Do the little things

A week ago tonight I celebrated the release of Seeking the Center with friends and family here in the town where I live. When I was thinking about the evening ahead of time, I wanted to be sure to thank my guests properly for all the support they've given me over the years. 

There's the support that came in the form of encouragement, and questions about my progress as I made my way through the process of researching, writing, editing and publishing. But there's also been support on a deeper level.

In hockey, there's a stock phrase - one of those hockey cliches - that is often applied to players who aren't necessarily flashy, but who are consistent, reliable, and conscientious. They are said to "do the little things." Implied in that is a type of faith - faith that those "little things" will add up to success for the team in the long run.

I'm lucky to live in a community where we're not only privileged to begin with - we are, and we can't forget that - but also, where so many are committed to "doing the little things": volunteering in the community, in the schools, and with our kids' sports teams; taking an interest in each other and looking out for each other. It's worth noting that many of us are also, in this Washington, DC, suburb, career government servants who work hard every day for the people of our country and the world.

We don't expect some savior to come in and score the winning goal off some flashy play. But we have faith that, if we all try to do the little things, it'll mean success for all of us.

In life as in hockey, true awesomeness resides in those who get up every morning, for years and years, and try to make things better, one little thing at a time. Many thanks to everyone who has helped to make this a place where we can enjoy the peace of mind to do what we're inspired to do. And let's keep trying to make things better, both within our little community and beyond.

When Girls Became Lions

I grew up female, a teenager in the late '70s and '80s. Now my daughter is as old as I was then. I'm always telling her how different things are for her than they were for me. I know it must get tiresome, maybe even burdensome, for her to hear, but I think it's important.

It's actually not that easy to wrap your head around. The deep, pervasive sexism that kept parents and teachers from encouraging girls to play sports seems so incredibly stupid in retrospect, that it's hard even for me, who lived through it, to believe. But that is the way it was.

When I was my daughter's age, there was a nominal acceptance of the fact that, theoretically, girls had the right to equal opportunities in sports. But the fact is, girls playing sports was not, at that time, a thing. Almost no girls played anything--not in my community and socio-economic category, anyhow. And no one seemed to think it was a problem. I loved watching Tatum O'Neal in the original Bad News Bears (1976)--if you haven't seen it, you should; it's a highly entertaining portrayal of how things were back in those Dark Ages--but it certainly did not precipitate a rush to get girls into Little League.

I resisted reading this novel, by Valerie J. Gin and Jo Kadlecek, because it had an "agenda." But it was interesting and far exceeded  my expectations. A good read and one that tells an important story.

When Girls Became Lions (2015) tells part of the story of how we got from there to here. Set in 1983-4, in a small Ohio town, the novel is a fictionalized account of what happens when, more than a decade after the passage of Title IX, a public high school is threatened with the withdrawal of athletic funding unless it forms a girls soccer team--something its athletic director has resisted for years. It's also the story of how, a generation later, the new coach of the girls soccer team uncovers that original team's story--one that had been purposely suppressed because, well, who cares? They're girls.

Aside from being a compelling read, When Girls Became Lions documents an important piece of women's history, the history of our struggle to get our fair share of our communities' financial and, equally important, its emotional resources.

Every once in a while it's necessary to stop and reflect on what ties us together, as female human beings, across generations. And in my case, to be grateful to those women and men who stepped up so that my daughter can enjoy opportunities that I couldn't.

What does your sport mean to you?

While writing Seeking the Center, I tried to investigate the different meanings that hockey can have for different people. If you're interested in this topic too, I recommend that you read American Indian Lacrosse: Little Brother of War, by ethnomusicologist Thomas Vennum, Jr. 

Most everyone knows that lacrosse originated among various Native American tribes. In American Indian Lacrosse, Vennum explores the significance of the game within these cultures, past and present. Lacrosse, for them, is not just a game to play; rather, it's tied to many other aspects of life. Deeply rooted in the story of creation itself, it can function as a sort of prayer for health or fine weather, a way to train for combat, a mode of resistance against colonialist powers, or a way for young people to express pride in their tribal identities.

That's not an exhaustive list, nor does it do justice to the wealth of narrative, artistic, medicinal, social, spiritual, and other lacrosse-related traditions that Vennum describes, but you get the idea. This is a fascinating account with a wealth of illustrations and well-told stories. And as a bonus, reading it just might give you a new perspective on your favorite sport and your relationship to it.

My dog-eared, post-it-adorned copy of the 1994 classic, in which historical vignettes and contemporary conversations illuminate the contexts for the Native game.

Warrior paradise

The warrior paradise...Valhalla...filled with shields and mailcoats, haunted by wolf and eagle, and provided with hundreds of doors through which the warriors...pour out...[to] an unending battle, continuing forever because those who fall each day are restored to life again in time for the feasting in the evening...*

Hockey season is upon us. We're at the moment when #IsItOctoberYet? yields to breathless bits of hockey chatter. The young prospects bent on showing what they can do, hoping to crack the opening night line-up for the first time. The veterans out to prove their continuing worth, to overcome injury or age, to bring something new this season. And always everyone determined to win: win the majority of the 82 brutal regular season games, and, if the hockey gods smile, win the sixteen increasingly-more-brutal games necessary to hoist the Stanley Cup next June. 

