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I’ve always been scared that one morning I’ll wake up and never be able to score a goal again. See, that’s my trademark. More than my grin, more than the one-liners I rasp out to zing a teammate. My one-timer, that perfect shot in the wheelhouse--that’s Brett Hull. I don’t know what I’d be without it. It’s not all that I am, but scoring goals is what makes hockey fun. And hockey needs to be fun.

 

I’ve learned a lot about hockey over the years. This sport is all about continuity and flow. Fluid action, graceful skating, smooth passing—and defense may be about disrupting that flow, but a moment later you’re back to offense. And off-ice, you need stability. Your team needs to be a cohesive unit; you need to grow together. You need that connection. If you don’t have that, how will you ever find each other on the ice? Tendencies and movements, and missed passes are all about being out of sync, missing that connection.

 

Trades may jar you, but it’s a momentary thing in the flow of the league. Trades are a constant: periodic disturbances are a way of life. And if you can’t accept change, you can’t enjoy life. You can’t enjoy hockey.

 

And above all things, hockey needs to be enjoyed.

 

Oates’ trade may have been the worst. That season was the worst and the best lesson I’ve ever had in hockey. My team lost—we lost—I lost Zezel, Stevens, Oates and Sudsy all in one season. Everyone I thought I needed. Stevens is one of the scariest defenseman in the league. Few can say they had a rhythm or a partnership like I had with Oatsie. And Sutter was the best coach I ever had. For a moment I thought I’d lost everything. How could I score if Oates wasn’t there to pass to me?

 

But the next day I did, and the more goals I scored, the better my perspective became. My game didn’t disappear without them, and they didn’t disappear just because they were no longer on my team. Like I said, a friendship that can’t survive a trade was never a friendship to begin with.

 

The only thing I’ve ever needed was to score goals. Winning’s not quite as sweet without it, defense just doesn’t cut it, and the ice alone can’t give me that feeling. There’s something about scoring—it challenges me in ways nothing else in hockey can. I’m not a goalie. I’m not a two-way forward. I live and die with that puck on my stick. I’m a goal scorer. And that extends beyond the rink. Perhaps that what it is. It’s not that I’m a hockey player and hockey pervades everything—rather, I’m a goal scorer, and I approach everything in that fashion. At the end of the day, I want that responsibility. I want that glory. I want to be in control. I crave that affection. It’s a personal drive, but the rewards are communal: one rebound popped over a sprawling Czech, and the love was overwhelming. The guys, Dallas and all its fans—I’d never felt anything like it. Emanating off of them, and it was more than being proud of our accomplishment, respecting what we’d done. It was a moment that could never be replicated. It wasn’t the same in Detroit. It was so utterly different in the ways it was the same. It’s like scoring goals—it’s the same thing, same movement, but it’s different and new every time.

 

And that devotion, that fierce devotion running through everything—fan to team, teammate to teammate, player to sport. A single goal and I could feel it all. How could anyone not want to be a goal scorer?

 

And how exactly does a goal scorer survive if he can’t score goals? I have nightmares where it breaks me, breaks me to have lost this… this thing and the emptiness is too much. A part of me, and all those feelings—that passion, adoration, love--ripped away, leaving me with nothing.

 

For the most part, I’ve always been able to score a goal in the next game or two, and that’s quelled the hysteria.

 

But when Mike called I couldn’t help but think stay away, stay away, bad luck, bad luck. Terrible, right? My advice was dumb, and flippant: Just relax. It’ll happen.

 

Pushing him away to save myself, to save my game, and it was Mike’s worst season and my harshest lesson, showing me the kind of friend that I had come to be.

 

I’ve always been a son of a bitch on the ice. Slapping my stick on the ice, screaming for the puck, impatient and give me the puck, give me the puck NOW, you stupid punk, you worthless idiot, I said NOW—this is the way I operate. Elevate your game or get out of my way. I don’t have time to fight my way past you and your ineptness and the defense to reach my goal.

 

I may be an asshole, but it’s always been for the good of the game, the betterment of the team. I’m a well intentioned asshole.

 

I’ve always been afraid of losing this seemingly integral part of me. What would I be if I couldn’t score goals? Who would I be?

 

I never thought it would be Mike’s wreck of a season, his lack of goals that would force me to examine myself, look at the person that I was, that I’d like to be, that I should have been.  

 

 

 

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