Here’s my latest from nhl.com.

Can you fit a puck in your mouth? I think I still can. I haven’t tried it for a few years – like, say, fifteen – but I have eye witnesses who can testify that I definitely could fit a puck in my mouth in high school. And no, nobody forced it down my throat. It was just a friendly little competition.

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Slovakia on my mind

Last week, I was walking around an empty arena with a group of people, when I suddenly noticed a puck leaning against the boards. On the outside, that is.

I naturally jumped to the puck and picked it up. I flipped it, I smelled it, I studied the edges (Made in Slovakia), and I rolled it up and down my arm.

Then I started to look for a stick. And when I found one, in my excitement, I almost forgot the rest of the group. When I heard a few coughs and saw a couple of sideways glances to my general direction, I put the stick back, leaning against the wall, and picked up the puck.

All I could think about was if I could still fit the puck in my mouth. Well that, and how long would be an appropriate time to wait before getting the stick again.

Can you fit a puck in your mouth? I think I still can. I haven’t tried it for a few years – like, say, fifteen – but I have eye witnesses who can testify that I definitely could fit a puck in my mouth in high school. And no, nobody forced it down my throat. It was just a friendly little competition.

I just happened to have a puck in my bag that day.

I happened to have a puck with me most days. You never knew when a hockey game would break out. Right now, I have two pucks on my desk. I like to hold them, roll them on my fingers, and smell them, when I’m writing.

I wonder what it is about balls and pucks that fascinates me. A little stone on the sidewalk becomes a ball, and I become a soccer player, all the way to the bus stop. At the bus stop, I have to “score a goal” by placing the rock between the garbage can and the bench.

Any old stick is good enough for shooting. I always have to throw trash in the trash can, never just drop it. And there are different kinds of throws. There’s the three-pointer, the sky-hook, and the free throw. If I miss it, I quickly sprint to pick it up, then back up to the invisible free throw line to shoot it again.

I still kick a ball in the house. Mom always told me not to, but I did. And still do. Last night, as I was tucking the kids in, I borrowed my son’s tiny hockey stick, and shot a plastic golf ball against the curtains in his room. And the way the ball hit the thick curtain it reminded me of the way the puck hit the back of the net way back when. So I did it again. And again.

And again.

For about three years now, I’ve been joking with our neighbors that I’d like to flood our little 10 square-meter backyard in the winter and turn it into a small skating rink for the kids. I tell them that I want to be like Walter Gretzky and stand behind the window, inside, sipping my cappuccino. (I think Walter had regular coffee).

My neighbors always laugh, thinking the skating rink is the joke, not realizing that the joke’s the part about doing it for the kids. Because, yes, I’d want to be like Gretzky, but not “Wally.”

I want to be Wayne.

Game on.