Risks and Opportunities.
2019 brought plenty of action for everyone, on and off the ice. Pickup and Beer league Hockey in Halifax was busy, with more offerings, and more demand to match.
We added a Wednesday night skate, and it didn't take long to become another busy one for us. We added our first new admin with a simple deal - Bring the pucks and cooler, and you skate for free.
Steve brought enthusiasm, positivity and organizational chops - a big piece of which remains with us to this day. Helping sort and balance teams, early efforts that saw players ranked numerically, with rosters adding up to parity - helped take the efforts to a new level that our players appreciated. We started hearing stuff like "best run pickup", "I don't know how you do it" and "this is what I look forward to every week".
These comments, and the collaboration with our growing group of members and skate managers made a difference. It told us we were on the right track, that we were building something. That fall, we went to three nights a week.
As mentioned last post. I had run face first into a job loss in November of 2019 that shook me. Walking in the door a couple months into something I found a passion and determination for, to be told "sign this, you're done" , spurred an auto response that sent me back onto the tools in commercial carpentry. Great gig, not great timing.
My right meniscus tore about a week after I returned to work on the tools. I won't forget laying on the ground around Christmas 2019 working on a gypsum mine outbuilding, not able to bend my knee. No choice, earn a paycheck. We thrived. The guy I was working with had lost his brother - far too young - a few years earlier. He came out to our hockey for awhile too, and it was a good enough situation, it helped his mental health too. A chronic back issue ultimately took him out of the mix for both.
Then came the Covid-19 pandemic. March 14th of 2020 would mark our last skate for a few months, and it was one of a couple Covid interruptions in our schedule. I ended up in downtown Halifax working straight through the pandemic. My grandmother died in a long term care facility in May of 2020, a building that I stared at every morning on the drive my our job site. The project we were contracted for, I would eventually realize, was a new build for a developer that would also soon end up in the news for "renovictions".
It was a bitter irony for me. Leave something with the potential to make a difference in the affordable housing sector, to end up on a project that decidedly would not. I could reconcile working on market housing, as there's obviously a need. I did ultimately refuse to work on a vanity project that would have been building the customer's house though. Other circumstances have led my employer to no longer do business with that client, which suits me fine.
I had told Janet going into 2020 that it would be our year. I took a course for solar panel installation, and was looking to resurrect an old company effort to take on side jobs. I figured it would be leaning into a booming market, and that it could help make a difference in our efforts as a family. I had already volunteered on a few solar projects, and we had incorporated it into our community garden water pump system. Covid, lockdowns, and the incredible disruption all of us experienced changed all of that. Like everyone, we had skin in the game, and wouldn't be the same. The effects of which I'll continue to process - just like all us will continue processing the last five years.
So much more could be said about this. Dropping all of this into a few paragraphs really isn't doing it justice, but it's not about me, just as it isn't about any one person that has been involved in what we've built so far. We've all been in the crucible in one way or another. It's what happens next, what resiliency can be brought to bear in hard times that matters.
Moving back to how hockey proceeded during this time, it proved to teach me a lot. The number of inquiries I received over the spring of 2020 - "any news on hockey?", "is the rink opening soon?" - along with more explicit expressions of frustration - along with our own monitoring of the news - drove home the appetite to get out of the house, see friends, and stay active.
We were doing event posts on a facebook group page leading into the lockdown, but we had to change that approach coming out of the first one. By the middle of June of 2020, with some opening of the rinks and other public spaces on the horizon, we had to make choices. The initial opening at the Halifax Forum, in line with provincial restrictions - was for groups of ten. Ten people on the ice. Two goalies, eight skaters, four on four with no subs.
One challenge facing us going into that scenario, was we had forty paying members at the time, all going nuts to get back out there. There was no way I could do an event post, on a page with over 1000 members, it would have been a gong show. The number of casual players far exceeded our paid regulars, and they were itching to play too.
We had to ease into it. I created messenger groups for the paid players, and outlined the plan to them. We would roll paid regulars through, in order of seniority. The OG's, guys who signed up from our first skate on, got first crack. Within a couple weeks, we were able to get most of the players through at least once.
That brought out the second challenge. Don't skate for three months, and then go play four on four with no subs? To say we were sucking wind would be an understatement. You'd play for a few minutes, and see a guy skate over to the bench and stand there with his water bottle for a minute. Okay, 4 on 3 for a moment I guess. We did it for months. Part of the fun, was that the restrictions brought on a stern approach from the facility - No outside beverages in the rink, except a personal water bottle or sport beverage. So we learned to like tailgating in the parking lot. Nothing quite like having a beer outside in the driving sleet, we did that for a couple winters too.
The event posts never came back. Messenger groups for the paid players became the norm, just to separate the signal from the noise of people anxious to play. Some of the demand issue ended resolved when the solution found us. Groups that were on the verge of hanging up the skates going into Covid didn't come back. The rink called and asked if we wanted more ice. Hell yeah, we couldn't get enough to satisfy our crowd. We quickly grew to four nights a week in Halifax, and didn't look back. Out of chaos and challenge, came opportunity that would drive home what we were doing and why.
I think there's another part to go for this "origin story", maybe two. Next time out I'll discuss our first effort at expansion to another community, and what led to it. It wasn't quite intentional, but in hindsight it seems it was the next logical step.
One thing I like to say about what we are doing, is that it provides a canvas. People take it and make beautiful things out of it. It's agency, camaraderie, confidence - it's community. It's something different, and I often feel like I'm just along for the ride. A lot of voices will be heard from as we keep exploring what Nova Adult Hockey is, and what it will become. That's for the best, as one person cannot - and should not - try to convey it all.
More soon.
Here are some links you should check out:
Halifax Pickup Hockey , South Shore Pickup Hockey
Metro Hockey League, South Shore Hockey League
Causes dear to us:
Hockey Helps the Homeless: Our teams are here, and here. Find a name you know, and show them some love.
Souls Harbour - Doing great work in communities across Nova Scotia.
Nova Adult Hockey - Buy us a Coffee, we'll perk right up.
If you wish to support my content, you can contribute to my efforts here.
At your service,
Jason Craig
