"If sport has a high point of the year, it must
be the first week of spring." "...When I was growing up,
I used to love this time of year. It was when I put my hockey equipment
away and I was absolutely ecstatic to see the end of the hockey season.
One of the worst things to happen to the game, in my opinion, has
been year-round hockey and, in particular, summer hockey."All
it does for kids, as far as I can tell, is keep them out of sports
they should be doing in warmer weather. I could hardly wait to get
my lacrosse stick out and start throwing the ball around. It didn't
matter how cold or rainy it would be, we'd be out firing the ball
against walls and working on our moves as we played the lacrosse equivalent
to road hockey." "All the good hockey players seemed to
play lacrosse in those days and every one of them learned something
from the game to carry over to the other - things athletes can only
learn by mixing up games they play when they are young."
Wayne Gretzky,
The Great One.