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| May 15, 2002
By Irish#19
The Golden Division at NARCh
|  As Seen From a Small Motel in Baja, Mexico - by Irish#19.
Sometimes people ask why even bother with Gold at NARCh. If it is not platinum, the crème of the refined, why bother at all. This begs the question that if your car runs perfectly on an 89 % content, why pump the more expensive 91 octane? I mean, I suppose we could also try and figure out why the government spends thousands on how to run a Chevy on Oatmeal. I don‚t know why save only the sheer curiosity of the thing. In a way, curiosity alone is enough of a reason to do many things.
But another way of looking at it is: We always seek the brightest star, yet we see many times better the star that does not burn our eyes. I see better in Gold. That's all. But how do I explain it so even a hockey player can understand? That's the task.
So, I sit here typing in Mexico, when I should be sleeping. It is three thirty, the "am" part of the day. Dawn is coming up and I haven't yet hammered this thing to the point I would hand it over to anyone to read. Understanding has long since been something I care little about, because I cannot help that. I can help it if you can't read it. That is my task; the rest is up to you.
I look west across the Baja, the heated channel where sand and rock is so white that both will burn you. The surf continues to roll in at me, and I fear that if I ever sleep it may all sweep me away. Strange fear. I agree. Doesn't make sense. I agree. But then, there we go with that understanding thing again.
My dingy motel room is designated number 33. A good number, if you ask me, for doing a short rag about gold hockey. But it feels real down strange to be writing about hockey in 100-degree weather in a land where they refuse to speak either English or French, and where the music and food is nothing like it is in Minnesota. But here I sit, all doors and windows propped open to smell the Mexican Baja breeze, one of the sweetest around, but doing so also draws every odd looking insect for miles.
I write as these little buggers crash and burn against my screens and I watch in horror as they try to reach the bright light inside. They seek it to their death and yet those coming in afterwards, still strive to reach it. At this point in the gig, I try to imagine boys and girls on wheels in St Paul, but I cannot. We are not there yet. The dream has not yet, at least, been focused enough for me to touch it.
But I see the bugs reach for the light.
We are always, in one way or another, seeking the light.
And as for Minnesota, in a town named after the great evangelist, children, hoodlums, coaches, hucksters, vendors, and every vile creature of all types will soon descend to make the town their own. Tonight, as I sit here wondering what fish I will hook in the dawn, I think about that but dream about tomorrow, as well as in Saint Paul.
It's the light of the star and the dream of the victory that pushes us to Saint Paul, and we only stay away because we get lost or because we fail to grasp the dream or follow the northern lights to the literal birthplace of American Hockey.
The dawn strikes out against me and my new topsiders and sun block, and I have a long day ahead of me. I have to fish, get back over the boarder, and then look in earnest towards Minnesota. I may buy one of those sandy black shell necklaces to remember this place, if the stink of the fish doesn't force me to remember it alo ne, and then I can wear it to St Paul, a place that saw seawater about 40 million years ago.
All in all, it is almost a useless exercise to try and explain to anyone the value of the Gold Division at NARCh because I honestly fear that if I have to explain it you never will get it. The reasons are many and, quite honestly, quite obvious. If you can't see it I can't much explain it.
How's this: You should go and compete at the Gold Division at NARCh for the very same reasons you would go to the Platinum Division: to have fun, to compete, to meet new friends and to enjoy the experience of good hockey in a new locale.
With rare exception, the Gold Division at NARCh can be, all in all, more fun than Platinum. Platinum may have its own rewards, such as an increased level of competition and the excitement of playing and achieving in an environment of the highest level of competition.
But that's the nut of it. I think competition is competition and until you sign on the dotted line to cash that million-dollar bonus, all the youth teams are developmental to one degree or another. And, simply because there are d ifferent levels, they all serve the purpose of providing all of us with a place to compete.
Cozumel, I think, would serve my better purpose. Why wasn't I in Cozumel? I didn't know. You see, in Cozumel it is more than just fishing, it is the scene. That whole kind of lime and cilantro living that puckers you into a smile that won't leave until you do. I find a similar experience at NARCh. NARCh is more than just hockey, it is the whole of it that is the experience, the scene of the bear popping up every now and then year after year. Kind of a wierded power tripping and hero mongering scene you‚d expect from a bunch of wheeled crazies who really are in it for the kids (and the parents, and the families, and the players, and the refs, and the pros, and the adults) not just the kids. NARCh is a low tone kind of Stanley Cup thing where kids with mildly different dreams share the same dream: to be the shining star. It is a place where Styrofoam laced coffee and the same old stupid food is ingested daily gladly to experience the boys and girls strutting it and illegally hip checking it all the way into a winner's circle.
The fact is, NARCh puts on a great tournament. In fact, when the sniping occurs it never results in a comment that: Boy that NARCh really was a bad experience. Instead, the argument was which NARCh was best, not if any were bad. So, going to NARCh at any level provides you with a great experience. A one of a kind and a life long memory.
And this year has the potential of the greatest memories yet. This year NARCh is in the same house where the Minnesota Wild skate. My boys have skated at the Mighty Duck's Anaheim Pond and the Forum where the Kings used to play. Both were special experiences, and the experience this summer will be as memorable. I intend to experience it from an almost zombielike perspective after weeks of avoider vendor hustlers and my kids. I do not intend to see, let alone tolerate, any dilettante of any sort. Blue jeans will be mandatory, or so I have heard.
Back in the motel. Wondering if I would be jacked up again by the boarder guards. Wondering if I would be able to make it through, knowing that not even the INS could keep me out of my own country for being terminally weird.
On my way out, I met some street kids who picked up some French fries I dropped. I looked around. This was a tourist town. The hungry children were shooed away in short order. Same way everywhere you went around the world. But then I remembered about those kids I met once who only wanted to have some McDonald's French Fries. Every day they walked to school they saw them on a billboard and spoke of how, one day, they would get a whole bag of fries for themselves. It is that kind of experience that has a habit of hitting you full fist upside your head, and shaming you only because you hadn't seen it at all before.
But it was a good vacation all in all, even though I gave away all the fish to those street urchins begging after buying them all a bag of fries. I also thought of my own kids, and the chances they have and nearly cried. So many opportunities by luck of the genetic draw, and I still wonder why. I never understood the fairness thing. Never have. But it has been enough to at least cause me to show appreciation and understand that those experiences we have a chance at, others may never get.
We are holders of the dreams of many, whether we want to be or not.
Damn ation. Didn't mean to end this on a downer. Just writing what is in front of me is all. But I don't want to edit it. Because I do believe we should take the chance to become a star and shine, in the last instance, if only because Blind Fate or the Creator above simply gave us the chance.
And because, if we don't try, failing to do so takes away the dreams of others.
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