stick4stick

Flower-Gathering by Robert Frost (1913)

"You know, I think people have this idea that I was this hockey robot. And, yes, I loved hockey. I loved playing. But I was also just … a normal kid. I played lacrosse. I watched football on Sundays. I ran around the park with my friends and had fun at school and I was just me. And hockey for me was just an extension of all that, if that makes sense. It was just a thing that I loved and that was a part of me."

"But I think it’s important to not be afraid of the scars we have and how close we came. I think it’s important, as a captain, to be a human, and not just a hockey robot."

"You have to learn from the bad times. You have to take something from it.

And what I took from it was this....

I don’t want to play golf. I don’t want to sit by the pool. I don’t want to be in the Bahamas. I don’t need a break, or a fresh start. I just want to be in Edmonton, playing hockey. I want to get back there again, whatever it takes. If that sounds like a robot, then I guess I’m a robot. But I see it differently. It doesn’t feel like work to me. It’s just the game that I love. Ever since I was a little kid, it’s been the same feeling…. It’s like every time you step onto a fresh sheet of ice, even if it’s at 5 o’clock in the morning, you’re just so excited for that Zamboni to come off and for that barn door to swing open so you can hop out onto the ice.