Feeling Guilty

Over the past couple of weeks, DF asked me if I was interested in putting on skates and helping out at the practices. I said I would be happy to, but qualified that with the fact that I am not a hockey player, I just play one on TV. This didn’t seem to matter to him, and he asked again, so I decided to bring my skates and help out at practice. As I mentioned, this didn’t go over so well, partly because of my lack of experience, but also because of my own insecurity and neurosis. I felt stupid just standing around being useless, and figured my days of coaching were over.

Well, the next practice, as I sat in the stands with the common folk, DF skated over and asked me why I wasn’t out on the ice. I wanted to say, “Are you joking?” I should have just told him that I didn’t think he needed me, I was completely redundant, but instead I came up with some stupid excuse. The point is, I felt bad, and wondered why exactly he’s asking me to help. The other coaches are all hockey players, and I felt like I was intruding on their gig. Don’t get me wrong, I want to help out with my kid’s events, but also don’t want to feel stupid sitting around doing nothing. I’d rather watch from the bleachers.

What I got from this experience is maybe I just need to suck it up and not care what anyone thinks. If I can be even a little help, then get out there and be involved, right? The practices are fast and run on autopilot, so there is little time to stall and hold things up. This makes it difficult for a newcomer, though not impossible. Another problem is that most of the kids skate better than me, so what exactly am I going to teach them?

The life of a hockey parent is not an easy one, especially when you put yourself out there, but it sure creates fuel for this blog.

Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to Kriss Szkurlatowski for the pic.