Collateral Bloggage What passes for thought around here…

Hockey, Ice Skating, Teach Dad?, Cashew Cream, Validation

So I was definitely rooting for USA to win that Hockey game yesterday, but I can’t deny it was an awesome game.  And I definitely would’ve felt worse for Canada missing out on the gold.

The Pancake-Eating Son has suddenly become enamored of hockey.  He so enjoyed the Winterhawks game I took him to that he told me hockey was now his favorite sport.

In fact, he told me he wasn’t really interested in baseball anymore (!) but would rather play hockey.

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I figured he should try ice skating first.  So, I packed him into the car and drove out to Sherwood Ice Arena.  (We can get there in about four traffic lights.  I love taking the back roads).

Long story short, hockey has fallen out of favor somewhat, though the boy still wants to take in a few more Hawks games.

Now, if we lived in Alaska, I’d have had the boy skating at age three or so, so he’d be like his old man and not really remember learning to skate.  And he’d absolutely be playing hockey.  It’s just an awesome game to play, and no other sports accomplishment feels as good as scoring a goal (at least in my experience).

(Confession: I’ve never relished the idea of watching outdoor hockey like my dad did so many times.)

But back to the skating.  We got there about an hour before the public skating session was over, so we got to pay a reduced price.  And we got our skates on and stepped onto the ice.  Immediately, I knew something was wrong.  The skates were too dull.  Or the ice was too slick (it had just been resurfaced). 

Or perhaps it was just that it’d been, oh, eighteen years or so since I’d been skating.  Of course, it didn’t take too long for me to get my feet under me and get a feel for how the blade goes on the ice.  I even managed to flip around backward and cross-over and stuff.  Sweet.  And I remembered how to execute a good hockey stop (spraying the boy with ice shavings).

But once I got the boy out there, he couldn’t make the transition.  And I’ve never taught an eight-year-old to skate.  A forty-year-old, yes, but more on that later.

There were tears.  And petitions that could we please go home?  But I had paid a bit of money to get us in there, so I had the boy just watch his old dad skate awhile.  Eventually he manned up and ventured out with me again, and we made one complete circuit of the ice together.  There was even some grinning.

Still, I’m not sure if he wants to go again.  But if we do, we’ll have to bring a photographer with us.

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As I mentioned above, Dad was the designated Hockey Parent back when I played.  And in Anchorage, that means outdoor practice and outdoor midweek games.  In short, it means dedication.  The weekend games, played at Ben Boeke Ice Arena or UAA were a bit easier on a parent.  But the outdoor ones made you think of “The Cremation of Sam McGee”.

One of the best parts of an outdoor game is that sometimes, Dad would take me out for donuts and cocoa after a game.  Even if we lost.  Which was most of the time.

The thing I really admire about my dad, looking back, is that he tried to learn the game so he could engage with me on it.  To the point of taking to skates at age forty-and-then-some.  I had already, with help of another friend, taught a third friend to skate (so we could play one-on-two hockey, which is awesome), so how hard could it be to teach Dad?

Hard.  Especially on Dad.  I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s still sore from some of the bruises he got.  Because ice, while being nice for skating, tends toward hard when you fall on it.  And I’m not sure we outfitted him with proper pads or anything.  Pretty much just skates.  (BTW, Dad, do you still have those skates?  I’d take them off your hands if you do, if they’d fit my big flippers.)

Looking back, it’s probably good we never tried to teach Dad to downhill ski.  Because we weren’t very good teachers.

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Completely out of left field here, but we discovered that Cashew Cream really works.  Rewinding a bit, recall that we’re a semi-veg family.  We try to eat meatless fairly often.  So we tend to give Vegetarian/Vegan cookbooks a look pretty often.  Well, one of the magical veg ingredients I saw in one such volume was Cashew Cream.  Basically, you make thick Nut Milk with raw cashews.  And you use it in place of cream.

Well, we made some pretty terrific semi-veg Potato-Leek soup (we used Chicken Broth because that’s what was in the pantry, but it’d work with Imagine Foods’ No-Chicken Broth).  The Cashew Cream worked beautifully and even looked like cream when I mixed it in. 

So now I’ll have to look for other ways to use this magical ingredient.

Kind of a long post today.  But I haven’t posted on Monday in a long time.

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And the long post continues.  Mental Floss’s Morning Cup of Links had one I had to pass along, and through the magic of embedding, you can just stay right here and appreciate it.  It’s a short film titled “Validation,” and I found it surprisingly touching.  I guess I’m just a softie.