junior hockey

A Night in the Life of a Penalty Box Attendant

Saturday night was a hockey night. Friday night had not gone particularly well for the home team. A three-minute stretch early in the third period pretty much sealed it. After that, we decided the first break past the 10-minute mark would be our time to leave. We weren’t alone. With the team struggling, the people who stayed were probably doing so more out of loyalty than any expectation that the evening was suddenly going to turn around. The coach seemed to share our assessment. At 11:00 that night, one of the captains contacted the boys and told them they needed to be at the rink to help some young kids skate. This wasn’t a few guys volunteering for a community activity. It was the entire team. The coach had apparently decided the best way to disguise his frustration with a loss was to make the boys do community service while calling it a team bonding. I respect the creativity.

When Judy and I entered the rink Saturday night, we were hopeful the boys would be a little more locked in. In fairness, the coach had been bouncing the lines around quite a bit, and the other team had gotten its first victory of the season the night before. I was pretty confident our boys weren’t going to help them make it two in a row. After I cleared the ticket check with my season pass, I was approached by the guy who was now the billet dad for our recently departed hockey boy. He had a job for me in the penalty box. He was very focused on getting me properly set up for my new responsibilities, so there wasn’t much time for conversation. He took me into a room, handed me an official game vest and gave me some basic instructions. He also warned me that the entrance to the penalty box off the ice could be slippery. This was apparently important information. I tipped my Warriors hat at him before calculating that, based on my age and my newly elevated position within the organization, I should probably use the bathroom before the game started.

The penalty box is right there on the ice, so the view is excellent. The only problem is that the home hockey boys tend to lean out from the bench and occupy approximately 73 percent of the visual field. With a better view comes greater responsibility, and I was careful to keep that in mind. I had also forgotten about the smell. From our regular seats on the other side of the rink, I had largely forgotten what comes out of a hockey locker room. Really, “smell” doesn’t adequately describe it. It’s more of an atmosphere. A heavy, humid fog of fermented effort, sweat, equipment and several things that probably shouldn’t be combined in the same zip code. I hadn’t missed it, but I recognized it immediately. There was also no bench for me. I assume this was intentional. The penalty box is designed to make the boys feel guilty about their actions. I quickly discovered there is no guilt taking place in the penalty box. There is sitting, drinking water, laughing, watching the game and occasionally wondering why you were given a penalty. Guilt was not on the agenda.

My job description was pretty simple. When a boy came into the box, I handed him a water bottle and asked, “Do you want me to open the gate or are you going to jump it?” I was relieved to discover that, over three periods, I only had to open the gate once. Every other boy cleared it easily. In my mind, this was perfect. If they chose to jump the gate themselves, I couldn’t be blamed for putting them back on the ice too early. I had essentially delegated liability. There were probably three or four guys in the box during each period, so there was plenty of opportunity to practice my gate-management strategy. I was also responsible for the replacement pucks. This was a revelation. The pucks were stored on ice in a cooler. As I thought about it, this made perfect sense. A warm puck would bounce differently than a cold puck. Why introduce an unnecessary variable into a game where near-grown men are already skating around at 20 miles per hour trying to hit each other with sticks? So every period started with a fresh puck from the cooler. We went through about four pucks a period, which meant I was basically the cold-chain logistics manager for the Oklahoma Warriors. I had not prepared for this level of responsibility.

Beyond the water and gate questions, there was very little conversation. I had been told, “If they want to talk, they will talk to you.” If I knew their first name, I used it. Other than that, I was much more quiet than usual. That may have been the biggest sacrifice of the evening. The first period was pretty uneventful. The second period got worse. Or better. I’m still trying to decide. I did go visit Judy during the first intermission. I felt bad that she had to sit alone, although she was a good sport about it. She had actually snuck into the bench area before the game and gotten a picture of me wearing my official vest. I’m pretty sure she was documenting the moment in case my new career suddenly took off.

The biggest challenge after the first period was the photographer. During the first period, I had mostly been standing at the front of the box, watching the game at eye level. Then the photographer arrived and my job description changed from “penalty box monitor” to “avoid becoming a human obstacle in a professional sports photograph.” The photographer was constantly moving around me, and the only place I could retreat was toward the stats booth on my right. I could back up about a foot and watch the game through their somewhat cloudy plexiglass. This created a problem. At one point, the photographer was snapping pictures while a Warriors player was serving a penalty. Suddenly, I heard the Rhinos making a huge commotion. It sounded exactly like they had scored a goal. I did what any highly trained penalty-box professional would do. I opened the gate. The player looked at me. I looked at the player. He did not move. This turned out to be fortunate because there had been no goal. I had simply confused excited hockey players with an actual hockey event. The player had apparently decided to save me from myself by not immediately sprinting onto the ice. That was the last time I acted on instinct. From that point forward, I committed to only responding to the referees. No more gut feelings. No more reading the room. No more interpreting crowd noise. If a referee didn’t move, I didn’t move.

The same little cubbyhole that made me think a goal had been scored also made it difficult to see pucks that flew out of the rink. Most of the time, when I handed a puck over, I received a polite “thank you.” A couple of times, I had no idea what was happening until a referee came skating toward me. That was my cue. I also pulled pucks out a couple of times when they didn’t actually need them, all while trying to avoid the photographer, the boys waiting at the door and the sticks that seemed determined to occupy whatever space I was currently using. As the boys increasingly hogged the front of the box, my available space became whatever area wasn’t occupied by a hockey stick. More than once, sticks were resting across the front gate while I was wedged into the corner like I was part of a Kerplunk game. It was an impregnable trap, but it was a battle I chose not to fight. At one point, the photographer and I nearly shared our little space with a Rhino who took a hit right in front of us. That was exciting. But the real scare came when the puck hit my empty water bottle tucked into the front corner of the box. The bottle fell over. The puck slid into its place. And for a second, that puck just sat there looking at me. It had the expression of a puck that was disappointed it hadn’t been allowed to cause more trouble.

By the end of the game, I had survived three periods, several hockey boys, a photographer, approximately a dozen sticks, four million flying pucks and one gate that I now considered a professional responsibility. And, as is often the case, the thing I’m grateful for isn’t really what I did. It’s the opportunity the thing gave me. There were the little exchanges. The thumbs-up to the kid on the bench who had just scored. The boy who came into the box and told me, “I don’t always deserve a penalty, but I did that time.” There was the player who had been suspended and got to hear me say, “Good to see you out there again!” And there were a few boys who had to suffer through my highly sophisticated hockey analysis. “You guys are looking pretty good tonight.” I didn’t overwhelm them. That would be irresponsible.

But I did take the opportunities when they presented themselves. Because of our breakfast club, I have a little more permission to talk into the lives of these guys. The penalty box gave me even more. These boys have coaches. They have teammates. They have parents. They have plenty of people telling them what to do. I’m not trying to become another one of those people. I’m trying to become someone they’ll listen to when I have something worth saying. That’s the part I don’t want to lose sight of.

The penalty box gave me a chance to hear a little more of what they were saying, see a little more of what they were feeling and have a few conversations that probably wouldn’t have happened from my regular seat across the rink. For one night, I wasn’t just a fan. I was a fan with special privileges. Would I want the job every game? Probably not. I could see Judy sitting alone for an entire season while I played professional penalty-box monitor. But I did come away with something valuable. I learned a little more about the game. I gathered enough information to continue pretending I’m more hockey-smart than I was the previous day. And if asking better questions gives me more credibility with these boys, I’ll happily learn a few more rules.

