As some of you may or may not know, I grew up playing ice hockey for the better half of 14 years.
From the time I was a kid into early adulthood, my life revolved around hockey.
In fact, my love for the game has worn off on my 15 year old nephew who has had a hockey stick in his hands since before he could walk.
Being as that I retired from the game back in 2014, I haven't really had much to do with it since I stopped.
Sure, I have played some drop-in games here and there, but ever since I stopped playing competitively, I haven't done much of anything in terms of getting on the ice.
Since I moved back home to my hometown of Baltimore, Maryland, I have been dedicating my weekends to going and watching my nephew play.
Ever since I have been back in the ice rink watching him play, I have had nothing but fire for wanting to get back on the ice and just be around the game again.
Something that consumed a very large portion of my life that in some way, fell off the face of the earth has been making a comeback and giving me desire to be around the game again.
One thing about hockey is that it is a very physical and fast-paced sport.
When I played, from the age of 11, you were allowed to start playing physical contact to other players in the game, meaning that checking and making physical contact against players on the other team was now allowed to be a part of the game.
As you start to get older, the game gets faster, the kids get stronger, and it gets much more physical.
Once I reached the high school level, the game was significantly faster, more physical, and at least one fight that would break out in just about every game.
In fact, in my sophomore year of high school, we were playing the team we would eventually play in the state championship that year, and a line brawl broke out!
A line brawl for those of you that don't know, is when every player on the ice is fighting another player on the ice from the other team
For those of you wondering, yes, I was a part of the line brawl and had one kid pinned to the boards while I was throwing punches at their goalie.
That was a different time to say the least.
When I go and watch my nephew play now that he is getting to the age of more competitive hockey, I realize that much of the game is nowhere near the same.
The game now is much less physical than the years that I played.
When I watch the game being played now, there is much less fighting, if any fighting at all, much less open ice hits, and much more injuries.
One thing that has changed about the game significantly is the rules because the rules now start physical contact at a later age, and the rules of engagement on physical contact have changed to ward off risk of injury from big open ice hits.
Now, kids have to play the puck before they play the body, whereas when I played, kids were only looking to play the body.
I can understand player safety, but it has been hard for me to wrap my head around the new rules to the game because I am used to the game being so much faster and more physical than it is now.
I am used to kids getting absolutely lit up at center ice from a big hit to the point where you could hear the physical contact from the bodies colliding from the stands.
When I played, there were big open ice hits and a fight would break out in just about every game - kids now will cry if they jam their pinky finger.
The game is much softer now and the players themselves are much softer than what I am used to.
Just about every game that I have been to, there is some sort of stoppage in play for a kid that is hurt and when the kid finally gets up, he is in tears... actual tears.
This makes absolutely no sense to me at all how a kid could be "hurt" and cry about it.
Or, kids these days will go down in the middle of the game to milk it just to draw the play dead.
When I played, there was no crying in hockey...
In fact, if you got hurt in the middle of the game, you better at least try and make an effort to get back to the bench, figure out what's wrong, and then get back and finish the game.
My senior year, I completely dislocated my knee cap in the middle of the game.
I don't know if anyone reading this has ever dislocated their knee cap before but when it happens, your entire leg locks up and impossible to move.
So, I dislocate my knee cap in the middle of the game, I physically can't get up because my leg is locked, and I start crawling back to the bench until the referee blew the play dead and allowed our team trainer to come out onto the ice and take a look at it.
To this day, I will never forget her taking my shin pad off hearing her say "oh yeah, it's out" and I look down and see my knee cap on the inside of my leg.
Luckily the team trainer was there and was able to pop it back in and when she did, I could finally move my leg again to the point that when I got back to the locker room, I asked if I could go back out and finish the game, where I was then instructed that I was not allowed to and had to go to the ER to get my knee examined.
The moral of the story is, the younger generation of men have become completely soft, and part of this is due to the parents.
I can understand the mindset of an overprotective parent because obviously, you want to minimize risk for your child.
But the reality of it is, the best way for a child to learn anything is by just letting them do it.
Let the kid stick his finger in an electrical socket so that he learns not to do it again, don't tell him to not stick his finger in an electrical socket because something terrible might happen.
While I can't tell people how to parent their children, it is obvious to me that when kids are often overprotected, and have things come much easier for them, they tend to take advantage of the situation much easier.
Today's generation of men have become softer because everything that they have comes easy to them.
Most of the men in today's generation have never had to truly work hard at anything, or experience any kind of mental or physical pain.
A 13 year old kid can sit there and make tens of thousands of dollars a month playing some stupid video game instead of going out and learning a valuable skill, or challenging himself in some sort of mental and physical endeavor.
Life's greatest lessons come from a source of pain and when a boy is sheltered from having to experience pain, he will naturally look for the easy way out of things.
Men need to learn shit the hard way because it is the only way that we learn.
Men need to learn to have a drive to compete and have an edge whenever they are trying to tackle a new problem.
If a man is only driven to see what his score is on Fortnite, while ordering Uber Eats so he doesn't have to get up from his gaming chair, what good is he to society?
If a man is driven to sit at home and watch porn while looking at girls in bikinis all day, what good is he to society?
The laziness and the softness comes from the entitlement of the generation prior.
I am technically considered to be a part of the millenial social group because I was born in the 90s and was part of the first generation to really experience the rise of the internet, technology, and social media.
I will say that there are plenty of millenials out there that have never truly had to experience pain of any sort because their entire lives revolve around the internet and having everything made convenient.
While convenience is nice to have, it takes away the desire to work for things.
I am all about working smarter, not harder, but if you are one that truly doesn't know hard work, you are never going to experience pain of any sort.
Pain builds strength, pain builds character, and men need pain to become strong and capable men through pain - deliberately walking through the fire to come out and forge yourself into a stronger piece of iron.