Fatherhood - Striving Together
"Fatherhood - Striving Together" is a podcast dedicated to empowering fathers to lead their families with wisdom, strength, and faith. Hosted by three Christian fathers, including two pastors, the show explores the challenges and joys of fatherhood, offering practical advice rooted in biblical principles.
Each episode delves into essential topics like mentoring the next generation, building strong marriages, and guiding children in a rapidly changing world. Whether you're a new dad, a seasoned father, or someone considering fatherhood, this podcast is your companion on the journey of raising a family that thrives in faith and love.
Join us as we strive together to build homes on a solid foundation, where each member is nurtured and guided to live a life devoted to Christ. Discover insights, share experiences, and be a part of a community that believes in the power of fatherhood to shape the future.
Fatherhood - Striving Together
From Fan to Father: The Balancing Act
Have you ever wondered how dedicated sports fans manage their passions while navigating the demands of fatherhood? Join us on "Fatherhood Striving Together," where Kyle, Jason, and Chris share personal stories of how their love for sports has endured despite the sleepless nights and hectic schedules of parenting. Discover how memorable events, like the 1989 earthquake, cemented Kyle’s lifelong loyalty to the San Francisco Giants, and hear about the unique challenges of following games across time zones, especially for West Coast football fans.
From the madness of March Madness to the highs and lows of Premier League matches, our hosts cover a spectrum of sports enthusiasm, sharing heartwarming anecdotes of watching games with family and the unforgettable thrill of championship moments. Whether it’s the quiet concentration needed for golf or the high-octane excitement of NASCAR, we explore how different sports have played a role in our lives. Engaging your children in your sports hobbies can create lasting family memories, but balancing this with parental responsibilities can be a juggling act.
Ever thought about joining an adult hockey league? Listen as we discuss the physical and logistical demands of playing hockey in smaller towns and the camaraderie that keeps us coming back despite late-night games and the inevitable bumps and bruises. Hear a gripping story about a minor league hockey game turned community event, filled with unexpected fights and intense play. We wrap up with reflections on balancing passion with personal growth, emphasizing the need to manage our enthusiasm responsibly. Tune in for an episode that’s as passionate and heartfelt as the sports we love.
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you're listening to fatherhood striving together. Hosted by kyle cox, jason schuler and chris Julio.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so hobbies as dads. What hobbies have survived from the time that you were, you know, maybe in college or 20s or even before that, and you still kind of can carry that hobby on to today? What hobbies have survived fatherhood?
Speaker 1:For me, sports Not participating in so much anymore, but uh, but watching um I've.
Speaker 2:I've been a baseball fan specifically since 1988 I'd say you're from california, so does that mean?
Speaker 1:no, no, okay, you can't.
Speaker 3:You can't mention dodger names around me so Kirk Gibson, though, was 1988, right, that was the year that Kirk Gibson pitched it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So the next year 1989, was the year of the big earthquake, that's right.
Speaker 1:So some of my earliest memories of being aware of baseball and who the Giants were was kind of the end of the 88-ish into I would have been six, seven years old, and then 89, when the Giants were in the World Series with the Oakland A's, so two Bay Area teams both in it, and then the big earthquake which I remember very vividly and so yeah, and I think it went from there and then the 49ers were good in kind of the 80s and the 90s, not as much as the Dallas Cowboys, but you know. So yeah, so I had that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3:You got the.
Speaker 1:Warriors now, are you a Warriors fan? So I've never been a huge basketball fan and probably a lot of that was because the Warriors were terrible until more recently. I mean for 30-plus years.
Speaker 3:They were horrendous.
Speaker 1:So I don't think I ever really got into that. I like hockey, so it's pretty much everything but basketball, I guess.
Speaker 2:San Jose Sharks.
Speaker 1:The San Jose Sharks, that's right.
Speaker 2:Another franchise. Who's been?
Speaker 1:snakebitten. Before I moved out east, actually my roommate was a season ticket holder to the San Jose Sharks. That's right, yeah, another franchise, so I live. Before I moved out east, so I actually my roommate was a season ticket holder to the San Jose Sharks, so we went to several games a year and I was much more plugged in. Now I haven't watched the game in probably two or three seasons.
Speaker 2:Ok, but they're terrible.
Speaker 1:So that's how that goes yeah, it's the, it's very. The thing I like about baseball is it's to me, me, it's kind of like the, the male version of a, of a soap opera, in a way just because it's because it's on every day, oh okay, so the repetition, in that sense I get it but it's not.
