As always, I headed downtown to catch the respective game-day skates, then it
was off to the locker room to chat with the players and wait for the scrums with
the head coaches. The date was Saturday April 5th and the Thrashers opponent was
Tampa. It was the same routine, but at the same time so different. This was the
final game of the 2007-08, a season that had begun with such promise and had so
many twists in turns. But in the end, it was a year that fell short of
everybody’s expectations. There would be no playoffs this season for the Atlanta
Thrashers, and that is appropriately the benchmark by which any NHL team is
judged.
So now the off-season is here, and for me that always means adjustments
and changes. This is the time of the year, for example, when my consumption of
chicken wings drops about 65 percent. Don’t ask me why wings are a broadcaster’s
staple on NHL road trips; they just are, and I’m not one to complain or
question. I just go along for the culinary ride and eat more than my share, on
the hot side thank you.
I will wake up most days in the off-season actually knowing what day it is
and where I am. During the season that’s not often the case. We don’t have a
tough travel schedule in Atlanta, at least not in terms of the distance of most
flights. What does get to be a bit dicey, though, is the frequency of our trips.
Because Atlanta is a quick flight to most NHL destinations, we tend to take more
short trips, so it’s not unusual to be in four different cities in five or six
days. Some weeks every day feels like Sunday in Newark, not that there’s
anything wrong with that.
Inevitably during the off-season I will have a dream that there is a
hockey game I am supposed to work, and I’m not there (hold your applause,
please). When I shake the cobwebs and realize it’s the middle of July, I’ll be
relieved it was just a dream, then disappointed that I’m not headed to a game
soon. Don’t get me wrong; it’s great to wind down after a long season, but
early-April to September is too long without hockey, at least for me.
As a public service, I should also mention I will get my share of time on
the golf courses of Atlanta during the off-season. I apologize in advance if
you’re the foursome of ringers I’m holding up while I take my obligatory hikes
in the woods. I’m a guy who likes my hockey up and down and my golf courses wide
open, but as the great philosopher Mick Jagger once suggested, you can’t always
get what you want.
Most of all, though, during the off-season, I will keep track of the
moves, the signings, and all the rest of the news coming out of the hockey
world, even in July. And I will look forward with great anticipation to the
opportunity to watch the promise of September’s NHL training camps unfold to
another chase for Lord Stanley’s Cup.
For the Thrashers, may the chase be long and fruitful.
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