It was March of 2020 and I was packing for a flight from Colorado to Ireland to visit my girlfriend. Yes, that does seem like a really stupid idea now, doesn’t it? We were watching the COVID-19 virus quickly spread around the world, but we were not yet worried about my visit. I was preparing to propose to my girlfriend of 8 months even though we lived in different parts of the world and knew that merging our lives would take a lot of work and changes. While we are now happily married and staying in Ireland for now, we had no idea how much the pandemic would challenge us and continues to as I write this.
This
blog series is going to tell our story since last year and the ongoing saga. Over the next few months, I will tell you
about the wild and epic challenges of travelling to Gibraltar to get married,
abandoning my life in Colorado, finding the silver lining of the pandemic, and navigating
the vast challenges of living in Ireland as a newly married couple. The story is crazy when I think about
everything that has happened and everyone we know tells us that.
I
had lived in Colorado since 1998 and had no desire to leave when I met the
woman who would become my wife. Even
now, my primary residence is in Colorado even though I cannot easily get back
there right now. My house in Pueblo was felt like the perfect sanctuary, I had
a great job, and loved playing ice hockey as a goaltender two to five times per
week. Hockey was my main passion and a
big part of my life and had no idea how much it would change my life.
In 2012, I moved up to the snowy and mountains of Colorado to work as a planner for Summit County with the plans to do a lot of snowboarding. The next spring, I was working and overheard a co-worker talking about how she needed to find more people for their novice hockey team. I immediately thought “I need to try hockey!” Quickly, I stood up from my desk and I told her that I would be interested. My excuse was that I had only played a little street hockey while growing up in San Diego, but had always wanted to try ice hockey. She told me that the season started in two weeks and that they could teach me. I committed to it on the spot and decided that I would try to learn as much as I could before the season started. The team was made up mostly of ski lift mechanics and their friends so the team name was the Mechanics with red jerseys and a skull and cross bones made of wrenches. The jersey alone made it worth it and I was looking forward to putting that on and skating out for the first time. I was joining the Mechanics hockey team of the Breckenridge E league and I couldn’t be more nervous and excited. I had no idea how this decision would completely change my life from then on.
You
are probably asking yourself, what the hell does hockey have to do with falling
in love and trying to get married in Europe during a pandemic? Ten years ago, I would not have imagined that
I would be playing hockey and meeting the love of my life while on the ice
after twenty years of trying to find a wife in every other possible place. But for now, the first challenge was figuring
out what to put on for my first game. I
looked up what gear I needed and went down to Denver to find some used gear and
hockey skates that amounted to about $180. I had not even been ice skating in a
few years, so I squeezed in about 5 or 6 public skate sessions and
“stick-and-puck” sessions in hopes that I was somewhat upright for the first
game and could at least get the puck to go generally in the direction I wanted
to. While I had watched a lot of hockey
and understood the rules generally, Youtube videos became the nighttime
training so that I felt like I had a good sense of what I should be doing with
passing and positioning.
The first game was not my proudest moment as made a human tripod and was very apologetic about not knowing exactly what to do. I fell down a lot and could only stop barely on my left skate. When I wasn’t falling down I was a statue on ice and sometimes I was actively moving. Most of my passes missed and I was pretty much useless in my opinion. Still, I made sure everyone new that I was learning and my teammates were very supportive and educated me even if sometimes they were frustrated. Somehow, by the third game along with more skating time in between games, I managed to be in the right place in front of the net and lifted a rebound off the opposing team’s goalie into the top left of the net over the blocker-side shoulder for my first goal… and the only goal that I had in my first two season of skating out. I'm the first to admit that I'm no Nathan MacKinnon and don't expect any NHL scouts in the stands. I only had one more goal about a year later but at least I got better at defense, skating up the puck and passing.
I became completely obsessed with hockey. I watched hockey with my roommate Hannah as she was a Black Hawk’s fan but still loved the Avalanche too so we didn’t have to hate each other. I played every game I could, asked for advice, practiced on my own, went to scrimmage games, and actually started to skate better. After each game, I could hardly wait for the next Thursday night so I could get on the ice. I found that the camaraderie of a hockey team was so much more fulfilling than any other sport I had played. You might go out and have a beer after the game and talk through the game or just about life. It provided much needed friendships after moving to a small town where it can be hard to meet people.