Speaker 1:You don't have to have the dedication where, like we were talking about kind of with some of the Marvel stuff or whatever it's like, if you miss one, it's okay, there's another one tomorrow, right, you know so there's 162 opportunities to see exactly that's which is a whole lot of them. Oh my goodness so what? So so yeah, I wouldn't say it's, it's not like I think if to liken it to soap operas is kind of kind of rough, not a perfect uh I thought you meant with drama, so the drama.
Speaker 1:That's a drama. Well, there is. They want to make you say drama or trauma drama drama.
Speaker 2:Sorry, is there trauma in baseball? I don't know it depends on who you root for. Guy drops a hot dog trying to grab a foul ball, so so I like the.
Speaker 1:I like the fact that it's kind of a it's it's always been sort of a something you can have on the background. It's something that it's kind of a it's always been sort of something you can have on the background. It's something that it's just there all the time Cool. So I like that. Football Football's a fun thing to get ready for every Sunday. It's nice to have something to rush home after church to be excited about.
Speaker 2:I've always wondered this. Can you answer this for me real quick as a side note, somebody who grew up on the West Coast? Yeah, what Side note. Somebody who grew up on the West Coast, what's? It like having football on 10 o'clock in the morning on a Sunday.
Speaker 1:No wonder the.
Speaker 2:West Coast doesn't go to church. They're all watching football. Is that true?
Speaker 1:That's probably a big part of it. Actually, I think a lot of people see, I never went to church when I lived out there. I think a lot of the people I knew that did were much earlier in the morning, yeah, which, yeah. And then all of our teams, yeah, anytime they're on the East Coast or whatever it was starting later in the day or earlier in the day, I should say Like 10 o'clock. So being a West Coast sports fan who lives on the East Coast is absolutely brutal too. Yeah, for things like, I mean, football is not really the same, but uh, but if I'm going to watch it like a weeknight baseball game, hockey game, whatever, I watched the I have. I will admit I have watched some basketball when the Warriors are doing well in the playoffs and stuff, cause just playoffs in any sport are are just a lot of fun to watch.
Speaker 1:So but uh, yeah, you get. You get these games that start at 10 o'clock at night or 9.30 at night or something like that.
Speaker 3:It's crazy.
Speaker 1:And yeah, so if I've got a work schedule and I've got to be at work at 6 o'clock the next morning or something, not going to catch that game, yeah, so I've lived in all four major US time zones.
Speaker 3:I lived in all four major US time zones. I lived in California for four years. I lived in Colorado for a year and a half. I lived in Oklahoma for five and a half and I've lived in North Carolina. The rest, and by far my favorite time zone for sports is Central Time.
Speaker 2:Zone.
Speaker 3:Central has to be it. It's Central Time Zone because when I was in college for four years it was. You know, you're sitting in church at 10 am and you just got a notification that your fantasy team has locked and it's like, oh no, oh, I forgot. Oh no, it's 10 am. I didn't anticipate this and so it was cool because you would get to your lunch stop after church by like the fourth quarter. So that was cool because you got to see the fourth quarter and then all the afternoon games were were earlier. But the East coast man I grew up here it's a drag, like the college basketball national championship game tips off at 9. Pm. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's like I don't. I want to be in the bed by 9. Pm, like focusing on going to sleep by nine. It's like this game just started, like when the NBA playoffs started and you had multiple games every night. Some of those you know the Lakers nugget series tipped off at 10 30 at night. It's like, what are we doing? I got to be up till 1230, one o'clock some nights before these games go off, and if it's game one or two, fine, but game six game seven Well, championship series.
Speaker 1:That's always like they're trying to get prime time on the East Coast, yeah, and still catch part of prime time on the West Coast, right? So, yeah, that's why you get like the. Usually a game on the East Coast wouldn't start past 7 o'clock, right? Well, you get the 8 o'clock starts then and yeah, it's nuts and everything in the playoffs and championships always goes slower. The games always take like probably 30% longer or something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, all that stuff. So central time zones where to be got it, got it now you mentioned basketball on the west coast.
Speaker 1:Uh, college basketball, I think you talked about. So, being a native californian, I can say this isn't 100, but people on the west coast give almost no cares about college sports. College sports is so down here that I was barely aware of it most of the time. Nobody ever talked about college sports because there's so many professional teams. In everything, california has five baseball teams, soon to be four. We used to have four or five football teams at one point, four football something like that.
