (Crusie! 🙂 ) to the more shall we say intensely competitive end of the scale.

Anyone who has the courage and/or the complete madness to be willing to go out on the ice and try to herd those cats has my undying respect.

It is not an easy job by any stretch of the imagination regardless of what sport you might well have had a whistle and the authority of the laws of the game in your hand.

I served as a referee in a church league for youth football (the real football that the Americans and the Aussies and no one else in the world calls “soccer”) for seven years and it was easily one of the most fulfilling jobs I’ve ever done in my life. I come by that honestly because my referee when I actually played in Ft Leavenworth during my third grade year was my father.

It’s often a lonely and thankless job and you’ve really got to have a thick skin to actually want to do it because it’s a rare game where someone isn’t going to be torked off mightily at a call you made…or the one you didn’t. And then there’s the spectators who can be even worse…

The thing that may not be obvious to the players in the thick of the battle is that pretty much to a person, your referees are doing their dead-level best to ensure everyone is safe and that the laws of the game are adjudicated without fear or favour and that’s not easy at the best of times in a fast moving sport.

And then they’ve got to keep track of who touched the puck on a scoring play that happens quicker than it took for me to type the first part of that sentence and then communicate it in spite of a loud environment full of yelling and music so that the stats are correctly tabulated.

If the elements and the stars align, you might have a game in which you really didn’t notice the two guys in stripes on the ice and that’s actually the way they’re going to want it because it means that they’ve gotten as close to calling the game as it should be as is humanly possible.

Then imagine doing all that and you’re the only referee on that ice to keep up with ten skaters and two goalies and all of the other nuances of the game.

The referees have been so patient with me to make sure that I get the goal scorer and assists or why the poor bloke who has just gotten sent to the sin bin is in there and the occasional trips out of the booth to discover which of the duplicated jersey wearers would like to claim the goal or assist.

When there’s a boatload of stuff going on in a stoppage of play and not much time to make everything happen as it should, that time spent to clearly communicate to the booth is appreciated so, so very much! 🙂

We’re Almost There, I Promise! 🙂

I am a child of Wednesday and if you know that old poem, you know what it can mean. But even though it most certainly has been true for large swathes of my life, I can honestly say that I look on it as a challenge to be accepted every day.

When I have the chance to serve the needs of others and in so doing make their day just a wee bit better as a result, it does so much for making sure my day is a positive one.

I genuinely love what I do and it is a honour and a privilege to be trusted to spin some tunes and attend to some of the more ministerial tasks that an early life spent as my father’s Radar O’Reilly prepared me well. 🙂

It has been a joy watching each and every one of the players growing in their skills and love of the coolest game on earth from one of the best seats in the house.

It has been an absolute blast seeing players and spectators really grooving to a playlist I had fun putting together.

And it’s the dignity from being allowed and trusted to be useful in the service of others that is what helps me lay down at night feeling “good tired” in the way Harry Chapin intended and why it feels weird on the days I’m not due to come to the rink and the scorer’s booth and once again set hands to virtual turntables or take the pen to paper.

When I see your smile when you pass by the booth whether it’s for a tune you’ve liked or just for general purposes, you have genuinely rocked my day and that more than anything else keeps me coming back for more! That is a gift worth more than all the money in the Two Worlds and one I will never forget as long as I live.

Thank you for your trust and your kindness from the bottom of my heart. 🙂

And now that I’ve finally made it through this post with a non-zero number of tears on several occasions…on to the track identification for this week’s theme which will definitely be a matter of “you’ve got three guesses and the first two don’t count” as to what it is! 🙂

Game 1 Warm-Ups

Zamboni and Game 2 Warm-Ups

Game 2

The request lines are always open and this one was requested by one of the goaltenders during the warm-ups when “Song on the Radio” was playing but he was cool with it running during the first intermission! 🙂

Post-Game