I miss this so much.
I've been going to the rink, skating by myself, with a puck as often as I can, but that's just treading water, really.
covering the women's team for the newspaper makes me want to be on the ice, in the locker room, so badly - we hang out outside the locker room door waiting for them to come out and you can hear everybody whooping it up, yelling, laughing, having an awesome time because that's what you do in the locker room.

I've probably been around just as much hockey this year as I ever was in any year, except maybe sophomore year when I played Team Pittsburgh, but this year I've played five games. five. the rest I've watched from the press box, which is a weird, weird feeling.
I always want to tell the girls - the girls who are fucking awesome, whom I pretty much want to be - "I play too, you know! I miss the shit out of it and I am insanely jealous that you get to be a Division I hockey player and you are awesome!"
but that's not really objective journalism.

I miss my linemates.
I saw a group on Facebook the other day that was called something like "we're not gay, we're just linemates!" and I cracked up because yep, that's Evie and Kim and me. Turbo, Zippy and Slug. my favorite line in the history of hockey (aside from Kennedy-Staal-Cooke for the Pens - in that analogy, Evie is Kennedy, Kimmy is Jordan and I'm Cooke, just for the record. we've discussed this.)
I miss just being chill and goofy with those guys, running up and down hotel hallways making a ruckus, playing three games a day and lying around the lobby in between.

I miss skating hard, shooting, handling the puck, backchecking (I'm a defensively-minded weirdo, always), having a team. I need a way to have a hockey team in my life next year like I can't even tell you.