Hockey Returns to the Eastern Thaw

The Hockey Tattler

Volume I, No. 12

March 9, 2010

The Devils are back in New Jersey after a 25-day absence. It's the longest time away for this team, ever. Combine the Olympics and a Western Conference road trip, and it made for three and 1/2 weeks away from home ice, home practice and home.

If you travel on business, try living in a hotel for this period of time, changing hotels, packing, unpacking, adjusting, a different bed every couple of days. It takes its toll. Maybe that explains the last game in Edmonton. The boys had just run out of gas.

And what are the Devils coming back to? When the team last played here, New Jersey was gripped in the jaws of winter. The Olympics maintained that atmosphere, even if Vancouver was its normal temperate environment with rain, and not snow. But yesterday, the mercury hit 64F in Newark; today it was only 61F. Friday, when the Penguins come to town, rain is in the forecast. The snow is melting. Winter is vanishing quickly. Shoots are popping out of the earth. Flowers are not far off.

Meanwhile, the college hockey season is wrapping up. This coming weekend, the NCAA Hockey Tournament happens on the shores of Lake Ontario, in Oswego New York. There is still ice up north. But soon, it too will recede as the spring sunshine warms the earth. For these amateur players, ice hockey will soon be done until next November rolls around.

The NHL is of course impervious to Mother Nature. Regular season games are scheduled up to Sunday April 11, with eight games that day to decide final season standings and playoff berths. Then, the second season begins. And the refrigeration plants will be working hard to keep the ice cold.

In July, after the NHL is finally taking a snooze, the only ice will be in our glasses. But for now, we get to enjoy another Battle of the Hudson tomorrow night in Newark. The Blue Shirts are crossing the Hudson. Game on.

Hockey Rules!