A BIg Month

The month of October has been my favourite month for as long as I can remember and as we have hit the half way point now, I would like to take some time to explain my reasons. Obviously a lot has changed since it became (in my opinion) the best month of the year. As a young boy, my reasons were pretty simple as I would look forward to October because my birthday is on the 22nd. Then things started to evolve with the NHL season starting in early October so that was a big thrill as I would wake up early every morning to watch the highlights on TSN's Sports Desk (now Sports Center). Also the new hockey video game would be released in October. NHL 93 was a hit for SEGA and then it evolved into Playstation 1, then PS2, and eventually X BOX 360. Wow, as I read that last sentence out loud I realize that for the past 18 years I have been excited for a hockey video game to be released.




Thanksgiving which just passed was always a highlight for me, mostly because we had a 3 day weekend and more time to play road hockey outside as the weather was just perfect to wear jogging pants and my Stéphane Richer jersey. My best friend growing up, Matt Holland had his birthday on the 17th, followed by his dad's on the 18th, then my dad's on the 20th and two days later my own. So Matt's birthday was always fun, I remember one year we went to a Monster Truck show at the old Pontiac Silverdome, where the Detroit Lions NFL team used to play. Then for my party, I believe for 8 years straight we rented the Optimist Community Center's gym to play floor hockey.

Halloween topped the great month off and pushed us into November, which to me just served as a month of preparation, before the fun began for December. But I will not discuss the details of 2 weeks off from school, Christmas, playing road hockey in the snow outside or more importantly the World Junior Hockey Championships, that is another story to be told at another time.

So here in Briancon, France October is still my favourite month, I love the clothes I get to wear in Autumn, the leaves are changing colours, our hockey team is starting to gel and we are playing more games. It is a great time of the year, and the more I think about it, the more I realize that almost everything is related to hockey. This month in particular we have some of our toughest games of the season. We already played in Epinal, which was great, then we played at home against our rivals Grenoble taking the win 4-0, now this weekend we head to Angers to play one of the top teams in our league, then we play undefeated Morzine and travel to Rouen for our last game of the month, on Halloween.

Looks like I wont be doing any trick or treating this year but on October 31st when we play Rouen, I might try to dress up like Al MacInnis