Speaker 1:See, oakland is the common thread in that number decreasing they come and they go, get it together, but uh, even the rams, the. The rams were in california, los angeles, when I when I was up, and so were the Raiders, and now neither of them are in California.
Speaker 3:The Rams are back. The Rams are back. It's so weird they're back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then the Chargers are no longer in San Diego, but anyway, yeah, there's so many sports teams. The Bay Area has two basketball teams if you count Sacramento, but there's a ton of these things. So college, no, irrelevant, yeah, almost, but out here completely different. Oh, yeah, completely different. College sports are like the big ones and I think that's because there's a lot less pro teams. Like North Carolina has a hockey team and a football team.
Speaker 3:Football and basketball.
Speaker 1:I guess you could claim the football team, the Carolina Panthers, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, and you get into states that don't even have professional teams.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:A lot of the colleges around here, even though we have professional teams, they play them in their conference. So, like you play a team from South Carolina, that is their professional team, you play a team from Alabama that is their professional team, alabama that is their professional team, right. Yeah, so okay. So sports, we probably will have a very common thread Jason Hobby, that has survived the test of time into fatherhood.
Speaker 3:That's it. Sports is the only one. I mean, my short answer would have been none None of my hobbies, but no sports. I like to go to games but I love to watch games and, like you guys said, with championship stuff, I will not watch golf until Sunday and I will likely fall asleep watching it. I don't watch any NASCAR, but NASCAR is huge here in North Carolina.
Speaker 1:Yes, it is.
Speaker 3:I don't watch hockey until the playoffs and I always watch the Stanley Cup because it's the coolest trophy in sports. Big time March Madness fan cup because it's the coolest trophy in sports. Um, big time march madness fan. Like, uh, my wife's family's looking to do some kind of family vacation next year and the spring was one of the options and I looked on my calendar I'm like, well, that's the first weekend of march madness. You know because I've got it on the calendar I want to blacked out already it's not blacked out but it's penciled in like it's.
Speaker 3:I want to know that. First, two days, when you go from 64 teams down to 16 in four days, yeah, it's like that's electric. When you've got a 16 seed, that's hitting shots on virginia like a few years ago, that's electric. And I would say I like collegiate sports because it's more purist. That was definitely the case pre-NIL.
Speaker 3:I don't know that that's necessarily the case anymore, Not anymore, but I love sports and I follow the NBA. I love basketball, I love baseball, football, a little bit of soccer, a little bit of golf. I mean if it's Wimbled soccer, a little bit of golf. I mean if it's Wimbledon finals, I'll probably watch. I'll probably tune in Soccer, I will watch. I would go to an MLS game On missions trips.
Speaker 3:I've tried to go to some European games before and it just never works out because they're all on Sundays. Like it's almost impossible to do ministry on a Sunday in Europe and also make it to a game or a match somewhere. So no, I follow just about everything and I really love sports and it's cool because my kids are watching sports with me. Now, because my son likes to play some sports, he'll watch some with me. My daughter, who's nine, is really into sports and, um, so it's fun. It's fun to watch sports and take my kids to games and do stuff with them.
Speaker 3:We'll do some minor league baseball around here, but that's, I mean, that's about it when you're, when you work full time and you have a family and you've got kids, um, you know, those guys that just play golf all the time or play video games all the time. I can't relate well to those guys Like I. I I've played golf before, but I'm not fun to play golf with because I'm not. I'm not good at it. I don't take it seriously. So if you've got three dudes that are serious golfers and you're looking for a fourth, I am not your guy.
Speaker 2:I actually stress out when I golf with people because I am so bad that in my personality I'm thinking I'm detracting for the fun that I know you guys who love this are going to have. Yeah. So I don't want to be a joy killer, a drag, so don't even bring me because, every single time I hit it, it's going right. I don't care how I line up. It's going right yeah, especially when I pull out the driver.
Speaker 3:My brother-in-law is a huge golfer and there's this trip that he goes on in Oregon every couple of years. It's very expensive, it's a very exclusive course and he's invited me several times and I politely decline every time because I'm just I'm not going to go.