I’d do almost anything in the hockey world to gain a little more permission to speak into their lives when something matters. Referee? Absolutely not. Those guys are hated no matter how good a job they do. Although, from the penalty box, I will admit something I didn’t expect. Sometimes it looked like the players actually respected them. Of course, I’d have to learn all the rules first. And that seems like an unreasonable amount of work just to be yelled at by teenagers.

The Billet Gods May Have Made Their Decision

Our philosophy with hockey players, and any other strays who may wander through our front door, is pretty simple: If we have an open bed, you are welcome.

We don’t always know how long that welcome will last. Some boys fit into our house easily. Others discover that living with us isn’t quite what they expected, and sometimes we discover the same thing. We like having people to cook for, though, and hearing, “Wow, that was pretty good. What was it?” will always score more points than, “I only eat pizza and hamburgers.”

After the rapid departure of our previous hockey boy, I tried to process things from his side a little more. For four years, his identity had been, “I am wanted by an Ivy League school to play hockey.” When that suddenly disappeared, I could understand why he needed to make a change. I stopped taking his departure quite so personally.

Then, because apparently the best way to deal with one hockey boy leaving is to put another one in his room, NEW showed up.

Our EX, who is also one of the team captains, seems to have been keeping track of the other boys by creating his own unofficial “billet happiness” spectrum. He apparently knows which players are happy, which ones are less happy, and which ones might be one bad dinner away from packing a suitcase. When he left Wednesday evening for his new home, he casually mentioned, “I was talking to another player who is really unhappy at his billet house.” I thought, “Great. I’ll believe it when I see it.” I assumed he was just trying to say something nice on his way out the door. A little verbal reassurance that his leaving wasn’t personal.

Then he texted me the next morning. EX gave me more background on a particular player and suggested I contact the billet coordinator about him. My text to her was simple: “Yeah, we are interested if this kid is looking for a place.” Her response came shortly afterward: “This wasn’t supposed to be communicated at all.” That seemed like a strange way to respond to someone volunteering to take a hockey player off your hands. Despite her frustration, she completed the transaction. By “transaction,” I mean she sent us his paperwork and let us know we could go ahead and contact him. Her terseness left me wondering whether she was simply having a bad day or whether there was more to the story than we were being told.

When NEW arrived before dinner that night, he volunteered to fill us in on “the rest of the story.” Before he got very far, though, his previous billet’s social media post told us most of what we needed to know. He showed it to us. We don’t follow her, so we weren’t exactly sitting around monitoring the situation. I repeated my commitment to him, although this was the first time he had heard it: “Our job is to feed you well and do everything we can to make sure you sleep well.” He took that commitment seriously. Especially the sleep part. He took a few liberties with the upstairs thermostat. Those Minnesota boys would sleep with the window open in the winter if you let them.

NEW arrived on a Thursday night, which meant Friday was a home game. That meant I would be frying bacon. Or at least I thought it did. Since we had been hockey-boy-less for 24 hours, the rest of the hockey breakfast club had already made alternate plans. Once that little hypocrisy was cleared up on breakfast eve, I quickly graduated to putting a few trays of bacon in the oven after my coffee in the morning. The breakfast club showed up, ate well, and then I made another questionable decision. I mentioned the de-commitment story involving our EX to the early arrivals. Their dropped jaws immediately told me I had stepped into an unsafe place. This was not my news to tell. I swore them to secrecy and hoped the statute of limitations on being a bad breakfast host was shorter than the hockey season. The chatter was good, the boys were grateful, and eventually they all left with full stomachs and eyes that had narrowed to barely functional slits. The rapid eye movements were clearly getting close.

The final piece of the story came during the hockey game. We met our EX’s mom a couple of weeks ago. She had a gift bag for the twins at the game. I had told Judy beforehand that I wouldn’t be surprised if she brought something for the girls. She struck me as the kind of person who took care of billet parents in an above-and-beyond sort of way. We talked with her for close to an hour. Early on, I asked the simple question, “How is he doing?” She opened up and told us more than I expected. Then she dropped the nugget that connected everything. “You know my son played a pretty big role in getting you your new hockey boy.”

My eyebrows went up. She explained that the billet coordinator had told EX that we needed to reach out to her if we wanted NEW. My quick response confirmed what I had already suspected. Whatever drama the billet coordinator had been trying to avoid was no longer avoidable. Not surprisingly, she was considerably less chatty with us at the game that night.

The verdict is still out on whether this will be our last year billeting. I had already looked at a few trips for February, but those may have to wait until at least next year. Billeting can be a little like dating. You end up with someone who looks like a good match, hope you’re compatible, and discover a few things after they move in that probably should have been included in the profile.

NEW has a lot going for him. He has lots of nieces and nephews. He says he will eat anything. He even says he always cleans his plate. And then there’s the big one: he would rather pack a lunch than go out for lunch every day. This makes him a very rare find.

We didn’t swipe left or right on any of our hockey boys. They just showed up, stayed awhile, and eventually moved on to whatever came next. We weren’t a great fit for our EX. He was dealing with his own stuff, and we were dealing with ours. But somewhere along the way, he decided we were a good, stable place for another kid. So he did a little greasing of the skids on his way out.

I kind of like that. The boy who left our house may have helped us find the boy who replaced him. Maybe that’s how this whole billet thing is supposed to work. You open a door for one kid, learn a few things, occasionally buy 47 pounds of food that nobody eats, and eventually another kid walks through the same door.

We still don’t know if NEW will be a keeper. For now, he eats what we eat, cleans his plate, wants to pack his lunch, has his own upstairs bedroom, and apparently sleeps well enough to keep the thermostat company.

After everything that happened this week, I’m willing to let the billet gods have the final say. So far, they seem to be saying, “Keep this one.”

The Hockey House Is Cursed

Sometimes, when you’re writing something, you get the feeling the end hasn’t happened yet. As I was writing my most recent hockey installment, that is how I felt. It just seemed like there were a couple of threads that hadn’t quite finished unraveling. My intuition isn’t always right, but when it comes to hockey boys, I seem to have developed a pretty good feel for when the next shoe is about to drop.

Our newest hockey boy has been with us for two weeks yesterday. While that easily works out to 14 days, he has not actually been here for 14 days. Less than a week after he arrived, he left for Minnesota for the NAHL Showcase. With driving time included, they were gone for more than five days. Now that the season is getting into full gear, the volunteering has started to kick in, too. So, while we have been a place for his stuff for two weeks, Judy and I have had exactly one true sit-down meal with him. Apparently, we are running a hockey-themed storage facility with occasional breakfast service.

Three weeks ago, our present hockey player was a potential captain of his NAHL team. He had what he thought was a good relationship with his coach, and he was excited about the season. He had been committed to an Ivy League school for almost four years, and even though there had been a coaching change at the school, he was excited to finish this season and start that part of his life. Then life decided it had other plans. He was traded more than two weeks ago, completely out of the blue. Then he caught a stick in the eye and needed stitches. If the stick had hit him just a little lower, it could have blinded him. So, even though the rules don’t require it, he wears a full mask instead of just a visor when he plays. Then he got stuck living with us and our somewhat boring form of existence.

