Redline fixie on campus
So, cool bike on campus, eh? I just happened to be out with my new camera, shooting all kinds of terrible pictures, when I saw it. First fixed-gear bike I’ve seen here. Kinda neat. I especially like the strapless MTB clips (I’ve seen those for sale, and they looked interesting) and the clearly homemade aluminum-from-Home-Depot rack (I should have taken close-ups of the welds; they look neat).
So, I went to a couple of Rio Grande Valley Icehole games this week. Interesting experience. I don’t think I’ll be joining up, after all. [warning: rationalization and excuses ahead]. It wasn’t just the deafeningly loud music blasting for the entire 60-minute game. It wasn’t just the hecklers in the crowd (after all, they didn’t heckle *me*). It wasn’t the increased pushing and shoving on the ice (I can get used to that, and shove back). It wasn’t the run-down arena with dripping ceilings and mounds and pits on the ice (actually, the arena is pretty endearing and cool in that way).
It was a little more related to the fact that I could only keep up with the two women and one of the high school kids playing. Everyone else was approximately as good as (or better than, it seemed) the “pro” league in the GHL in Hamilton. I felt like I had nothing to offer, and I would spend many, many months working up to a level of skill that could be anything but a dead weight on the team. It was also related to the level of aggressiveness and competitiveness on the ice. A couple of the better players hit each other pretty hard a few times, which is unnerving for a “no contact” league. They did not hit me, though, so that was nice. I would just fall down anyway, and then how would they deal with the guilt? ;)
The deciding factor was my knees. Today I am in some agony. I skated harder last night than I ever did in the GHL, and my deteriorating knees are letting me know about it. I’m not looking forward to the walk over to the SBS building to meet with the college administrative assistant. The team I was on has exactly 10 players, and 7 showed up last night to play. I don’t think the knees are going to get less of a beating any given week (1 to 2 games per week, with occasional practices). I might think of diving back into something this intense again, if I can get extremely regular with my physical therapy exercises, or get knee replacement surgery.
I’m feeling pretty lousy about quitting after 2 games, but at the same time, I can’t see staying. Competitiveness is all well and good, and I have been known to be a little boo-yah myself; but when you’re the weakest member of the team, with little real possibility of being anything else for quite a while, and the team really, really cares about winning… I was interested in this as a way to have fun, and this was not much fun for me. There was a fair bit of name-calling on the ice, not always in good humor. The game faces were pretty serious most of the time, and the trash-talking was sustained. Lots of cursing and whacking the ice or the boards with sticks or fists. One guy, going into the box, shouted as the door was closing, “Next time, I’ll take your f***ing head off, b***!” Oh, and a few of the guys had some pretty misogynistic (or at least extremely objectifying) locker-room chatter. I’ve never been too comfortable with that, although I can ignore it if there are good reasons to do so.
Maybe I’m just giving in to my inner sissy, but it seemed that, for all its odd little quirks, the GHL in Hamilton had its standards, its norms, and its attitude set by the kind of people I would have been friends with in high school. The Iceholes, for all the positive qualities of the individuals, and the benefits of teamwork and physical exercise, seem to be influenced in their organizational ethos by the kinds of guys I would have avoided in high school, if they were walking in groups. The kind of guys who would have prompted me to think, “Great folks, but I’m glad I’m going to college, so I don’t end up like that.”
It should be said here that, off the ice, everyone was very encouraging and friendly. I liked most of the guys immediately, and some of them seemed like very cool people. It might have been fun to go watch an NHL game with them. The team captain, the league director, and the pro shop owner were especially pleasant types. But that wasn’t enough to shift the cost-benefit equation for me. If I truly cared about hockey more than I do (i.e., as more than a recreational pastime to share life space with the others I’m not willing to give up), I’d have no problem diving into this league and just working to condition myself and build my skills. Well, as long as I could somehow get my knees to tolerate it. But I guess I don’t love hockey enough, or something.
Oh, well. Now to go deal with the automatic guilt of quitting a male-role-congruent activity that I had the nerve to try. Somehow, I don’t think I’d feel this badly if, for similar reasons, I had tried and then quit, say, ballet, or competitive waltzing.
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