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The word ' retro' is mostly taken as a positive these days, a buzz term used to denote coolness with certain clothes or lifestyle. About three weeks ago, the SendLabs group had the opportunity to take in a day that could have been described as retro but with a very sharp distinction: classy and inspiring.
The event we attended was the annual New Hampshire Legends of Hockey banquet, a yearly fundraiser/get-together honoring the newest inductees into this Hall of Fame-style group. Most, if not all, are names that the average hockey fan wouldn't recognize, but when it comes to this group, they are all very well-known and elicit immediate reponses that are most often led off with a laugh.
Something that always amazed me during my seven years of working in professional hockey was the unique camaraderie amongst those who play and those who used to play. Seemingly, everyone knows everyone in a sort-of Six Degrees of Separation kind of way. They tell stories, they laugh, they talk fondly of guys with nicknames like "Kangaroo", "Nails" and "The Jet". It's a bond that you don't seem to notice in other sports, save in baseball when you hear about that kid that drove a ball 600 feet with a metal pole while not wearing sneakers. Every time I hear about the death of hockey as a mainstream sport, I think of those locker room hallway conversations I overheard and realize it'll never truly die out; there are too many people that love it to allow that to happen.
Sunday was refreshing in watching the few hundred men and women that attended, most self-admittedly with a little less hair, few more pounds and all proud parents and grandparents. They sat around, told stories and laughed, willing to let newcomers like our group into the fold and recall the games of yesteryear as they enjoyed each other's company. Days like this were about the reverance in which Dick Boucher explains how Saturday nights at the J.F.K. Coliseum were rocking with a line out the door that stretched around the building. It's about when Jim Hayes points out some of the nuances of the Concord Budmen. It's about how anyone from the proud city of Berlin, NH, will pontificate on how their city is the cradle of hockey and the night the snow caved in the roof at the arena. Days like Sunday are all about this and a lot more.
Simple minds often yearn for simpler times, an emotion our table felt as we listened to the stories. We work in a world that is fast-moving, constantly evolving and sometimes, more static than we feel comfortable with. A day with the New Hampshire Legends of Hockey had this writer yearning for a return to an era where the newspaper was still where you got the news, where neighborhoods still mattered and where Saturday night at a cold sheet of ice where was life really got some warmth to it.
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