In the Crease

I know nothing about hockey, but occasionally I sit through a game just to pander to Hub. And because I have so little interest in the game I tend to ignore the action while only half-listening in a distracted way to the announcer. Listening to credits for a ‘hat-trick’, and who’s ‘saving’, ‘scoring’, or ‘breaking-away’, Neat phrases, all of them. But I also hear the phrase, that a player or a puck is ‘in the crease’, and when I hear that, the words sound musical, rhythmical. It is a phrase that really appeals in a special unexplainable way to my literary/word/phrase sense. (Hub tells me that ‘the crease’ is that small blue area in front of the net, right there, right adjacent to the net.)

To me, ‘in the crease’ is a phrase dignified by hockey and hockey is dignified by the phrase. Hockey makes the phrase sound impressive. And alternatively, the phrase seems to soften the aggressive nature of the game. Making it as much art as sport. These words are words that Shakespeare might have written. There is no doubt about it. It is a lovely phrase.

And that is a term of reference that really appeals to me as a description of who I am and what I write. I live in the crease and I write in the crease.

“In the crease”. Close to a goal, but yet not a goal. Liberal in one sense, conservative in another. Writing stuff that might be fact or might be fiction. Sometimes forming conclusions intuitively, other times deductively. This is my space of habitation and comfort.

So, you see, I haven’t lived life outside the box, I have lived life in the crease. Descriptive of a place that dignifies the shame of failure by allowing me to be that close to the net, and erasing the unfortunate realities I may wish to whine about that impeded my progress. Cause like professional hockey players, those who live life in the crease don’t whine. And when you live in the crease, you never know. Any minute someone might give you the little push you need to make a goal.