Speaker 3:I'm not going to have fun, like after 18 holes, like I'm gassed, my hands hurt. It's not enjoyable to me. I don't like it. I've got a guy in my connect group that went to the same course and in a period of four days he played 36 holes, three straight days and then another day he only got 18. And I'm like, dude, you played seven courses.
Speaker 3:That's a tournament in four days or two almost, yeah, almost two, seven, seven rounds in four days, and he and three other guys did it and it's like I'm glad that that sounds fun for you, that's a fun hobby for you to have. It's not for me, not for me. So chris and I have given ours kyle. What about you?
Speaker 2:I yeah, sports are probably the easy one. I I'm sitting here listening to you guys thinking I'll let me try and get some type of content that's different. But honestly that is kind of like the hobby that everybody kind of defaults to our family. My wife included, loves watching sports, going to games, participating, I guess, if you want to get really specific. I mean, we're a pretty big soccer family so that definitely comes into play in our house a lot.
Speaker 2:So when we were talking about time differences, the time difference with us in England because we're into the premier league primarily, you know, is great, as if a game's on saturday, they do play games on saturday and sundays. If they're sundays, it's usually during church, which is okay because youtube tv is great for recording things, but, um, but if it's on a saturday, it's really fun. If we have a free saturday morning, which is rare, to sit down with my breakfast at 7, 30 or 9 o'clock and be able to have a game on. And my sons are into it. They watch it with me. We enjoy it a lot. My older son really has gotten into it. He knows players' names and wants to know more stats and so we can really get into kind of the deeper storylines of our team.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, my kids will watch anything. My kids will watch NASCAR. My son will. I tend to make jokes about NASCAR, hoping that he doesn't become a lover of the sport. Despite my best efforts he is still enjoying it and still wants to, I think because of our church family here who continue to certain people in our church like NASCAR enough and he can go to them and they feed that beast. So yeah, there's that In terms of hobbies that did not survive fatherhood. Actually golf, I would say as much as I just said, as I'm terrible. There was a little window of time in my life when I was in college and just out of college where the guy friends who I had at the time really got into golf and none of us were good, so we didn't take it seriously. We went to junk public courses, we'd go at twilight, we'd walk, so we wouldn't pay for cart fees or anything like that.
Speaker 1:We were very economical and frugal when it came to our golfing hobby.
Speaker 2:I didn't purchase really nice golf balls. The majority of the balls were probably like range balls that I found quote unquote. But then when I started dating my wife and then shortly thereafter, once we got married, I just my schedule changed and so the time to golf disappeared and it wasn't like a huge loss in my life. So I know for some people like that would be like whoa, that's a huge life change.
Speaker 2:For me it was just like oh, that's just something that I used to do. It was fun. It was, in all sense of the word, a hobby. It really was. It was in all sense of the word a hobby, it really was. But then, once my wife came along, I was more interested in her than I was. Three or four hours, you know, hitting a white ball around and then finding it in the woods later and trying to make it into a small hole. You know, when you say anything like that, it just kind of removes the mystique of it, doesn't it? But anyway, so that's one that just definitely went away for me. Um, any others that kind of just faded into obscurity, maybe so for me definitely, I mean it's again, it's sports related which is we got a strong, a strong theme that runs between us here.
Speaker 1:Um, so I was, I was a volleyball coach for about seven, sixteen years before really getting married. I'd say, but uh, and then I tried, so I I pretty much stopped having having a regular job. Is it makes it hard?
Speaker 1:especially a one like mine where my, my schedule rotates I'm working night shifts or day shifts, not always monday through friday, sort of thing. It kind of makes it's made it really difficult for me to keep doing it and I'm the sort of guy who I mentioned this before but I don't, I don't like. I don't like kind of just every once in a while being involved, like if I'm going to be with a team, I want to be there for them all the time. You know I want to contribute. So I've never been very good at being the guy who's just here like once, once a week or every every so often. I've never been very good at being the guy who's just here like once, once a week or every every so often. So I tried to.
Speaker 1:A couple of years ago I actually tried to do a season with a volleyball club here in in in Greensboro and so, but it was. It was that that was the sort of relationship that I had with the whole thing. I wasn't coaching a team, I was like a, a, a row, a, a roaming coach. I go to practice and just help out. Wherever I need help, they need to help, which which was okay, because I got to do a whole bunch of different age groups, a whole bunch of different types of players, skill levels and stuff like that. And I went to one tournament and a volleyball tournament and this is something that I think we talked a bit about the sports stuff remember when we talked about kids and sports and and all that. So it's sort of an interesting.
