Hockey life lesson

Thursday 4/11/24

Just watched the BU-Denver game, the opener of the 2024 Frozen Four, which Denver won in OT. BC-Michigan should start shortly after 9.

This was a good game, with both goalies playing very well. I thought BU was the second best team in the country, and they may be--but anything can happen in a single-elimination hockey game.

BU carried the play for a period and a half or so. Then it flipped. Denver found their legs, BU started turning the puck over and they looked out of sorts.

Now here comes the lesson. The hockey lesson and the life lesson.

This crew of officials didn't have a feel for the game. You could tell they weren't operating with assurance. They didn't want to call this, didn't want to call that, and then when something was blatant they were thinking that they had to call it while weighing that against what they had called against one side and trying to even it out. They didn't have a confident command of the game.

BU was affected much more by this because they let themselves be affected more. I texted my mom who was watching and said, "BU is not focused. They're too concerned with the officials. Denver is going to win this."

Minutes later, Denver won.

Control what you can control. People can actually control a lot more than they think. When there's something you can't control--like the refs in a game--you can lock down the ship in terms of locating and making the most of other things that you can control. That serves to offset what is out of your control. Paradoxically, you may have the control you don't think you do, but indirectly. BU could have focused on themselves, gotten back to playing their game, cleaned up the turnovers, stopped wasting energy in protesting what wasn't getting called, and won this game. But they didn't, and they lost.

Whether you're six-years-old or twenty or thirty-five or playing in the beer league, I shouldn't see you skating towards your bench, taking your sweet time getting off the ice for a change while you throw up your arms to protest the refs.

Get your ass off of the ice and keep your head in the game. This is a hockey thing and it's a life thing.

Good game, though.