One might think that, after a lifetime of warfare and (most likely) a grisly death in battle, Odin's chosen warriors, granted a seat in Valhalla, would kick back, drink some mead, play some video games, and enjoy the company of the valkyries. And they do. They feast and party all night, every night. But in the morning it's back to the battlefield, where they fight all day, are slain, and then revived to party some more and fight and die and be revived, party and fight and die and be revived, ad infinitum.

It seems exhausting, right? But these hockey players can't wait to get started. They're desperate to get into the routine of the season, the flow of games, where, whether they win or lose, they're going to hit the ice the next morning to fight again. It's their Valhalla, their warrior paradise.

So, my friends, welcome. It's #JustAboutOctober. Time for us fans, too, to revive ourselves (again) for the season ahead.

*quote from H. R. Ellis Davidson, Gods and Myths of Northern Europe

Beyond a Boundary: The classic book on cricket by C.L.R. James

Beyond a Boundary (1963) is C.L.R. James's classic memoir and exegesis of cricket in the colonial West Indies. James (1901-1989), a native of Trinidad who spent many of his adult years in Britain, was involved with cricket as a player, critic and commentator. He was also an historian, novelist, cultural and political critic, and activist. In Beyond a Boundary he describes how irrevocably enmeshed the sport was in his own development, as well as in the political, social and racial struggles of his time. 

Beyond a Boundary was published in Britain in 1963 and in the US in 1983. My copy is from 1993, published by Duke University Press.

I wish I was knowledgeable enough to discuss how this has all played out in the fifty-plus years since Beyond a Boundary was published. I'm not, but I want to offer to you this statement by James explaining the premise of this book. It speaks to the roles sport can play in defining a society and the points of struggle, of contest, and of contradiction within it. 

I haven’t the slightest doubt that the clash of race, caste and class did not retard but stimulated West Indian cricket. I am equally certain that in those years social and political passions, denied normal outlets, expressed themselves so fiercely in cricket (and other games) precisely because they were games. Here began my personal calvary. The British tradition soaked deep into me was that when you entered the sporting arena you left behind you the sordid compromises of everyday existence. Yet for us to do that we would have had to divest ourselves of our skins. From the moment I had to decide which club I would join the contrast between the ideal and the real fascinated me and tore at my insides. Nor could the local population see it otherwise. The class and racial rivalries were too intense. They could be fought out without violence or much lost except pride and honour. Thus the cricket field was a stage on which selected individuals played representative roles which were charged with social significance. I propose now to place on record some of the characters and as much as I can reproduce (I remember everything) of the social conflict. I have been warned that some of these characters are unknown and therefore unlikely to interest non-West Indian readers. I cannot think so.

He was right in that. Beyond a Boundary certainly held my interest, even though its "players" were not only unknown to me (as is cricket, largely, I'm afraid!) but also long departed from the planet. The circumstances James describes are fascinating and, though intricate, they resonate widely. I learned a lot from this book.

A bit about athletes and activism

If any of my players sit on the bench for the national anthem, they will sit there the rest of the game. 

--John Tortorella, coach of the U.S. national team in this fall's World Cup of Hockey

John Tortorella is but one of countless people, inside and outside sports, who have weighed in on 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick's decision to call attention to racial injustice by sitting (or more recently, taking a knee) during the pre-game playing of the national anthem. But being a hockey fan, my ears pricked up when I heard about Tortorella's stance, and being the author of a hockey novel, I immediately tried to put myself in the shoes (or rather, the skates) of Torts's players.

It's common to assume that professional athletes--at least the ones who play in the big-money men's leagues--are privileged, and that their wealth and status afford them protection that the rest of us don't enjoy. I believe that that's true in some cases, yet these athletes remain vulnerable in other ways. 

This vulnerability is one of the themes in my novel Seeking the Center. While the story revolves around Agnes, a character who is locked out of professional hockey altogether because she's female (we're talking the mid-1990s, before the CWHL or NWHL), many of the characters are male professional players who love the game yet struggle to feel comfortable within the cultural confines of their locker rooms and leagues. 

Claude, for example, knows that he must watch his behavior on and off the ice. He's not a top-skill kind of player and he understands that he's considered replaceable. The fact that he's not white makes his position even more tenuous, as Coach obliquely indicates. Likewise, Owen's no fan of the ugly misogyny and racism that he witnesses on the ice and in the dressing room, but he doesn't feel that he has the option to speak out against it. 

