There are few times in my life when I sat back and wonder what my life would be like without certain experiences. Thursday night I realized how much hockey and my love for the game has changed my philosophy in life, but more importantly as a father.

Thursday night I took my kids to go play hockey for the first time in their life. My 7yr old did very well, he picked up skating very quickly and got the ability of skating backwards, which I have never been able to do. My 4yr old was freaking out on the ice, not crying, but just bound and determined to stay up on the skates and move forward. They did bring a chair for him and his legs were going at least 500RPM's. He gets back and said "I think I was faster then Matt Do-hane" (maybe faster then Stoa, I will give him that).

The part that caused my reflection happened during the scrimmage. The 7yr old had no pads and no cage, because no one really could skate and there really was not much threat there, hustles across ice and slides in front of a shot like Laperrier and catches the puck in the mouth just like Laperrier. He gets up (so we know the shot was not hard) skates down the ice with the puck and scores. My wife was freaking out about the teeth, but I was freaking out about the freaking awesome blocked shot. I realized hockey has changed my life. I do have a sweat pic but I could not figure how to upload the pic.

So when did you realize that hockey changed your life?