Until this past weekend, he at least had a buddy at our house. That “buddy” told the coach he wanted to be traded over the weekend and left first thing Sunday morning. While our current boy had already started connecting with the other guys, that accelerated the process. Then came Tuesday’s big bomb. The Ivy League coach de-committed him. In English, he won’t be going to that school to play hockey. If he wants to play hockey in college, he and his advisor now have to start from scratch to find the right school. And he had nobody at our house to really discuss it with beyond Judy and me. With our exposure to hockey only beginning when we started billeting seven years ago, I’m not sure we were equipped to provide the kind of support he needed.

On the good side of the equation, he has played a lot of games in the NAHL, and he continues to get opportunities here. He was selected as one of the captains earlier this week. In only two weeks, he has established himself as an important part of the team. His coach let him know he has his back and won’t let him finish his junior hockey career without a D1 commitment. So, after getting the news, he let us know he was going to hang out with one of his hockey buddies for the evening. That eventually evolved into, “I’m just going to go ahead and spend the night at his place.” This is where the previous version of this tale ended. Except, apparently, it wasn’t the end.

There were clues that things were moving toward us having an empty house. The night before, I received a text from the man who is now the “billet dad.” He texted me, “I contacted the coach about him staying the night. The coach said it was fine.” I knew he was spending the night at the other house, but getting the coach involved did escalate the possibility that their house might become the permanent solution. Then there was the sausage. When I was at the store yesterday, I was picking up a few things to make sure my daughter’s family had some variety for dinner. I already had regular andouille sausage at the house. But knowing our billet boy might eat some, I grabbed turkey sausage as a substitute. As I put it in the cart, I actually asked myself, “Will it even matter?” At the time, I thought I was wondering whether he would eat any of it. Looking back, I think part of me was already assembling the evidence. Turkey sausage may have been my subconscious filing a missing-person report.

Since then, I received a call mid-afternoon from the billet coordinator. There was a poor attempt at small talk before I finally asked, “Good news or bad news?” Good news would have translated into finding out whether a new player was a fit for our house. Bad news would involve a player leaving. My pause earlier in the day suddenly seemed a little more prophetic. Judy doesn’t remember me mentioning it to her, but maybe she wasn’t paying close attention. “Well, it does seem like your house is cursed. With the news he has gotten lately, the coach thinks he should have a house where he has a buddy.”, said the billet coordinator. And so it went. We were told we had done nothing wrong, and I said our only concern with him was the pork allergy. It was cordial. Nobody was mad. Nobody was blaming anybody. But I can’t lie. It hurts a little.

Presently, we still plan on having our breakfast on game-day Friday. But if there are no replacement boys in the house two weeks from now, Judy has already said she doesn’t want to do it anymore. And I get it. After being assigned five boys and losing all five, it starts to feel like we are the hockey version of the last apartment available after the good ones have been rented. We have had some fine young men in our house. But based on the coaches’ evaluations, more than half of them weren’t good enough to play hockey for him. The other one didn’t get enough playing time, and the one who hasn’t quite cleared out his stuff yet wants a house with a buddy.

I understand that not all houses are for all hockey boys. Our tolerance for some qualities probably isn’t as high as it is at other houses. If we are rejected for that reason, I can take it. There are worse things than finding out that your house isn’t the right fit for a teenage hockey player. There are also fewer teenagers involved.

If this stretches out for too long, we can start planning our lives a little differently. Judy wanted to take a cruise this winter. If we go too many weeks without boys, it will allow me to start thinking we are ready to retire from the chaos and planning they bring into our lives. We can still go to all the games if we want. It is just different when you are watching games where it isn’t “our” boy or boys playing. If I don’t feel invested in the players, it is hard to feel invested in the whole hockey package.

After losing five kids, I am very jaded. Getting emotionally involved with another kid takes effort. Last year was easy compared to this. We had one boy for the whole season, and the other two split the season. Three kids. Very manageable. This year, we have already exceeded that, and we aren’t even six weeks into the season. So, if it seems like my opinion of billeting hockey boys has flipped to a “no” vote, it isn’t far off.

When things go smoothly, or at least have some amount of stability, it really isn’t a bad gig. I enjoy ratcheting my age back a few years and talking strategy and life with the boys. There is something pretty cool about having a teenager sitting at the kitchen counter one minute talking about hockey and the next minute asking you about life. But when they move on so quickly, the effort just barely outweighs the “Why bother?”

Tomorrow, my opinion may change. I know myself well enough to understand that another hockey boy could walk through our door, fit into the house, eat my food, make us laugh, and completely ruin this carefully constructed argument. Right now, though, it would have to be a pretty good fit to convince me to disrupt our lives again.

Next year was going to be our last year anyway. Maybe we are just meant to bow out a little sooner. It seems our kids and grandkids need us more than the local NAHL team does this year.

You Never Know What’s Around the Next Bend

Before leaving for Saturday’s walk, I had to outwait the rain. There are big promises in the coming days, and this little spritz this morning was just supposed to whet our appetites. I opted to finish up the French toast in the fridge rather than make whole-wheat toast. There is an equation I will likely need some AI help with: What is the necessary ratio of eating leftover food to making new food? Is there a variable for the number of participants on both the front end and back end of the equation? These are the questions that matter when you’re retired. I filled my wife’s coffee and heated the full cup for 30 seconds without adding any milk. No further barriers prevented me from leaving.

Before I reached the park to do my handful of laps, a car pulled to the curb right beside me. “Have you seen any dogs running around?” I hadn’t, so I replied accordingly. I thought it was wise that she hadn’t asked about a particular breed or flashed a poster at me. Maybe these dogs sneak under the fence or escape through the gate often. Getting too specific with people who aren’t dog people might result in a blank stare. This wasn’t her first dog-tracking rodeo.

As I entered my circular path, I painted a target on the backs of the two people ahead of me. I assumed they were mom and son. The target was figurative, although my competitive walking brain doesn’t always understand that distinction. When I’m walking solo, I choose my pace based on a complicated formula involving humidity, temperature and the intensity of my plantar fasciitis. When I share the path, I shift into high gear. I’d rather they eat my figurative dust than I eat theirs. Any pain I feel is secondary.

The first time I passed them was near the playground, where the dad and two other sons were “family-ing.” The next time I passed the playground, my lead was well established, and the youngest son, probably six, had just exclaimed, “I landed on my feet!” All the clues pointed to this being the first time he had let go of the swing chains and received a 10 from all of the judges. I didn’t stop to congratulate him, but I was rooting for the kid.

The rest of my interaction with the family was a little darker. As I wandered the path counterclockwise in my wide-brimmed hat and dark sunglasses, the young son separated from his two siblings and his parents. This put me between the parents and their impish child for most of a rotation. They yelled at him repeatedly, apparently trying to keep him from doing too much more wandering. The one time I passed him, I didn’t make faces or give him “cat claws.” I gave him an innocent smile that was mostly obscured by the hat. I’ve decided it’s best to save my scary faces for people who know I’m messing with them rather than unleashing them on complete strangers.

