As a new skater, if you really want to experience equal parts inspiration and consternation, you can do what I did and sign up for lessons that put you one rink away from Washington Capitals practices. That way, once you have fallen and strained various muscles you didn’t know you possessed, you can wander on over, watch the pros in action, and start to question your recent life choices. The best thing about this particular self-doubt-inducing torture is that it is totally free, the Capitals promote it ahead of time (although it is subject to change), and you always can get a seat.
Actually, that last bit unsettles me. People pay thousands for season tickets to Capitals games, but their practice rink on a Saturday morning in a very busy part of Arlington, Va., often has at most 20 people watching. This is free. It is publicized. Why is there no line out the door? I fight more for the doughnuts at the German bakery up the street than I ever do to watch incredible players do what they do best FOR FREE. I get that this is not a game, but it is no less fascinating. And, I always see players sign for kids afterward. This best-kept secret needs to get out.
To some degree, because I have switched to figure skates, watching them skate confuses me. The blue-line-red-line drill that reminds me of the suicides I once did during basketball practice makes little sense to me at this point because I can’t even begin to stop with their precision. Watching them do various shooting drills makes more sense, but I don’t have a hockey stick yet. And, I wonder if I will ever get one.
In some ways, watching what they do makes the idea of playing hockey feel even more impossible. I don’t love it any less, but I cannot imagine ever being at the point where I could do what they do. I am starting to seriously consider ice dancing instead. And doughnuts—that German bakery is my next stop after their practice. I have planned my Saturday mornings carefully.
If I stop agonizing over how far behind I was before I even started and instead focus on the moment, I find I have not entirely lost hope. The way they stop so fully line to line almost in complete unison is like music to me, a song I feel even if I cannot yet play it back, the calluses on my fingers not strong enough to hold down the guitar strings. I decide to listen and watch and work and wait with sugar on my mind and music in my soul.