Hockey Journey: Don't Stop Believin'

Friday October 13, 2006

If life is all about the journey and not the destination, then sometimes I feel like I’m stuck in the driveway. It’s 6:50 a.m. I don’t want to get out of bed—not a major depression setting in because me and my AMHL Capitals fell to the Avalanche yesterday morning or because the NHL Bruins surrendered to the Blues last night—just because I’d rather not exercise or go to work. I get up anyway, turn off the alarm, and then trudge to the yoga/reading room. I roll out the purple rubber mat and then turn on my iPod.

The Corrs’ “Breathless” gets my legs a-jumpin’ and my blood a-pumpin’. Next, as I assume the crab pose—planting my palms under my horizontal torso and onto the mat and set my soles onto the mat so that I’m looking at the ceiling, Journey’s “Faithfully” jogs my memory banks. I recall the band’s video from the early 80s, Journey’s tour bus in a snow storm outside Denver’s McNichol’s Arena, home of countless music concerts and the Colorado Rockies, where Journey performed its greatest hits and where defenseman Mike Kitchen—the current St. Louis Blues’ head coach—spent the better part of six seasons.

“...Circus life, under the big top world… through space and time, always another show…”

Sure, “Faithfully” is a musician’s lament about struggling to maintain a relationship with his loved ones from the road. I’m glad I don’t have to do that, but I also realize that although neither the AMHL Capitals nor NHL Bruins will play today, it is a new day, another show, so to speak.

And, just like Saturday night is a new chance for the Bruins to shine, next Thursday morning, we Capitals can stop our four-game losing skid. After all, we’ll have one Mr. Hockey on the ice and another Mr. Hockey in the stands.

Until then, “Don't Stop Believin’.”