When I got back to the house, a quick look at my iPhone showed my wife was playing grandma at my daughter’s house. I hopped on my computer, where I was soon greeted by a text from our remaining “original” hockey player. He had requested a trade. He had done this earlier in the week, but the coach had talked him off the ledge. The coach’s recommendation was to wait two weeks and see how he felt. Apparently, two weeks had become an unnecessarily long period of time.

The request to help move the playhouse sitting on our front porch, acquired on a big-item trash day, to our daughter’s house for Ellie was denied. It sounds like he’ll be packing up and leaving immediately after they return from Minnesota tomorrow morning. So much for the playhouse.

I passed the unfortunate information on to my wife and the billet coordinator. Judy said, “Too bad!” The billet coordinator let me know there were a few people ahead of us on the “empty bed” list. I teased the coordinator, “Is our house cursed?” It isn’t, but it feels that way sometimes. Of our first three boys, two were brothers who wanted to stay together. Then we got the veteran who didn’t get as much playing time as he wanted last year and is now waiting on a trade. Our willingness to be flexible about which boys we received is probably part of the reason we’re down to one boy right now. Yes, I’m a little jealous of the houses with multiple boys who are getting plenty of playing time. On the positive side, we do have one boy the coach seems to like. He just can’t eat pork.

At some point, you have to laugh. The morning had started with a little rain, some leftover French toast and a walk where my biggest concern was whether I could pass a family before they reached the next turn. A couple of hours later, our billet situation had changed again. That’s life lately. I keep thinking I’m getting a glimpse of what the next few days will look like, and then something shows up and rearranges the furniture.

Today’s lesson is really just a reminder. If you think you can accurately anticipate what is going to happen over the next week, or even the next couple of days, you probably aren’t putting yourself in a place where you can fully live your life. I wish I had something more profound than that.

I ride the rapids every day I wake up. Some days, it’s a gentle ride. Other days, I wonder what else might come around the next bend. The older I get, the more I realize there isn’t much value in trying to anticipate every twist. You do what you can to be prepared. You make your plans. You show up. You enjoy the walk while you have it.

The rest is way above my pay grade.

And maybe that’s okay. I don’t know what the next few days will bring. I don’t know who will be sleeping in the extra bed, what plans will change, or what unexpected text will show up on my phone. But I do know I’ll wake up tomorrow and get another day.

At this point in my life, I’m learning to appreciate that part more than I used to. I just hope my retired brain does a better job navigating the rapids than the brain I had 30 years ago would have done. Of course, the brain change isn’t optional anyway.

The First Weekend

The weekend’s hockey adventures turned out pretty well. The boys were on the ice, and despite a few penalties and the obligatory complaints about “the worst referees ever,” they came away with two wins. We also moved our seats about three spaces to the left from last year. We still have a blind spot on the ice, but our new position is virtually puck-proof. I consider that a successful relocation. So, after the first weekend, what do I want to remember?

As we were walking in from the parking lot, we bumped into a “hockey friend” who sat near us last season. I don’t think his tickets were actually near us, but he seems to share my appreciation for a good puck-proof seating arrangement. He had his four-year-old son with him. He had also grown out his hair and gotten a perm. I usually turn off my biometric identification skills on the weekend, so it took me a couple of minutes to figure out who he was and remember his name. His son had come to a few games last season, too, but he wasn’t talking then. Our friend brought him up to our seats, and he sat next to Judy. After we talked for a while, Judy decided I should move over so I wouldn’t have to talk through her. We continued talking, but his son kept asking, “Can I sit by your mom again?” That got a chuckle. Not a big laugh. Just enough to acknowledge that I had somehow become Judy’s child.

The breakfast club from Friday morning also had some success on the ice. I know the bacon had nothing to do with it, but maybe the pancakes with mini chocolate chips did. Of the seven players who attended breakfast, seven of the team’s nine goals over the weekend came from those who were there. With that kind of statistical evidence, I suspect the superstitious players will not allow me to discontinue the breakfast tradition. I may have accidentally created a responsibility for myself.

There was also a little confusion through text when we were trying to meet our new hockey boy’s parents. Eventually, we connected with them during the intermission between the first and second periods. Because we’re trying to be careful with pork products, they told us about a local restaurant that wasn’t quite as careful. They had ordered him calamari and cannoli. The calamari had been fried in the same oil as some pork products, and the cannoli contained gelatin with some pig-derived ingredients. Fortunately, everything worked out. The lesson Judy and I took away was simple: when it comes to feeding this one, err on the side of caution. His parents attend a lot of his games, so we’ll be seeing them throughout the season. I’m sure we’ll eventually get the food thing figured out, preferably before I accidentally serve him something that requires a family meeting.

While we were talking with them, the “official residents” of the seats to my right decided they were feeling crowded. They either shoved or gently pushed our seat cushions to the left. There was plenty of room, so it wasn’t really a problem. The problem was that I am a rule follower. My ticket tells me where my seat is. I like sitting where my ticket tells me to sit. There is a certain comfort in knowing that the seat cushion beneath me has been legally assigned to me. Judy reminded me that this was a small issue and one I could afford to “let go.” In theory, that is what I did. I moved the cushion and continued watching the game. I said nothing. I caused no scene. Internally, however, I may have opened a small investigation.

Hockey games qualify for the national anthem, and sometimes we get Jimi Hendrix’s version. Sometimes we get local “talent” singing it. Both games this weekend were just music. Judy and I did our best to provide a low-volume duet for the people around us. I don’t believe I heard any other supporting voices, so I’m assuming our contribution was appreciated. I suppose pulling off that hat was more effort than I realized. At least everyone stood quietly and put their phones down while the music played. At this point, that’s practically worshiping an object in our culture.

The babies are due Monday. Since they seem committed to baking as long as possible, they didn’t interfere with our first hockey weekend. If they had, Judy would have stayed home with our granddaughter, and I would have gone to support our boys. With a trip to a NAHL tournament later this week and no home games until early October, we may actually have a little time to spend with the new babies without hockey intervention. Of course, there’s another side to that equation. Our daughter may have her own ideas about how much she wants to share the babies while she tries to figure out how to fit two new people into the life she was already living. I remember what it was like when our kids were little. You can love them more than you can explain and still occasionally wonder when you’re going to get to finish a cup of coffee. So we’ll see how that goes.

The referees this weekend were about the normal level of “bad.” The ice had its own problems, too, which made things more difficult for the guys. Penalties happen. Referees call what they think they see. Sometimes they’re right. Sometimes they aren’t. When they see something incorrectly and the boys know it, the boys occasionally do a little self-correction of their own. They use blind spots and obstacles on the ice to disguise their interventions. I’m not a fan of the fights. They’re too obvious. I don’t like dirty play, either. I’d much rather see the boys play clean and let the game take care of itself. But I understand the temptation to provide a little behavioral correction when the people assigned to enforce the rules seem to have misplaced their glasses.

The first weekend went well. It wasn’t perfect, but both of our boys got assists. The team swept the other team, which is a pretty good way to start a season. There’s a long way to go. Will the rest of the season go this well? Will the coach tinker with things too much and accidentally complicate some of the chemistry that might otherwise develop? There’s plenty of time for things to get messy and get fixed again. That’s part of what makes the beginning of a season fun. Nobody knows exactly where it’s going yet.

