The Hockey Dressing Room:
People on the outside world cannot understand what happens in a hockey dressing room.
The word chemistry is often used to describe what lurks behind the walls of a tight knit hockey room.
If you talk to most players who win championships, they talk of the blood and guts, the second efforts, but most importantly they point out the chemistry in the room.
From the day training camp starts, players are thrown together from all parts of the globe.
Once the team is made, this is now your second family.
You will bleed with these team-mates, you will win and you will lose with them, but most of all they will become your best buddies in the world.
These are the guys you have to trust – not only on the ice but off the ice as well.
When you’re flying up the ice and you hear a “heads up Stewy!”, and you quickly avoid a train coming at you, your buddies were there for you. When you are at the bar unable to walk, your buddies are the ones to make sure you get home ok.
When you passed out on the couch, your buddies are the ones that will t-bag you and then take pictures of it for everybody.
You will taste the sweet flavour of victory, and you will cry tears together in defeat.
You Will Go Through hell and high water for the next 9 months and you will have a family that will take care of you.
Away from home for the first time, you may feel homesick.
Your boys will stick together and all of you will have some of the best times of you life.
Stories told in the dressing room, end when you walk out the door.
What happens in a dressing room becomes a world of itself.
If you respect this responsibility you will reap the benefits of a great year.
Respecting the code of the locker room is more about life then it is about what happens on the ice.
Cherish these times in the room; From sitting around having a chew after a game, or pissing on a rookie in the shower - these are memories that will
stay with you for a lifetime.
Embrace these rules, respect your team-mates, but most of all enjoy the dance.
When it’s all over, you will think back and smile at the golden moments of your youth.
Then you will wake up your son or daughter and take him or her to practice.
As you take a sip of your warm coffee, you can be gracious that you were there - you played, you laughed, your cried - and got to the dance.