Greetings, salutations, welcome and thanks for checking this out
For many reasons, over the past 18 months I’ve been threatening to start a blog of sorts for a multitude of reasons
The original idea was to throw down some (and believe me, certainly not all) the reasons why some scruffy, long-haired Hockey fan that spent many a happy Sunday afternoon singing, shouting and banging a drum with a small group of similar-minded fans at the Manchester Phoenix would/could walk away and basically start again from scratch with an arguably new team, replacing said group of mates with the son of someone they’d had a conversation with on a long-gone and much-missed internet forum. Needless to say, it goes without saying that anyone that has had even a passing interest in Manchester Hockey over the past 18 months will tell you that would be an absolutely insane idea, which is why the first draft of said story (thankfully) never left the safety of my lap-top hard drive. (I guess if you didn’t bother with Phoenix, you wouldn’t know this anyway, so this may explain a couple of things/references later on)
If I can just get it out of the way by saying that I have my reasons, it was one of the hardest decisions of my life – some people know some of the reasons (and if you’re really that interested, some are listed in some dark corners on the internet) but I’ve moved on, so if you’re after more “Phoenix vs Storm” material, you’ll have to look elsewhere I’m afraid. I know people that have an issue with the whole “New Storm” thing and as much as I can appreciate where they’re coming from, the whole argument isn’t something I want to be dragged back into. If that’s what you’re after, I believe that there’s an infamous thread on “The Hockey Forum” that may be of use to you.
So, with that done and dusted, what is the reason for typing all this on a wet Saturday morning, Led Zeppelin playing quietly in the background, scribbling down ideas for future postings (and planning as to where I can possibly throw in some casual Rock music references)?
I just thought it would be an idea to get some anecdotes down along with some thoughts and ideas. Thoughts and ideas that would may usually end up on some long-winded reply to a Facebook post or a Tweet that’s been edited within an inch of its life to make it fit (as much as I adore Twitter in the same way that I loathe Facebook, I can’t be alone that’s spent many a happy hour going “just one more character! I’m just one over FFS!”, but I digress, and believe me, not for the last time)
As a word of warning, I’m going to try and mix up the postings a bit, flipping between the past and present to (hopefully!) make it a bit more interesting. Of course, at the time of writing, we’re in the final leg of the season before the long 5 month break (I’ve always found it funny that the off season is shorter than the actual Hockey season but feels 5 times longer! Never understood how NFL fans manage – I guess they just find other sports to watch) so it seems like a bit of a strange time to start such an exercise, but there’s one or two happenings recently that I’ve found amusing and thought it may be worth sharing experiences from this side of the drum-skins (and who knows, potentially save anyone getting involved in any more Facebook arguments!)
Drumming Up A Storm 