For now, the boys are playing well, we have our puck-proof seats, breakfast appears to be producing goals, and I have been promoted to hockey breakfast coordinator. There are worse jobs. We’ll keep showing up, keep encouraging them, and keep enjoying the conversations along the way.

The hockey season will eventually become a collection of scores, standings, injuries, wins, losses, and things I’ve forgotten. I suspect the things I’ll remember most will be much smaller than that: a four-year-old asking to sit by Judy, pancakes with mini chocolate chips, a seat cushion moved three inches to the left that I definitely let go, and two boys getting assists. Mostly, I’ll remember a lot of weekends spent watching these guys become a little more like the people they’re going to be.

The Unofficial Billet Parent Oath

This feels like it could be called the “Billet Parent Oath,” although I don’t think there’s an official version. If there is, I assume it includes something about feeding teenagers, providing a place to sleep, respecting the rules of junior hockey, and accepting that you may suddenly become responsible for things you never considered when you agreed to let a stranger move into your house.

The hockey boys all come with their own backgrounds, personalities, habits, and varying abilities to interact with adults in a conversational manner. Since they aren’t our kids, they arrive as something of a box of chocolates. There is far more good in there than the initial uncertainty might suggest, but you never know exactly what you’re going to get. If we approached billet life expecting everything to go smoothly, we’d be crazy. We do it despite the unexpected. My wife thrives on it because she likes having problems to fix. I thrive on it because a hockey boy who can carry on a good conversation is worth a surprising number of challenges.

One of those challenges showed up this week at breakfast. We were preparing food for seven boys when I was reminded that one of our newest additions is allergic to pork. The biggest inconvenience that morning was remembering not to use bacon grease when we cooked the eggs. That sounds minor until you start thinking about how many meals in our house involve pork. Sausage in spaghetti sauce. Carnitas. Bacon. Various meals where pork isn’t exactly a garnish that can be politely removed after the fact. If he had simply told us, “I don’t like corn,” life would have been considerably easier. But an allergy is an allergy, and once a kid is living in our house, we’re going to work around it. We’ll figure out how to keep him fed, healthy, and on the ice.

The same thing applies to sleep. Hockey boys seem to have developed a remarkable ability to bank sleep. One of our boys this season takes a nap after our team breakfast, and I suspect he could sleep through a minor earthquake if it happened during his designated recovery period. Their schedules make it understandable. Some of their 10-plus-hour road trips have sleeping bunks, and after a sweep weekend they may spend the night at a teammate’s house to celebrate. Sometimes, apparently, the sweep is optional. Maybe they want to hang out. Maybe their teammate’s billet house has different rules. Maybe they simply want to sleep somewhere they aren’t expected to get up and do anything. Whatever the reason, we’ve learned that sleep is serious business. When the boys leave for a hot-day practice or game, I’ll bump the thermostat up a few degrees. When they come home and head upstairs to sleep away the afternoon, I’ll turn it back down. I don’t want to hear about inadequate sleeping conditions. Between the sleeping, feeding, and thermostat management, I’m running a very small hockey-themed hotel.

Then there are the things that have nothing to do with food or sleep. We become a sounding board when they’re trying to figure out whether a coach’s words match his actions. We can give them an opinion that isn’t completely saturated in the junior hockey world, although we’re careful to remind them that our opinions are still just our opinions. If they’re considering doing something that could have consequences, especially talking to a coach, we tell them to talk to their advisor first. They may call them “agents” in other sports, but junior hockey seems to prefer “advisor,” which sounds considerably less like someone who might show up wearing a shiny suit.

We also buy things. If they want spring water instead of filtered water, fine. If they want mozzarella sticks, we can make sure there’s a stash in the freezer with their name on it. If they want something very specific from Trader Joe’s, I’ll explain that Aldi has something that looks suspiciously similar for considerably less money. OLIPOP, however, is apparently where my billet-fee generosity ends. At some point, the boy needs to understand that I am providing room and board, not opening a beverage distribution company.

The fundamentals of our Billet B&B are actually pretty simple. We’re happy to make as much food as you will eat, and we want you to have a good sleeping experience. We don’t fluff your pillows or change your sheets for you. When you’re old enough to drive a car across the country to play hockey, you’re probably old enough to put your own clothes in a hamper. But as much as reasonably depends on us, we want your junior hockey experience to be a good one. Tipping isn’t required, although gift cards are always accepted.

We don’t do any of it for the accolades, but sincere “thank yous” from parents are always welcome. I know how nosey I would be about my own kids if someone else were taking care of them, which is why it amazes me how little involvement some parents have with the people living with their sons. The boys we enjoy the most tend to have parents who care enough to encourage the people taking care of them. It doesn’t take much. A text. A thank-you. A little acknowledgment that they know we’re trying to help their kid have a good year. Sometimes a few words from the parent of a particularly challenging hockey boy can recharge our patience just enough to keep us from declaring, “That is the last straw!” for another couple of days.

We may be the feet-on-the-ground parents while these boys are away from home, but it’s still a team. When they come into our house, we let them know our rules. If they stick around long enough, we usually find some middle ground that allows them to live under our roof without feeling like they’ve abandoned everything they learned from their biological family. Just because they aren’t your kids doesn’t mean they can’t learn something from you. And if they ask, I’m willing to be completely honest with strangers. With hockey boys, I can be honest, pretend I’m teaching them an important life lesson, and throw in enough self-deprecation to keep them uncertain whether I actually meant everything I said.

I am, after all, a sage.

A sage who freely distributes extra-thick bacon for breakfast on the Fridays of home-game weekends.

If anything can make your opinions seem more important, it will smell like bacon.

Apparently, We Had Plans

As a rule, my wife and I don’t plan to be gone every evening, with every day of the week becoming progressively more exciting and culminating in a series of weekend events worthy of numerous pictures and social media postings. We are more the “What series do you want to watch tonight?” people. So when the hockey boys had a “meet and greet” at a local restaurant where all the season ticket holders, billets (us), and boys were invited, we decided to sit this one out. I am not always looking for that particular hockey vibe. Fortunately, a couple from church had been talking about having us over for dinner for several weeks, after an earlier invitation was canceled because of illness. So, without actually thinking, “Let’s use this night to kill two birds with one stone,” that is pretty much what happened. We could have a pleasant evening with another couple, have conversations about things other than hockey, and do it in a house where, when my conversation meter reached capacity, I could theoretically just stare at something on the wall. Our boys knew what we were doing and had already decided whether they would grab their warmups at our house or at the restaurant. That cleared our dinner-prep schedule, so we made the ten-minute drive and arrived at 6:00.

Our hosts live on an acre, which immediately made the evening more interesting than anything I could have found on television. I went out back and talked with the husband while Judy and his wife had a good conversation inside. The highlight for me was the buffalo hide hanging in the garage that their daughter was tanning herself. It is eventually destined to become a rug in the middle of the living room, assuming it survives the tanning process. Before it gets there, however, it needs one more step that involves something called “smoking the hide.” I am not sure exactly what that entails, but I know enough about home projects to recognize the beginning of a sentence that ends with, “Well, that didn’t go quite as planned.” The husband seemed happy to support his daughter’s project, although he was less enthusiastic about his workshop being temporarily converted into a buffalo-processing facility. The deer hides they had done previously were apparently much easier. A buffalo, it turns out, brings considerably more hair and considerably more buffalo to the project. She had already been warned that Dad’s shop was no longer in the tanning business.