These athletes are members of teams, relatively small groups of "guys" (even the ubiquitous use of the term "guys" as opposed to "men" seems to reflect something about the way they're supposed to think of themselves and each other) situated within relatively small communities (leagues) in which conformity and the financial bottom line are paramount. Positions on these teams are highly competitive and no matter how great a player's skill, his days are numbered and he is ultimately disposable. 

Deciding when to stand up and say something (or when to sit down) can be a difficult calculation, and I have to acknowledge the courage of those who take action. For some interesting thoughts on the subject by professional baseball players, check out this link.

Book Review: Killing Frank McGee by Don Reddick

Frank McGee was a Canadian hockey star during the early years of the 20th century, and, according to the cover copy of this book, “the only legitimate Hall of Fame athlete of any sport to be killed in action fighting for his country.” Killing Frank McGee is a fictionalized account of McGee's near-miraculous prowess as a hockey star (he was blind in one eye and only 5' 6" yet scored prolifically), and his considerably less extraordinary death in the trenches of France during World War I.

Interestingly, Reddick chooses to tell McGee’s story not through the athlete’s own thoughts or words, but rather through those of the novel's two narrators, Alf Smith and Billy Kinnear. The result is an unusual sort of character sketch in which the context and surroundings are clearly pictured, but the man at the center remains a bit of a mystery.

Those surroundings, though, are dense and vividly described. On the home front, we’re treated to a startling close-up of Smith, an Ottawa Hockey Club coach and player-coach whose disdain for the privileged classes (including the McGee family of which his teammate Frank is a member) is matched only by his single-minded determination to win the Stanley Cup. Through Smith’s opinionated musings, the era’s economic, social and class terrain, as well as the hockey culture of the time, come to life.

If Alf Smith shows us the Canada that created Frank McGee, Billy Kinnear, a young, sensitive, working-class man from rural New Brunswick, brings us the war that kills him. Through Kinnear, Reddick renders not only the blood, mud, stench and deafening thunder of trench warfare, but also the humanity of the soldiers who cling not so much to life, which they cannot hope to grasp, as to spirit.

Up to the moment of his death and beyond, McGee remains that mystery, that blank slate upon which we, or Kinnear, or any of his other fans and followers may draw what they will. An unusual way to portray your protagonist, perhaps, but isn't it rather in keeping with the way the rest of us "mere mortals" tend to view our star athletes and war heroes?

Wanted: pond hockey woman

Don't you love the cover of Seeking the Center? I do. It's got so much texture, with close-up intensity but also a sense of distance that pulls you in. The dark ice bristles with cold but the rosy clouds give a hint of romance, which is appropriate to the story. And it's open-ended, leaving us free to imagine.

"Pond Hockey" © Mike Wilkinson

I'm very happy with it. But it wasn't what I initially envisioned for the cover of Seeking the Center. What I wanted was Agnes in her element, dangling a puck on some frozen pond, showing off some flashy hockey moves. I wanted to see a woman, not playing a structured game in full gear, but, rather, just having some fun, outside, maybe by herself, or maybe with a friend or two. It didn't seem like too much to ask, honestly -- especially considering that the internet is absolutely overflowing with pictures of men doing these things. 

But as it turns out, pictures of pond hockey women are nearly non-existent. Don't get me wrong, I found quite a few photos of women playing in pond hockey competitions, and in college or prep school games, but that's not what Seeking is about. I came across photos of younger girls playing with their dads or siblings, and to be fair, an occasional shot of a casual female pond hockey skater over the age of 12, but there was always some issue with it -- for example, giant snow-capped mountains in the background. (Uh, in Saskatchewan? I don't think so.) Or, the woman was old enough to be Agnes's kookum. Or, she's wearing figure skates. And there were so very few of these images to choose from!

Trust me: I spent hours and hours searching on every keyword and combination of keywords I could think of. If I'd have been looking for an image of a guy I would have had dozens to choose from. But in the end I came up with nothing.

What's up with this? Do women not skate in the great outdoors? Do they just not bring their cameras when they do? Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

Attention hockey players!

Is it the use of multiple font styles and effects -- bold, all caps, underline, italics -- all in one brief message? Or is it the patient precision: do change inside; don't change outside? I'm not sure. But whatever it is, this sign, posted in a local rink, always makes me chuckle.

Clearly, trying to communicate with those dang hockey players over the years has been exasperating. We've had it up to here.

Reunion on ice

This morning I skated for the first time in way too long.

I'm a bit of a fanatic about ice skating, so when my rink closed down for three straight weeks recently--during the dog days of summer, no less, when I especially crave this "cool" exercise experience--I was crushed.

There's a bunch of us who skate early, before work. We have an unspoken pact: No matter how many times we fall, or how goofy we look trying to perfect that mohawk, we don't laugh at each other. We do laugh with each other, though, and I missed that just as much as I missed the ice.

It was fun to finally see them all again. To feel the cool air on my sweaty face and the cold, hard ice under my--well, it's like my old skating buddy Hank used to say: "Be careful out there. The ice is slippery today." 

Winter's just around the corner...! Yay!