Hockey Smile

Sometimes I’m not even sure why I write this stuff. It feels like hollering into an empty canyon only to hear my own voice echo faintly back at me…anyhow, here goes for another week…

Hockey is my favorite sport. I just love it. The handful of of people in the canyon last week may have seen that. One of my favorite current players is Drew Doughty who has the quintessential “Hockey Smile”.

The front teeth are missing from a puck “incident”, and his lip droops due to nerve damage from a puck “incident”. The hockey smile! Retired Philadelphia Flyer Kimmo Timonen once said, “If you’re going to play hockey, you’re going to lose some teeth.”

Sometimes life feels like one big, giant puck “incident” to me. Recently, more so than ever. I guess I need to accept that doing the things that I do will mean that from time to time my face and a puck will have a discussion, and quite frequently the puck will have the stronger point. A player once said that they knew they would eventually lose teeth, but that wasn’t important; what was important was that you win the game. That way it wasn’t all for nothing.

Drew always has that smile going when he’s playing. He’s made the dental sacrifice, yet keeps on keeping on.

So now it’s me laying on a sheet of ice looking at what used to be my teeth. The teeth are gone, so what’s next? I guess I need to listen to a friend of mine who told me just an hour ago…

-Rise Up!!