Dinner was chicken thighs with the bone in, risotto, and roasted broccoli, and it was really good. The hostess did mention, “It might be a little salty.” My immediate response was, “I’ve never had it before. It tastes fine.” The part of my brain that occasionally insists on honesty eventually agreed with her. The chicken gravy poured over the risotto did not exactly move us in the opposite direction, either. Still, it was a good meal with good color balance, and I ate two chicken thighs, so apparently I was not suffering. Had my mother-in-law cooked it, I probably would have been a little more honest. The hostess also reminded me of something I had apparently said when she asked at church how I would feel if she invited us to dinner. According to her, my response was, “Well, can you cook?” Apparently, she saw through my crusty exterior and decided to take the risk. She was rewarded with an enthusiastic second helping and only moderate criticism of the sodium content.

It was not the kind of meal we would normally make for the hockey boys, but that has less to do with the food than with the fact that I am already tired of eating the extra warmups they refuse to eat. The husband did his part by scraping everyone’s plates as he carried them toward the sink and eventually the dishwasher. I apologized for not being a chicken-skin eater. There was no obvious penalty, so I assume I remain welcome. Their fictional “upstairs maid” is the husband. In our house, the frequently vacationing “dish fairy” is Judy.

At some point during dinner, the conversation turned to marriage, and the hostess told us about the first thirteen years of theirs. They had made themselves crazy trying to come up with gifts for every minor and major holiday. She wanted good gifts, and he apparently had trouble determining what qualified as a good gift. By their thirteenth anniversary, they had reached the point where the whole thing had become more work than celebration. So they lived their thirteenth anniversary like any other day. They went about their business and didn’t even realize what day it was until they heard a “Congratulations” on their answering machine as the day was winding down. That was apparently the moment they realized they had spent thirteen years creating a tremendous amount of busyness for very little return. From that day forward, their marriage became a little saner. There is probably a lesson in there somewhere, although after thirty-five years of marriage, I am still suspicious of any lesson that involves buying fewer gifts.

Eventually, it was time to deal with the peach pie that had been sitting there staring at us from the dining area. The peach was good, and the ice cream was an excellent supporting actor. My only suggestion for future guests would be to ask how large a piece they want before cutting it. One-eighth of a large pie is not a serving. It is a commitment. Both Judy and I are good guests, so we cleaned our plates. That does not mean we were grateful for being made quite that full, but we did our part to maintain the illusion of good manners.

The most contentious portion of the evening came when we started talking about books and television shows. I mentioned that I thought the character of Reacher on Amazon was basically a shallow gorilla. The hostess did not take that particularly well. I also mentioned that Lee Child, the author of the Reacher books, has talked publicly about smoking marijuana while writing. Judging by the reaction from our hosts, this was apparently not information I needed to bring to the table. I felt the elbow from Judy even though she wasn’t sitting next to me. I explained that I thought the characters often make a poor transition from books to television, which did not improve my standing. Eventually, I agreed to read the first two Reacher books and report back. Judy did not identify any other major problems with my performance that evening, so apparently the invisible elbows were doing their job.

Just as the Reacher impasse appeared to be settling down, we got a text from the hockey boys. Two of their teammates were coming over to use the hot tub. Since it was almost 9:00 and four hockey players plus a hot tub creates a mathematical equation I did not want to solve, we decided it was time to say our goodbyes. It had been a good evening. Our first “date” with this couple had been a hockey game in late winter, and the follow-up was much more relaxed and insightful. Between their camping schedule and the arrival of the twins, it may be 2027 before we manage another one. At least we now know where we stand on buffalo hides, pie portions, and Reacher.

When we got home, the four hockey boys settled into our back porch area between the hot tub and the fire pit and proceeded to hang out for another hour and a half. At one point, I had to tease the boy from Michigan. “So, if I go to Michigan, do I need to set the clock back an hour and a second?” He seemed a little frustrated with the question and, more importantly, with the fact that this was even a topic of conversation. I eventually left him with this: “We can squabble about Ohio State and Michigan, but have no doubt I will be cheering for you when you have your Warriors jersey on.” Apparently, there are limits to my loyalty, but they are not quite as narrow as my opinions on college football.

As Judy and I did our pre-sleep reading, the boys continued their animated conversation on the patio. With our bedroom right next door, sleep and four late-teenage hockey players were never going to coexist peacefully. A little after 10:30, Judy turned off her light and commented, “It is about time they end the party.” And it did. Somehow, her womanly will continues to force us males to submit to her wishes, even when she is lying in bed and the males in question are several feet away on a patio. I am not sure how this works. I just know it does.

For a night that was supposed to be our low-end-of-the-excitement-spectrum evening, it turned out to be a pretty busy one. We had dinner with friends, learned about buffalo tanning, debated the proper amount of pie, offended someone over Reacher, argued about Michigan, and hosted four hockey boys late into the evening. And somewhere in all of that, there was a reminder that adults and late teenagers (i.e. young adults) who are not related to each other can actually live together, laugh together, jab at each other, and occasionally even learn something from one another.

The boys will keep playing hockey, eating breakfast with us on the Fridays of home weekends, arguing about sports, and figuring out how to live with a bunch of other guys. They will eventually move on to different teams, different cities, different jobs, and whatever comes next in their lives. The friendships they are forming now may end up being more important than anything happening on the ice. Learning how to share a house, give each other space, work through differences, and still enjoy being together is part of growing up that doesn’t show up on a hockey schedule.

For Judy and me, there is something pretty special about getting to watch that happen up close. We didn’t set out to become the parents of a bunch of unrelated teenage hockey players, and I’m still not entirely sure how we ended up with four of them on our back porch at 10:30 on a Thursday night. But these are the kinds of evenings that tend to become memories long after the hot tub has been drained, the breakfast dishes have been put away, and the boys have moved on to whatever comes next. Maybe that’s the real benefit of having a house that occasionally feels a little too full. Sometimes the best parts of life are the things you never planned for.

The Unofficial Billet Boy Survival Guide

We have had hockey boys from all over the United States and even a couple of international locations. None of them have been perfect, although some have certainly worked harder at perfection than others.

With one of our boys leaving our household yesterday, it seemed like a good time to put down a few pointers for the hockey players who find themselves living in someone else’s house for a season. These won’t guarantee universal success, but they should increase your chances of becoming a favorite billet in our house.

Remember that your billet parents are responsible for you. If you want to spend the night at your girlfriend’s house, we are probably not the right billet house for you. We actually had one boy “move” to another billet house because the billet mom there didn’t care if he stayed at his girlfriend’s house instead of coming home.

If you choose to go down that road, I recommend buttering up your current billets first. Ask if they would mind making pizza for dinner. Maybe compliment the cooking. Make everyone feel like you are really connecting with them. Then, when the billet coordinator calls the next day to say you want to move, the whole puzzle will come together beautifully.

If you are under 21, there isn’t much wiggle room on alcohol in our house. My theory is pretty simple: you are here to play hockey. If you have other priorities, we probably aren’t going to be a great fit.

And if you decide to drink anyway and think you are being sneaky, remember that you are dealing with someone who has raised four children. I have seen things. I am also sneakier than you are.

