More "I’m an Adult " Moments


I’m 24 now. This age means I’m an adult. I frequently have such moments when it comes to things related to work and life and decision making. But now the startling realization "I’m an adult!" moments come when I am reading or hearing about hockey, and somehow it seems unfair that the real world intrudes on hockey (which has always been fantasyland and an escape to me, to some degree).

Recent Moment 1: I read about Eric Lindros being an "aging star." Granted, I know all about Lindros’ injuries. I know about the concussions and how the whole Eric Lindros era never really arrived in part due to Lindros’s injuries and in part because Lindros wasn’t all he was hyped to be.

Yet Eric Lindros as an "aging star?" Sure, I was still in grade school myself when Eric Lindros was hailed as the next big thing. But I remember Lindros before he was a star and when he truly was a star and deservedly won the Hart Trophy over Jags (though I moaned about it at the time), and now he’s just an aging star? Seriously, sure, I’ve seen it happen myself, and I know Lindros is no longer the dominant physical force he was for far too brief a time.

Yet "aging star?" Good grief. If Eric Lindros is an aging star, I really am a grown-up.

Recent Moment 2: I watched Chris Pronger dominate the Stanley Cup playoffs more so than any other player (apologies to Eric Staal, Cam Ward, Dwayne Roloson, and Fernando Pisani). Maybe I was fawning over Pron ger because it’s been years since my Pens had a true number 1 on defense (apologies to the player once known as Sergei Gonchar), and I’d forgotten how an elite defenseman can influence the outcome of a game or a series. Yet, seriously, the last time (aside from the year he and Jagr were in a tight race for the Hart Trophy) I remember paying any serious attention to Pronger was back when he was Mike Keenan’s favorite whipping boy. (I always enjoyed reading about Keenan and his treatment of various players.) Of course, I was aware Pronger had since grown up and matured and blossomed into the one of the league’s finest defensemen, but he played in the Western conference, my team played in the Eastern conference, and there was never much need to pay any attention to Pronger. Save for the playoffs where I couldn’t take my eyes off him (again, I blame this entirely on being spoiled by the Murphy/Coffey years in addition to the recent AHL defense patrolling our blue line). Chris Pronger is the one with veteran savvy who is telling his younger team mates what to do? This is the kid Mike Keenan once threatened to, well, let’s not even go there? Chris Pronger is a grown-up now. And yes, so am I.

Recent Moment 3: Earlier this season, a Rangers-Penguins game was nationally televised. Mike Emerick set the scene perfectly with a "15th game in the league" for Sidney Crosby and a "15th year in the league" for Jaromir Jagr. Jagr was now the sage old veteran, and Crosby was the young kid. But wait a second. I remember Jagr. Seriously, he’s probably the first player (I was too young to remember Lemieux before his prime), I remember before his prime and in his prime. Jagr’s resurgence has left me hopeful that I can still watch Jagr play a few more good years before injuries and age seriously catch up to him. Jagr was the young, inexperienced kid who needed help from the sage veterans. Seriously. And now—Jagr’s the experienced one and Crosby’s the kid? Well, of course. But Mike Emerick, who once narrated an NHL video that included a brief 2 minute segment on Jaromir Jagr’s first 2 NHL seasons, is now telling me that Jagr kid is seriously a grown-up, at least on the ice? If Jaromir Jagr is an adult, so am I.

I could probably list more recent "ah-ha" moments where the sport of hockey further intrudes on reality. Certainly watching superstars retire and become the men who wear suits and perform scouting and general managing duties and stand behind the benches are more moments where I recognize that time has passed and is passing and will continue to pass.

For the moment, right now, anyhow, the moments are still "I’m an adult!" moments. I haven’t yet felt the "I’m getting old!" moments that I will certainly feel on the day when Jaromir Jagr hangs up his skates and goes into H ockey’s Hall of Fame or that I will feel when other players of Jagr’s generation begin to retire. I’m beginning to experience what my parents and other generations of sports fans have already grown accustomed to experiencing—they watched Kevin Lowe and Craig MacTavish play for the Oilers; now they watch them behind the bench and at press conferences. They watched Greg Malone play for the Penguins, but they know he’s now a scout. Players get old, players retire and find other things to do, sometimes in hockey, sometimes not, and my parents gasp about how old a former player looks and then my parents remember that their own children (who weren’t around during that ex-player’s playing days) are grown.

Hockey is beginning to resemble and intrude on reality and real life. Then again, maybe hockey always resembled real life. As a child, the sport is fantasyland and an escape, and most children don’t concern themselves with many of the real-world concerns of the grown-ups around them.

I’ll deal with the "I’m an adult!" moments now in my real life and in the lives of hockey players I remember as somewhat daredevil teenagers because those moments can be wonderful and reassuring. A rookie can room with Jaromir Jagr for stability and help adjusting to North America, and Chris Pronger can help lead his team in the playoffs. The moments are reassuring in that everyone, athlete or not, experiences the "I’m an adult!" moments.

As for the "I’m getting old!" moments, as my comments on the Yzerman and Lemieux retirements should reveal, I’m not as big on these moments. They make me sad, truth told. Sure, there are new things to be achieved, and maybe Wayn e Gretzky will win a Jack Adams award some day. Yet somehow Gretzky should be associated with scoring
championships. The "I’m getting old!" moments, of course, can be glorious when the kids of those professionals grow up and outperform their parents or even perform as their parents did. Of course things can be appreciated in the "I’m getting old!" moments, too, but the yearning for a past that was somehow better or superior—that should never be and too often is in those "I’m getting old" moments.

Yet I have a plan for next year. It involves flicking on the TV when Sidney Crosby lines up to face Chris Chelios. When Chelios is on the ice against Crosby and does something I don’t like—as Chelios so often does when playing Penguins stars—I’ll give Chris my usual reprimand and tell Crosby what to do to show up Chelios. But, of course, when the camera show s a close-up of Chelios’s statistics and of Crosby’s statistics, I’ll smile at both of them, and I’ll still secretly wish Chelios, still dark, mean, talented, and (yes, I’ve always thought) beautiful even all scarred up, was on my side.

I’ll watch Crosby and Chelios go at each other for the moments I have, and it will be good—and all of us, the teenager, the forty year old, and the twenty something, will be kids for a couple of seconds, and that will be nice..