Right now, we’d be, say, three games into the Stanley Cup finals.

If it weren't for that nasty bug, it’d be probably Stamkos and Tampa getting it done once and for all. They were due.

And don’t even start with the playoff beards. Those things would be monk level by now. Add the bone-crunching hits, the pounding pace, the yearly collective thrashing of commissioner Gary Bettman for some relevant reason or other.

Ice and pucks are the last thing’s on the average North American’s mind, what with the summer’s heat inbound. But for some of us, nothing hides the fact that NHL hockey was, once again, cut short. Hey, it hurts. This is Canada, and we love our hockey. And like pro sports fans of all ilks, we’re not over the pain yet.

We get the shutdown had to happen, but we’re not going to lie and say it didn’t sting like a son of a bitch.

Still, there’s whispers of a return and completion to the 2019-20 NHL season, with a proposed 24-team playoff format to boot. We’re not jumping on the spot yet, but it’s something.

True, the suspension of pro sports took a hatchet to our patience. Call it another hard reminder of what matters and what doesn’t through a dark, defining moment in our history. When we look back at 2020, we’ll see it as the year we pressed pause on not just sports, but all reality. For better or worse, through economic ruin and environmental glory, we just… stopped.

And yet, it’s with that same battered patience that we’re still here, still hoping to hear the confirmation that hockey will be back, even if it’s a weird, compacted version of it.

It all brought us back to just a few years ago—2017 to be exact—when a great little book called Nine Lessons I Learned From My Father came out. The titular “9” is a reference to Mr. Hockey himself, none other than Gordie Howe, and it was written by his son, Dr. Murray Howe, who unlike his two brothers Marty and Mark, never played pro hockey, but did enjoy a sterling career in sports medicine. And, like the book reads, “it was Murray who was asked to delivery the eulogy [for Gordie],” such was his adulation for his father.

When we think of hockey gods like Howe, it’s hard not to think of a time when men not only had patience, they ran on reservoirs of it. It was endless, ironclad patience that saw guys like these through horrors like World War II and the Great Depression. And even though Gordie might have dodged the deadly flu of 1918 that cost over 50 million lives, the man saw his fair share of challenges in 88 years of life.

Gordie passed in 2016, a year before the book’s release, but not before passing on every golden piece of wisdom on to his sons, and luckily, Murray turned those nuggets into that aforementioned book, and it’s a damn good one, too.

Chapter four’s called “Patience, Patience, Patience,” and with father’s day close by, we figured it’s a good time to read this:

“One of the traits I most admired (and aspired to emulate) was his perpetual, impenetrable calm. How do you live for eighty-eight years without ever raising your voice? Try not raining your voice or losing your cool for even one day. Then you begin to realize how remarkable a man Mr. Hockey was. Living with someone like that makes you feel silly anytime you lose your cool…I have vivid recollections of an ill-fated seaplane trip our family took in 1965 to Northern Ontario for a true Canadian wilderness adventure. After a few dips and sharply banked turns in that little plane, I suddenly didn’t feel so good. I unbuckled and woozily navigated my way to mom and dad’s seats and said, “I think I’m gonna be sick!”
Dad immediately scooped me up into his arms and said, “Muzz, you’re gonna be fine. Just sit in my lap right here and look out that window!” I peered through the cockpit and out the front window. Although I was transfixed by the emerald-green lakes and boreal forest around us—not to mention the legions of switches, knobs, gauges, buttons, and levers almost close enough for me to touch—my mind couldn’t shake the fact that my stomach felt like a caged racoon that wanted to escape.
“Dad, I think I’m gonna barf!” I insisted. I was no medical expert (then), but based on my past barfing experiences, I was pretty sure this was not a drill. Dad smiled and gave me an encouraging rub on my buzzed head. “You’re gonna be fine, Mur. We’re almost there. Just keep looking out that window.” I looked out the cockpit window again. Nothing but endless forest and lakes. We were in the middle of nowhere, and it looked to me like we might be flying for hours before we found civilization. I sat up and puked all over my dad’s stylish cardigan. Gordie Howe was then covered in barf. Then I puked again, on his lap.
And again, on his sweater.
But dad didn’t jump up or hold me away from him. He accepted he vomit gracefully, and continued holding me in his arms. “How do you feel now, Mur?” he said, chuckling. “A lot better!” I announced…Amazingly, he deplaned with a smile on his face, ready to meet the huge crowd of fans on the dock vying for position to meet a legend—a hero who was covered in puke.
Patience is the key to almost every facet of life, whether it’s sports, your career, or how you relate to others. Patience seems to give you power over your world. It’s an ability to accept the things you cannot change, and a confident to prioritize and mange the things you can. With dad, it was as if he had his own remote control.”

Keep those chins up, people.

———

Nine Lessons I Learned From My Father, by Murray Howe

Penguin Random House, 2017

And Now, An Epic Piece of Wisdom From NHL Legend, Gordie Howe