The Off-Season

As I sit to type this, it has been 125 long days since the Giants last played and were put out of the playoffs at the hand of the Cardiff Devils. Four mundane months I have had to mull around without seeing my team. Off-season can be such an arduous time of the hockey fan’s life. A time when he or she can get other things done. Shelves put up, creaking floorboards fixed or the hall walls that needed wallpapering since last October. As you carry out these menial but necessary tasks your mind may wander, I know mine does. It wanders to the calendar and the countdown I have in my minds eye and the thought of that “rubber biscuit” getting dropped in Dundonald.

Some lovesick person once coined the phrase, “absence makes the heart grow fonder”. This is the closest I can describe the feeling I have during the off-season of hockey. I miss the smell of my beer stained game worn jersey that has been gathering dust in the wardrobe for the past sixteen weeks. I miss the gathering of friends that normally happens in the various bars around Belfast before the traditional walk to the Odyssey. I miss the banter with the hockey going characters around the stadium that I inevitably bump into. I miss the uncomfortable feeling of the Odyssey seats as my knees rub against the seat in front. I miss discussing players with my father who has an equal love of the sport while at the games.

Above all these things, I miss the hockey. The absence of seeing my ice hockey team battle it out against another team gives me a buzz that I have yet to experience at other sports. Just before every Giants game, I feel like an over excited child with a tenner on my way to Leisureworld on Queen Street in the mid 80’s. It is this fired up feeling that makes me want to come back, it makes me want to watch my sport and it is why I’ll be there next season. Hockey season is nearly here again, bring it on!

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