Speaker 1:It kind of goes with that, though it's like I went this friday night. It was in gatlinburg, so I got to go out to. That was my first time going like the pigeon forge gatlinburg area and, uh, got to head out there. It was in January, so it was freezing cold. That was a fun drive in the Tesla, which doesn't do well in cold, as it turns out and so that was my one and only experience going to a volleyball tournament or a sports tournament of any kind in North Carolina, and so I did that, got home and I was like, yeah, I can't keep doing this. I can't figure out a way to make it work.
Speaker 1:I would love for it to be a part of my life, but now I have four kids and the lifestyle that I used to live before being married and everything, with volleyball tournaments like every other weekend, I'd be gone for three days all over the country just around bing, bing, bing, two or three nights a week going to practices and stuff, and so that just doesn't fit at all and I'm okay with that, but I still enjoy watching it. So if there's something obscure sports-wise that I watch, the only thing that I'm really plugged into usually at all in sports is college volleyball in terms of the college world, which is very odd. I've been to a Final Four for that. It's not the same as all the rest of them, but it was in Omaha, which is like the college volleyball mecca of the country, I think, which you might not think that, but super, super, super popular in Omaha.
Speaker 3:You sure you're not talking about college baseball.
Speaker 1:College volleyball. For men is baseball, but I think for women, for women, because isn't?
Speaker 2:Nebraska, one of the top teams in women's volleyball. Yeah, regularly, yeah.
Speaker 1:I think they did one of these out. They did a couple seasons ago. They did an outdoor match. It was Nebraska and somebody else and it was in whatever, I think nebraska's football stadium it is and they set like all sorts of records for most people ever seeing a ball.
Speaker 2:You pack that place like a hundred thousand people for a college volleyball match always fascinated when they put other sports into, like those big football spaces, because a football field, obviously being 120 yards big, you know, fills up some space. But then you take a volleyball court, that's probably small, it's smaller.
Speaker 1:There was basketball too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, basketball is a bit smaller than a basketball court, and then you're putting 90 plus thousand people to watch. Like, could you imagine being the 500 section of that thing? Like, what are you what I just see?
Speaker 3:like, especially volleyball, because the court is so much smaller than even basketball.
Speaker 1:The ball's big. I mean the ball is big. Hey, the spec is a little bit bigger than the other spec.
Speaker 2:I like that. I like that. That's funny. Oh man, Jason, any hobbies you can remember have kind of gone by the wayside.
Speaker 3:No, I mean, mean not really. I feel like, uh, maybe I was just a boring person because I, I, I used to read and do sports and now I I still do those things and so I I've tried to hold on to I. I'm not really huge on hobbies like some people are like what are your hobbies? Like? That's never a go-to question for me to ask someone I'm getting to know, because I myself don't have like crazy amount of hobbies I have to think about like well, what is a hot?
Speaker 1:what, yeah, define a hobby, what?
Speaker 3:classifies as a hobby. Um, I mean, when I was a kid I played a lot of legos, but I remember like that I played with legos a lot yeah you know, a couple months ago, because my son's into Legos and my kids play Legos, so that hobby's still alive. I guess, it's still alive. I guess I've maintained the few hobbies that I've had over life.
Speaker 2:That's great, that's great. Yeah, I don't think that's a bad thing. You should keep that Lego hobby going, yeah, go strong For sure, kyle, anything that?
Speaker 1:what didn't make the cut in fatherhood? Like I said, the golfing thing but that was a small span of time.
Speaker 2:I honestly this is partly, I think, some of these hobbies. It's just kind of the nature of life change, like you said, chris, like I had a job and I have a family, so your schedule changes and so time is just split elsewhere. So I think this one would be one that I would say because of finances, get redirected right, like money starts going towards kids, things, rather than you know, you and your wife, or you by yourself, when you're a bachelor. I loved traveling and I did so much. I drove so many different places. I would do day trips. I lived in the Washington DC area my whole life until my wife and I moved out of there in 2013. And I would go from DC area to the eastern shore of Maryland, to the coast in a day and back. I'd do that. I'd do that all the time. Friends and I would get together. We'd go do that and hit, putt-putt courses, kind of like your friend you're talking about or your brother-in-law who golfed that much.