We make a pretty serious effort to cook dinner every night. And if we fail at that, we usually beg you to indulge us on the occasional “warm-up” night where dinner might be less ambitious.

So if your mother decides to send a two- or three-pound bag of chicken nuggets to our front door without warning, there are only so many complimentary ways I can interpret that.

And if you don’t eat the dinner because you claim your ADHD medication makes you not hungry, but then order a meal from Uber Eats later that evening, I am going to notice. I may not say anything immediately, but I will notice. I have been doing this for a while.

We are happy to provide your water. And if you insist on spring water instead of filtered water, you are probably going to win that argument. No matter how many times I see the people at Sam’s Club peddling those five-gallon jugs, I will continue to walk past them.

I know you like your 16.9-ounce plastic bottles. You like being able to count them so you know exactly how much water you have consumed. That’s fine. But I do think you need to finish the bottle before taking credit for drinking it.

Turn off the lights.

This one varies by boy, but I have walked into the guys’ rooms and found as many as five lights on at one time. I am not judging. I am simply suggesting that if you can flick the switch on, you can flick the switch off.

Electricity is not free, despite what your bedroom may be telling you.

Technically, you can walk around the house shirtless. But out of respect for the women in the house, please wear a shirt.

The hot tub is an exemption.

I am not unreasonable.

We used to assign jobs. One boy would load or unload the dishwasher. Another would set the table. This worked beautifully right up until the boy with the job was taking a nap, out golfing, or otherwise unavailable for reasons that were apparently very important to him.

Hockey boys do a lot of napping.

So, to simplify things for the adults in the household, we have boiled our expectations down to two rules:

  1. Help clean off the table after dinner.
  2. If you make a mess or see something that needs to be done, take care of it.

This won’t get everyone on the same page, but at least it gets everyone pointed in the same direction.

Game-day breakfasts are a little different. We know the rules are going to slip sometimes, but as much as it depends on you, refrain from using inappropriate language.

There are younger fans around, and you are in a position to be a role model to them. There are plenty of role models in the world who curse without hesitation. Be willing to stand out and be different.

Besides, if you are going to spend the season in our house, I need to believe I have at least a little influence over you.

We know you like to shower.

I am not entirely sure why you need to shower before your nap, after your nap, and again before getting back on the ice, but apparently this is important to you.

Do what you have to do. Just don’t overdo it.

Hot water is not free, and I have yet to discover a hockey scholarship that includes unlimited water usage.

If it is here, it is yours to eat. That is typically what I tell the boys.

However, if you develop a particular affinity for something in the pantry or freezer, it might be helpful to let your billet parents know about it.

If you and your billet parent both develop a hankering for the same sweet or salty item on the same night, somebody may be disappointed. If I know what you like, I can at least keep an eye on it and try to keep it stocked.

This is one of the less complicated ways to keep the peace in a house full of hockey players.

Your parents and your billet parents are on the same team.

The best boys typically had parents who understood that. We are both trying to get their son through the season safely and successfully.

If there is an injury or a bout with the flu, we try to work together. I might say to one of our players, “Does your mom know about that injury? If you don’t tell her, I will text her tomorrow.”

We aren’t there to get involved in how they parent their son. We are there to provide some on-the-ground accountability.

Sometimes a hockey player’s enthusiasm can make him think that playing through something is more important than dealing with the thing he is playing through. That is where we can help.

I can’t guarantee that I have an infinite supply of wise words, but the next hockey boy I talk to will be far from my first.

Whether we are discussing a coach’s decision, a hockey situation, or whether he should eat more vegetables, I will probably have an opinion.

On the hockey stuff, I will defer to his parents and hockey adviser.

On the vegetables, he is going to have to develop a pretty strong resolve because we are not going to stop presenting them as an option.

Eventually, he may even eat one.

If you have your own vehicle, you may not always get a spot in the driveway.

And if your billet parents’ daughter is pregnant with twins and already has a toddler running around, be a gentleman. You may have to park somewhere else and walk a little farther.

This is not a complicated concept. You are young. Your legs work.

Pay your billet fees on time.

With the Warriors organization, billet parents pay the fees directly. When we first started with the Brahmas, billet parents paid the Brahmas, who then sent us a check. Now, we are paid directly by the parents, and we fill out a form online letting the organization know we have been paid.

A failure to pay on time comes with a warning. Multiple warnings come with penalties to the player.

But please don’t do what one parent did.

Her son had wanted to be traded for several weeks. We barely knew he had actually been traded before she sent us a Venmo request to refund the unused portion of that month’s billet fees.

Not surprisingly, this was not a hockey boy we were a particularly good match for.

It is unlikely that we would ever ask for a boy to be moved from our home. But it is also unlikely that we will shed many tears when some of them move on.

And that may be the strangest part of being a billet parent.

If you are going to live in our house for any length of time, you are going to spend some time marinating in our version of right and wrong. Where we think we can have an influence, we will. If we find ourselves pushing our ideals too far, we will back off.

It was our home before it was yours.

It will still be our home after you leave.

Even if every one of our boys gets cut, we aren’t going to lower our standards just to make sure we have hockey players sitting around the dinner table. Just like with our own children, the rules can flex. Some can be partially ignored. Every boy and every situation is a little different.

But the basic expectations remain.

Be respectful. Be responsible. Be considerate. Help out. Tell the truth. And, when somebody is trying to take care of you, recognize that they are actually trying to take care of you.

We wouldn’t be worthy of the title “billet parent” if we weren’t willing to roll up our sleeves, adjust the rules when necessary, and occasionally remind a hockey player that there is a world outside the rink.

And, despite all the lights left on, showers taken, chicken nuggets delivered, vegetables rejected, and questionable decisions made along the way, we really are glad to have them.

They come into our house as hockey players.

If we do it right, they leave having been part of our family for a little while.

The Strategic Value of Corn Hole

After dinner and a dessert consisting of homemade ice cream and baked goods last night, Judy and I stared at each other at 6:30. I could feel myself moving toward a conversation about how unexciting we old people are. Then it happened. My daughter suggested, “We could play some corn hole.” This is what we had done last year, and it was the perfect solution to the boredom that was threatening to take possession of our home.

The corn hole paraphernalia was right outside our back patio door. With such easy access, it was hard to believe it had probably only been moved once since last Labor Day, when I did a sweep of the back porch. A quick inspection of the bean bags was concerning. Apparently, they had not been designed to sail 20-plus feet in a light Oklahoma wind. Fortunately, the remaining bag in the corn-hole corner contained four red and four blue bags of appropriate weight. We were in business.

Last year, the primary competition had been Judy and me against the two hockey boys we were hosting at the time. Judy and I didn’t exactly dominate, but apparently those boys had not yet discovered their full bag-tossing potential. This year, our two new hockey boys arrived with a considerably more polished game. At least, that was the story they told us about all those graduation parties.

Frankly, I was just glad my daughter had suggested doing “something.” Saturday and Sunday, our hockey boys had scrimmages against the team we used to host hockey boys for in Texas. There were moments of potential, but they lost both games. The wins and losses weren’t really important—focus on the word “scrimmage.” What mattered was what the coach saw during their limited playing time. Our returning player played in both games. The other two are still working to earn their spots, so each had an opportunity to catch the coach’s attention.

