Hockey Clips and Video Clips

While waiting at Riley Rink for my almost fourteen year old to return from the state hockey tournament I videod clips of the goin's on in the warming room and out on the rink for a short class movie. One engaging youngster of age six, having just gotten off the ice from Sunday night Stick and Puck with dad was most engaging. His composure for the short interview was astonishing for a six year old. His brother, not to be outdone by junior, sat for an interview as well. He was equally engaging and charming. These two young men reminded me greatly of my own little man when he played for the youongest level of NHA Hockey, the Mites.

Now, at age almost fourteen, my little man is no longer learning to skate, but instead slugging it out with other young men, like himself, who seem to think the skill is in being tough enough to slam and be slammed. What happened to the charming six year old who was fasinated by the blade on the ice, how it turned and flashed with hockey players gliding in rhythm, in time, a team, a ballet with hockey sticks?

I once took my little man to see a game at Middlebury College with the varsity A team. I forget who the opponent was. However, they were equally skilled. The game was, in fact, a ballet. The strength of the young men playing was unquestionable. The more impressive aspect of the game was the coordination, timing, restraint and skill in playing as a team. There was, of course, the inevitable checking, but that was not the objective. The objective was the amazing skill and handling of the puck - how the team could seemingly "feel" what the other was doing. Those young men who spent days and weeks and months playing and drilling and knowing one another could literally "feel" where the other was on the ice. It was amazing. My young man was as transfixed as I was.

At that time, those qualities of quiet restraint and skill where what amazed us both. Now, when I try to talk to my young man about hockey he only wants to talk about who slammed who and how his team got them back. It saddens me. For me, also a hockey player, of the female persuasion, this is not the game. This is a part of the game to be ignored as a necessary evil of Men's Hockey. At age six, when there is no checking allowed, there still seems to be a love of gliding, handling the stick and puck and working as a team. To send a pass and receive that pass and move the puck up the ice in unison, in time, as a team is beauty. It still holds fascination for a six year old, and for me.

This is what I'd like to capture in the making of a video. Obviously, in the short clips I made that Sunday night at Riley Rink there is not enough footage or the right kind of footage. It is perhaps a start. And perhaps as I continue in school I'll have the opportunity to learn more of the skills and techniques to make this video. For now, it's just finding time to make a short, short video and an audio clip. Writing about it is fun, but now the film's the deal. My words will have much more impact if in image and motion. Perhaps with video, I can even get the attention of my own fourteen year old hockey player.