New Respect For Hockey:

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Me and my brother Joe at St. Louis Blues game


A reader recently asked me to cover something outside of my comfort zone.....HOCKEY.

Ummm.....hockey, I wrote back.  Really?  REALLY, he responded.  I know nothing about hockey.  Don't know what a power play is, what icing is, etc.

I reached out to my friend, Dale Wiley, who loves all things sports related.  HELP, I wrote in an email.  He told me to stop by and he would give me the heads up on the sport. "You're gonna love it," he wrote.  I thought yeah, right....this girl, whose sport is shopping, ain't gonna even like it.

 As life happens, when I stopped by for my lesson Dale was out of town.  Shoot, still didn't know what a power play or icing was, but I went with my brother (full disclosure- he does know what the calls mean) to St. Louis to watch them play the Colorado Avalanche.

 I had this vision of what I THOUGHT a hockey fan was......Man, my perception was wrong! 

No brawling in the stands, just lots of people from 3 - 80 something having loads of family friendly FUN.

However, there was lots of brawling on the ice between the players.  I mean real fights on skates with thin blades.  Heck, I can't even walk a straight line in a pair of heels anymore so the players earned my respect. 

Every time a goal was scored (there were 7 for the Blues in this game) a fan in the stands riled the crowd to a frenzy by shouting out the number of goals and throwing a t-shirt into the stands.  The crowd responded by shouting back the number and grappling for the shirt.

 Cool, now I want one of those t-shirts he threw out.  I will be back to collect one of them soon.  Wonder if the team would teach me to skate?

Do you have something you would like me to try that is outside my comfort zone?  Email me at meyer_news@hotmail.com or call the paper and they will forward the message.