It all started when I
was about four years old, living in Spokane, Washington. I had moved
there when I was two from my birthplace: Riverside, California (not
exactly a hockey hotbed). Within a few years of arriving in Spokane, my
father introduced the family to the Spokane Chiefs. A local W.H.L.
(Western Hockey League) team. They were young kids trying to get
noticed, they played hard, dirty, and it was as entertaining as all
hell.
My dad always tells me this story about when I saw my first Chiefs
game. "When you saw someone skate across the ice and hit another
guy, your eyes lit up, and it made you say, 'These guys get PAID to do
this?!'" He then explains how I'd run all the way across the house
and hit my brother, just like at the games. I wanted to be a Spokane
Chief. I'd late come to terms with the fact that a small, skinny, roller
hockey playing kid like myself could never play ice hockey at that
level. That sucked.
Even though I'll never fulfill my dream of being a ice hockey
player, I'm still a huge fan. My dad and I have season tickets to the
Anaheim Ducks, and I write for a sports website. I check NHL websites
daily, and keep myself updated. It's fair to say, hockey does in fact
rule my life. I play it as much as possible, I write about it, I read
about it, I even write a stupid article about it here at FartStock.com.
But that's me. I'm a hockey nut. And I'll die a hockey nut. You have the
Spokane Chiefs
and Jon
Shockey to thank for that!