Tuesday, the day after Labor Day, is expected to bring more cuts. The boys got a little surprise last night when the group chat told them when to arrive and reminded them to bring their suits. During the regular season, the boys are shown on the big screen wearing their suits and announcing where they are from while “Enter Sandman” plays somewhere during the pregame festivities. Apparently, junior hockey has decided that announcing a teenager’s hometown while he stands in a suit to the soundtrack of a heavy-metal song is the appropriate way to introduce players. With the possibility of cuts hanging over the house, playing a few rounds of “toss the bean bag into the little hole” seemed like a pretty good way to avoid thinking about what surprises Tuesday might bring.

Our two new hockey boys proved to be formidable competitors. Both had developed a near-frisbee approach to throwing the bags—one left-handed and one right-handed. The rest of us relied primarily on an arced approach to reaching the Ohio State-flavored boards. For the first match, I was paired with our returning player, who was also an arcer. Having been told the proper distance was 27 feet, I took nine steps between the boards. Whether nine of my steps actually equaled 27 feet is questionable. What was not questionable was that arcing a bean bag that far made me look like a very weak corn hole player. Or perhaps my muscle memory was simply more familiar with corn hole boards that were much closer together.

The frisbee throwers quickly became the favorites and showed no signs of giving up their advantage until they beat us. The next game, Judy teamed up with my daughter-in-law. Judy insisted the boards be moved closer together, which allowed them to hang around considerably longer than we had. The frisbee boys continued making a compelling case for their technique. We played about six matches over roughly 90 minutes, and honestly, it was some of the best time we have spent with our hockey boys so far. For an hour and a half, nobody was thinking about who might get cut, wondering what the coach was thinking, or worrying about who might be coming back to take someone’s spot. We were just throwing bean bags, arguing about distance, and discovering that two teenagers apparently know how to play corn hole better than the people who own the corn hole set.

Once we put everything away, we filed back into the house. Our kids had already left while Judy and I attempted to put a final hurting on the frisbee boys. The hockey boys headed upstairs to shower, while the old people headed for the first-floor shower facilities. While we watched some TV, the one boy who doesn’t have a vehicle came downstairs looking for a snack. He settled on Oreos. Judy had a full tray of brownies sitting there that we would have loved for him to eat, but knowing he had to face the coach the next morning, we decided not to make him responsible for any of the adult problems in the house.

I casually told him, “If you have any reason to get picked up early tomorrow, just let me know. I’ll be around. Ideally, you can forget about this whole conversation.” He gave me a big smile with just a little stress around the edges. He understood.

Both Judy and I have mixed emotions when cuts are imminent. We hate to lose any of our boys—at least this year, we like all of them enough to genuinely hope they stick around. But there is another side to it. If a player is going to spend the entire season on the bubble, knowing the coach doesn’t expect to play him much, sometimes the kinder solution is to cut him and let him move on to whatever comes next.

Every other day, the boys come home from practice with another example. “This guy from last year got cut from his USHL team. He’s coming back.” Or, “This guy wants to leave his Canadian team and come back to the Warriors.” If the coach has a choice between keeping a bubble player or bringing back someone who has already proven himself, it isn’t difficult to imagine which direction he is likely to go.

Our boys will always be welcome in our house. But that doesn’t mean we have to believe staying here is always the best thing for them. If the better opportunity is somewhere they can develop, play meaningful minutes, and avoid spending an entire season picking splinters out of their seats, then that gets my vote. Fortunately, I don’t get a vote. I get to be the appreciative dad—the guy who gets to watch these boys chase something they care about, provide a little food and a place to sleep, and remind them that regardless of what happens in a coach’s office, they have a home here. And, occasionally, I get to throw bean bags at them.

I am grateful I didn’t begin a hockey journey a few decades ago, when I might have had to live with old people who were this competitive about corn hole. This morning, I also decided there was no reason for me to get out of bed before 7:00. Part of that was simply because I could. The other part was that I didn’t want to risk running into the boys too early and having to say, “Good luck,” again. There are only so many times you can say “good luck” before it starts sounding less like encouragement and more like a funeral director wishing you well on your way out, so I stayed in bed. Sometimes being supportive means making yourself available when someone needs you. And sometimes it means strategically avoiding the kitchen until after 7:00.

Retirement Is a Full-Time Job

I am having a real time problem. Retirement was supposed to hand me buckets of free time. Instead I’ve traded one calendar for four, plus a grocery list that never ends.

On the bright side, I’m collecting misadventures faster than ever. Documenting them is where I keep losing. So here’s the current lineup of things eating my hours, in the order they occurred to me.

The hockey boys are back, appetites fully intact. They eat well, generally. What we’ve learned is that “eating well” comes with fine print.

For years we blamed their parents for this. A childhood of fast food runs between practices will shape a palate. This year’s contribution to the family vocabulary is the classic “I don’t eat tomatoes” and “I don’t eat cheese,” which after some gentle interrogation turns out to mean no whole tomatoes and no cheese specifically on tacos or hamburgers. Somehow that’s more specific while creating more questions.

We’re navigating it. What we haven’t solved is quantity, since we’re still cooking for our local kids too, and it’s only the start of the second week of practice. Once the warm-up leftovers start surviving in the fridge instead of getting fought over as second dinner after nine o’clock, that’s our signal it’s safe to go back to boring.

Then there’s the billet coordinator, who giveth and taketh. Really, it’s the coach making every call. The coordinator is just one of the minions relaying it with a cheerful “yes, sir.”

All of our boys made it through the first cut and played in the intrasquad scrimmage. One didn’t show well and was on a plane to “Plan B” the next day. The bed sat empty exactly one night before a non-tendered, non-drafted player got invited to move out of his hotel and into ours. I got a little scrappy making that happen, and I regret nothing.

We don’t do this for the money. It doesn’t hurt that there is some, and in exchange we feed these kids well and let them load up the wifi with all of their devices. And, if feeling extremely generous, we even let them control their own thermostat at night.

In three weeks I’m scheduled to acquire two more granddaughters. My daughter is finishing her last week of Zoom consulting, and everyone has quietly agreed it’s better to have grandpa on standby than to have her explain to a client that she needs a minute for baby maintenance.

So my calendar now includes clementine distribution and teaching a toddler exciting new ways to play with toys she already owns, mostly because grandpa needs the entertainment. This is genuinely on my top ten list of things I want to be doing with my life. It has been fulfilling, but grandpa needs a little variety there, too.

The last item is the one I complain about the least: getting to know these hockey kids while I still have them under my roof. Dinners run long. Plans get pushed to make room for them.

Any of them could be gone tomorrow or here through the end of the season, and I’d rather spend the time now than look back in April wishing I had. The billet fees cover food, laundry access, and the basics of keeping a teenager alive. I haven’t run the actual math, but I’d bet money we don’t turn a profit on any of it.

Somewhere between retirement, travel, and grandkids we apparently can’t say no to, the hockey hosting is going to get squeezed out eventually. Whenever that day comes, I want to have done it well and left these boys wanting more, not counting down the days until we stop showing up.

Nobody handed me a vote on how this fall’s schedule filled up, and I wouldn’t trade a single piece of it. I’ll find the time somewhere. Probably by writing shorter posts about it, which defeats the purpose, but here we are.