While I was getting comfortable as a winger, I told my teammates that I would love to try out goaltender sometime. I figured that I could be a backup when they needed it and was willing to learn the position. In my mind, I figured that spending my whole life playing baseball and warming up pitchers during the few seasons that I played would translate well. At the end of the third season, our team was not going to make the playoffs and our goalie had been having some knee trouble. Before the last game of the season, his knees were too sore to play in net but he could still skate out. It was a Sunday when our team manager Ty called up and asked if I would be willing to get in net for our last game of the season. I told them I would be happy too if I could borrow the goalie’s equipment and if he could help me get it on before the game. There were five days to learn as much as I could about the position. I spent every night reading up on the goaltender position and watched a lot of videos, particularly helmet cam videos so I could see what it looked like as pucks were flying at you. Just like the first time I played hockey, I was both excited and nervous.
Game day arrived and I can still remember exactly what it was like to have the goalie helping me dress out in the foyer outside the outdoor rink in Breckenridge. The skates fit just right and fortunately our goalie and I were the same size. The equipment was going to work but would I work in net?
We spent about five minutes going over tips and positioning and how to handle the stick and best ways to drop to my knees and get back up. The air was crisp as it was about 15 degree Fahrenheit as we stepped onto the ice. I immediately noticed that the goalie skates were heavier and did not move the same way as regular skates. I did a couple of laps to warm up and then got in net to take shots during warm-up. It didn’t build confidence that I missed more than half of the shots and felt like I was draped in a wet blanket that made me sweat profusely. However, the rest of the team was just happy to have someone in net and told me not to worry too much. The first period wasn’t too bad but I made an attempt to play the puck way out on the boards on the right side and quickly learned that you cannot drop to cover a puck outside of the box in front of the net. However, I quickly learned that catch pucks was like catching line drives and scooping up grounders and I started to get more comfortable by the second period. I probably didn’t see more than 25 shots and we lost 4-1 but I immediately loved being in net.
Ty, our captain was happy with how I did and
told me “you are a natural” to butter me up for the next two questions that I
did not expect. We were all in the
locker room and finished changing when in front of the team and the
conversation went about like this:
Ty: “You played well for your first time. Would you want to be our full-time goalie?”
Me: “Sure, that was fun and I’d love to be the goalie!”
Ty: “Also, I’m not interested in being the team manager
anymore. Would you be interested in doing that too?”
Me: “I’ve never done that before either but I’m up for it.”
My brain: “WTF just happened? Oh well, just act normal and roll with it.”
The summer league was a few weeks away and this meant that about a year after starting hockey, I had found a love for the game, took the first step to becoming a hockey goalie, and was talked into managing a recreational adult hockey team. It would be more than five years until I set foot on the ice as a skater as goaltending became my hockey obsession. The summer of 2014 I played as much as a goaltender as my body would allow. I didn’t care what level or what team. I would play three games in a row if it was needed and sometimes up to six or seven games or scrimmages each week. My philosophy was that the more pucks and ice time I had, the more I would improve. I was 33 years-old and thought about how much time my body would still allow me to play. Then, the death of our teammate brought everything into focus.
Aaron Davidson was only 30 when he was hit and killed on his motorcycle on July 27, 2014. His birthday was August 30th, just four days after mine. I had only known him for a year and only saw him on game days but he definitely had an impact on me in life and in death. He was a good hockey player and a good guy. Like many others on the team, he was a lift mechanic at Keystone and had known and worked with many of the others on the team for years. He was a good hockey player and gave me pointers throughout the game. I knew that when he yelled at me on the ice it was only because he wanted to make me a better player. Constructive yelling is not a bad thing in my mind when someone does not make it personal. But, yeah, he definitely would get frustrated with me sometimes. It was totally fine as I appreciated people who would tell it like it is. Aaron brought an energy with him each game, made us laugh, and all of us were devastated when he died. In early August, Aaron’s family made arrangements to hold the memorial at the top of Keystone Ski Resort in one of the lodges at the top of the gondola lift that comes up from the base area. They asked all of us teammates to wear the Mechanics jersey and most of us were able to show up. The rest of the season was tough for everyone emotionally, but we kept playing hard and felt like we needed to do something for him. We ended up going to the playoffs with a bunch of wins at the end of that summer. Prior to the first playoff game, we toasted to Aaron and wished he was there.
I left Summit County and moved to Colorado Springs to take a new job. Right before I left the Mechanics managed to win the summer 2015 championship and I felt that, as a goaltender, I had reached a certain level where I knew that I was playing well but had more room to grow. I had about two years of goaltending experience but was now playing comfortably in the intermediate leagues. It was October when I moved into a one-bedroom apartment on the Old North End catty-corner from Colorado College. I intentionally pursued this location simply because I was within walking distance of the Honnen Ice Arena on campus and only a few miles from work. By chance, a young married couple from Canada lived next door named Gill and Anil. Anil was in the Canadian armed forces and stations in Colorado Springs as part of NORAD. His wife played hockey and was in the Canadian NORAD Hockey League that played at the US Air Force Academy’s ice arena. Their season had started in September so I continued to drive the two hours each way to Breckenridge on Thursday nights until I could find another place to play.