Speaker 2:We would do that with putt-putt but in a day and it would be epic and it would be awesome. Um, so I, I did a lot more traveling when I was single and even when my wife and I were, you know, either dating or, you know, married without children for that very small span of time we had that window. Um, just because it was, you know, I had more expendable income to do it, had a lot more free time to do it and, quite honestly, logistically, how difficult it is to, like you guys know, traveling with kids can sometimes just be a nightmare to to plan and game plan all the logistics and the amount of bathroom breaks you take. I mean, I, I took one trip in college where I went from the dc area up to columbus, ohio, which is probably about a seven hour ish, and I literally did it with no stops. That's impressive. Just went to the bathroom, you know, in my dorm, packed up a drink in a like bag of chips, and I just high-tailed it out of there.
Speaker 1:And I was gone.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I was gone, you know, and I was there, met up with my friends who were up there. Yeah, in college that kind of stuff was just kind of the norm for me, just day trips and traveling was something that I just enjoyed. Uh, I did have friends. I didn't do it with them, but I had friends in college because I I went to school right outside the dc area and they were both from you know, the 95 corridor in the northeast, and they said, dude, we are so tired of college food. And it's like, okay, so what are you feeling? Cheese steak. I was like, okay, well, you know, like there's the steak escape or whatever in the mall. Are you going there?
Speaker 3:No, no, we're going to Philly, we're going to.
Speaker 2:Philly, and so they did. They packed up and it was about 3.30, and class had just gotten out. They were like we're going to be there in time for dinner.
Speaker 1:They drove up to.
Speaker 2:Philly. I didn't go with them. They offered do you want us to bring you one back? And all I could imagine was a Philly cheesesteak in a brown paper bag. Arriving at my dorm room at about 9.30 or 10 o'clock, the bag is essentially disintegrated at that point. It's cold, lukewarm and thinking do I want to eat that at 10 o'clock? Absolutely. Absolutely, I wanted to because why wouldn't you, right? So, um yeah, that's a hobby, that definitely just naturally just faded away.
Speaker 3:I did some stuff like that in college, where you just up and go on a trip.
Speaker 1:And I remember doing that, but it's a great adventure.
Speaker 3:Maybe one of the reasons I don't have those set hobbies is I never lived a bachelor's life Like. I literally went from high school to college and then I graduated college in May, I got married in June and I started working at a church in July. And so you know, there was no couple years living in an apartment with some other dude who was my roommate. There was no—the dating scene. There was no um the dating scene there. There, there was none of that, and so maybe I was spared from picking up beautiful hobbies that I can no longer.
Speaker 3:I can no longer reminisce about yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's funny. Yeah, I don't. Yeah, a lot of it just came out of that college life and I had about a two-year window when I graduated until I got married. So I was dating my wife for most of that time. But yeah, I had about a two-year window outside of college too where I got to just enjoy just experiencing things as a young 20-year-old and trying new things and not having too much of a care in the world, even if I was working. It was like, who cares, I'll be back, get four hours of sleep, we'll function, we can do that. Now.
Speaker 2:That sounds like a terrible life choice oh, yeah, um, and one that I would probably take about four days to recover from if I did it. Did it now, but um, but yeah, those are. Those are some of those, those things that I remember doing.
Speaker 1:I used to play. I played ice hockey for a few years adult ice hockey like beginner's adult ice hockey. I just decided one day that you know what I'm going to try that and this is back in California. So in San Jose we had a huge ice hockey base there, so supposedly it's the largest base of people, of adults playing hockey, out like West of the.
Speaker 1:Mississippi. I guess I don't know how big of a. I don't know how big that is, but uh, but it was a lot of people. So. So I played in an adult hockey league for three years and then I moved to upstate New York and very small town comparatively speaking, and there wasn't as much of that.
Speaker 1:I played for one season in a little rink we had there and I was playing against. There wasn't enough people for there to be like a whole league of people who were like me, who are not the greatest skaters I'm not terrible but, like you know, who are kind of new to it, aren't looking to be pros or anything, and I was playing against people who were old college players from from wherever, who had been skating and playing, since they were walking and stuff, and it was like man, I'm getting my butt kicked, plus it plus. I don't know what it is about hockey, but hockey seems to be something that you go when there's rink time and that's your game might start at 10, 30 at night, 11 o'clock at night or something like that, and so I get home, I'm stinky, I'm sweaty, yeah, and I gotta be at work at six o'clock the next morning. It seems to be the thing that kind of keeps happening with me.