I loved playing at the Air Force Academy arena. Every Sunday we all came to the home of the Air Force Falcons hockey team with banners and memorabilia on the wall from the decades of college team achievements. It was a great facility and I wished that I could have played there every night. Unfortunately, it was just Sundays but my motivation to play better in that league pushed me to get as much ice time during the week at the Monument Ice Rink. The manager there was and is Al Pedersen, the former Boston Bruin player who seemed to know everyone’s name and loved to help the young and not so young advance as hockey players. Once I told Al that I was up for playing as much as possible and would actually show up dependably. he would call me to sub from Novice up to B league, Friday and Saturday night scrimmages, practices, and Ironman tournaments where you play between four and eight thirty-minute games in one afternoon. In the Summer of 2019, Al put me on a team where they did not have a regular goalie and were getting outplayed by the other teams in the E league so far. I came into the locker room for The Wolves and saw a lot of familiar faces from other teams that I had played. It was an women’s team and two of the women I knew well from other teams in the past was Jen and Leah. Jen is a schoolteacher and organized a monthly “Family Fun game” fundraiser to help youth hockey. Usually on one Saturday per month, groups of people would donate a small amount of money as a game fee and come out to play a friendly scrimmage game where kids and adults who play at various skill levels. Jen was usually looking for goalies because a lot of goalies weren’t interested in suiting up for something this low key but I just enjoyed any time to get on the ice and be around some friendly people on a Saturday. It was a nice time to just practice some of the basics too.
In July of 2019, Jen sent me a text to see if I could goaltend at a game a couple weeks away in mid-July at the World Ice Arena in Colorado Springs. I said yes but there was some miscommunication and soon before the game it turned out that they did not need me in goal but she encouraged me to skate out as some of the young women who were visiting from Ireland and would be training at the Monument Ice Rink. As I was packing up my skating out gear for the day, I realized that I had not worn it since I first put on the goalie gear for the first time in 2014. Would I still remember what to do? Am I going to fall all over the place? I decided that it did not matter and it was a fun game so just show up and have fun. After re-learning how to put the gear on, I stepped out onto the ice and looked around to see who I knew. I noticed that there were some skaters who were probably the ones from Ireland but I was not quite sure. What I did not know is that one of the Irish women had seen me up close and decided I was interesting but kept it to herself at the time.
That week I played a game with the Wolves and went into locker room four in the East rink and two of the Irish players were there to play. It was a really close game where we were tied 2 – 2 in the third period when one of my teammates scored on a great shot with less than a minute left to go. The other team came back hard to our net and we barely held them off for the win. We all enjoyed the victory in the locker room with a beer and recalling the game. I noticed that one of the Irish women, Georgie, would occasionally glance over at my face as she sat across from me but would look away when I looked towards her. She was very cute but I had never talked to her. Little did I know that she was shy but very interested in getting to know me. Jen and Leah were sitting next to me and invited me to a barbecue on Friday as a going away party for the Irish players as one of them, Georgie, was flying out of town on Saturday morning. I was not sure if I had something going on Friday night or would be tired but decided that I should go.
Friday came and I drove up to Monument from work through the pleasant afternoon summer rainstorms that you get between my house in Pueblo and Monument. I brought some bison sausages for the grill, potato salad, and beer. We all made up big plates of food and when talking with Georgie for the first time I recommended that she have some deviled eggs as they are my favorite. She was a bit shy but had a nice voice and pretty eyes when they would meet mine. I was still wary as I could not figure out if she was close to my age or not. The rain started to fall as we were finishing our food so we all came inside and sat at the dining room table where Jen moved from her seat so that Georgie could sit next to me… that clever woman that she is! Georgie sat next to me and we talked for most of the next two hours and sometimes paid attention to the rest of the guests. She and I covered her childhood growing up in Zimbabwe, looked at pictures of her last time visiting there and Botswana, my youth in Boy Scouts and camping, and talked and joked about everything else. And, thank goodness she was 29 as that was close enough to my age that I really felt that this might have the potential to turn into something. We joked about how our mothers both wanted us to get married and that I would have to provide a dowry of bison to seal the deal. Bison sausages would have to do instead!
Hockey had finally brought the two of us together and we are so happy that it did. Back in 2019, life was easy and it would be easy to travel to meet up so we could get to know each other. The pandemic would make international travel so much harder and force us to make some life-changing decisions.