Speaker 3:it's so you talk about, like there's like a four hours of sleep type of situation, right there, right and then, not for it, so we've got a guy in our connect group here at our church and he is in one of those hockey leagues, okay, and he is, I'll say he's 39 or 40 and he's always loved hockey he was never collegiate level, he just always did it at the recreational level.
Speaker 3:It's a great game to play um, he's, he's still, he's still, and he invites me to his hockey games and one of these days I'm going to go, but I've not been able to make it yet. But you're right, they play when they get ice time, and so the last couple of games he's invited me to were in you know, probably a half hour from my house, and they start at 1030, 11 30 and I'm like bro man, I love you, I'm not coming to your hockey game at 11 o'clock at night. Like I hope to have been in bed by a minimum of an hour at that point. My kids are down like I'll go watch an nba finals game once in a while, but that's not an 11 o'clock start time. Like I can't commit to this. You're going to play three periods of hockey at 11 o'clock. He's like it's awesome.
Speaker 1:But he said the same thing you did.
Speaker 3:Like I get home at two, I got a shower and I'm like I don't I don't love any kind of game that much to to do that at my age.
Speaker 1:Yeah, any kind of game that much to to do that at my age, yeah, that'd be tough, that that honestly, if you've never played it before. Just like you sign up for a class or something, it is. It is one of the hardest things you'll ever do have you been checked into the boards pretty hard?
Speaker 3:yeah, did you check other guys is?
Speaker 1:that I never played in a league where you're really allowed is that a rush for you? To do that? Yeah, I think it would be. I've never really, I mean. So there's a, there's emotion, and we're men. Yeah, you get emotional and all of a sudden somebody does something that kind of rubs you the wrong way, sure, and next thing you know you're trying to put them into the boards a little harder than you're supposed to, or they're doing the same to you, and yeah, it's it.
Speaker 3:I mean, that is a game where there's penalties so we've got a minor league hockey team here in North Carolina. It's at Winston-Salem the Carolina Thunderbirds.
Speaker 1:Which I just became aware of in the last couple of months, really.
Speaker 3:Probably four or five years ago, this guy I'm telling you about that's where his games are and he says, hey, we've got to do a class activity to this minor league hockey game. And I'm like I mean, if you really want to, we can Like whatever. Why don't you call them, get us a group rate? You put the whole thing together. You want to do it, you just do it. And so he did it and he had, like I don't know, maybe 10 to 12 people come. It wasn't well attended. I couldn't even come because of the date he picked. I was gone and he was like yeah, we had a good time. I really want to do it again next year when you're in town. And I'm like, okay.
Speaker 3:So I told my wife I'm like I'm just going to do it, I'm just going to, we'll do it a class activity. I'll really push it and I'm just, my philosophy is we bring the fun with us. You know, if we're gonna do it, we're gonna have fun, because we're there, doesn't matter who else shows up. I pushed it hard. We had 30 people, 40 people show up from our class families to go to this minor league hockey game. I kid you not, it is the most fun activity we do as a class and we do it every year and we they play this team. I'm telling they don't play a lot of hockey like they are fighting the entire time and this first game that I went to it was so electric. It was a team from watertown, wisconsin, and they came here and there was obviously beef with these two teams but they were fighting like seconds into the game, like first period, seconds into the game.
Speaker 1:It's like Slapshot right, they're fighting.
Speaker 3:And I'm like this is awesome, like guys are getting sent off the ice, guys are getting to the penalty box. I kid you not. There were at least six players that were, I guess, kicked out of the game, for both teams. It was an electric atmosphere One time. A guy from their team hit a guy from our team so hard, put him into the boards. He went to the penalty box. Not lying. There are fans crawling over to get at him into the penalty box. Security guards were stepping in, security guards were stepping in, police officers were stepping in. It was unbelievable and he was like what did you think? And I'm like this is the best thing we've ever done.
Speaker 1:When is the next?
Speaker 3:So we came back the next year and he was like you want to do it again. I said, yeah, we're doing it again. I said, well, I'm going to get all the people we took like 40, like 40 people and families that we we took to this game and I'm like I want to make sure they're playing watertown. Sure enough, same thing they were fighting. This past year we went. It was not as good of a game, much more hockey than fighting. I was very disappointed and it was not against watertown, so I'm I was disappointed in that but you went to the ice rink and a hockey game showed up.
Speaker 3:That's exactly what happened.
Speaker 1:WWE is coming to town regularly.
Speaker 3:I think, though, so maybe that's more up your alley, maybe that's another class activity we'll do.
Speaker 2:You know. Quick little side note when you talked about adult hockey and any adult sport league. So that's one thing. If I could, I would like to jump into that like playing adult soccer and there's been a couple of different people who I know here at the church and at the school as well, that we send our kids to that. The adults have asked me like hey, will you come out and play with us? And every time it just doesn't work out. You know it's, it's the schedule, you know, it's.
Speaker 2:It's usually a Sunday night or it's a Wednesday night when you know we've got church activities going on, so it's just never going to work. But but one thing I'm always curious about, and I don't know how, I haven't played so I don't know how I would handle it. But the same dynamic is what I've heard is that here you can go into like the. There's levels, so like C, b and A league. Sure, you know. So you get different rec. I wouldn't want to find myself in the C league because I'd want to have some more like a little bit more competition challenge myself, but also won't want to get into a game with a 20-year-old or 19-year, 19 year old who is pretty much trying to. You know he didn't make his D three college team but he's good enough to play there and he's just killing it Right.
Speaker 2:So finding the happy balance? Does that even exist? Because then then you have this whole thing like so okay, so let's say we find ourselves in the B league, and then you've got people who are out there just saying, man, hey, don't hurt me, I got to work tomorrow, right. And then you got other people who are out there just saying, man, hey, don't hurt me, I gotta work tomorrow, right. Then you got other people who are out there just going try hard and they're just going.
Speaker 2:They're out for blood. Well, this is their stanley cup, this is their world cup, and so I want to enjoy the game. I want to be challenged. I want to, just, you know, continue to play, because I enjoy the game and I like to keep my skills sharp but does that? Exist, like in your experience in adult sports sure okay, oh yeah, so that's encouraging.
Speaker 1:It seemed like I was never in charge of like like the manager of a team or anything in terms of like getting people on the roster and stuff like that, but it was always like an interesting balance act of how many ringers can you get on your roster before everybody else is going to be really upset so you'd go up against these teams and be like these guys, like they had like these loose rules. So in Santa, like there was over 10,000 people playing in this league.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's a lot more than what we're talking about here, 10,000 players.
Speaker 3:So a lot of people are on multiple teams.
Speaker 1:So that's why I'm saying it's a big hockey base Right. So I was like in like the double D League or something like that, because it was beginners, it was completely beginners. And hockey is a game where you I mean I could go on a soccer field, run around and kick a ball right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You cannot with zero experience hop on a sheet of ice and be able to move and do anything. So there's a huge difference between guys who can move around a little bit, skate backwards, play defense not an easy sport. That's why that's one of the reasons I really liked it, because I was struggling, because just a struggle, when you're brand new.
Speaker 3:You like to challenge?
Speaker 1:it was very. It was so different and so so a different kind of challenge that you're not going to really get picking up anything else except Except, I mean, if you've never swung a baseball bat before at a ball and you jump into that, that could probably be pretty hard, but it's not like you can't walk, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or throw and catch, yeah. Yeah, throwing and catching is pretty basic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's kind of it's so unique in that respect I that every those who can't are going to be kind of with others who can't yeah, so you don't have to that's why you don't just jump, I'll just jump into, like the c b level.
Speaker 3:No, no, no, no, no yeah did you go to any of the other higher levels and watch those dudes like, oh yeah it was, it was.
Speaker 1:it was kind of like you were saying where it's like these guys who were maybe used to be college players or everybody, all the guys in, like the A level and everything, or the B level even, were not from California, because nobody grows up playing hockey in California.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:Except now they're sort of starting to. But so they were all from out of town, they played since they were whatever, like I said, and it's just they were allowed to hit each other. They didn't have to wear the full cages on their helmets and stuff. It's a very different game.
Speaker 3:It's a lot like watching kind of a lower-level minor league game. I guess I think that happy medium depends more on the person than the sport. Like I think there will in every venue of life, there will be people who it makes them a bad person or they take it to the extreme and they can't handle. They can't handle it. That's why we can't have nice things.
Speaker 1:That's just why we cannot have nice things. Thanks for listening to the Fatherhood Striving Together podcast. Be sure to follow or subscribe to catch future episodes. Consider leaving a five-star review and look for more future content coming soon. No-transcript.
