March is for hockey. High school hockey.

This was my religion from 1975 to 1978, and if I were honest with myself, for decades later. I take a week off every March to watch the Minnesota State High School Hockey Tournament because it brings me back to the important things of my past.

I was a high school hockey player during those years. A goalie. We were raised by she-wolf-like women who ran St. Paul city playgrounds. There was a playground director by the name of Kathy Hare, a speed skating competitor who gave us skating lessons and taught us how to push off and extend the leg. We spent hours at night and on weekends on these playgrounds with the outdoor ice that ran through our veins.

We were dedicated to its existence with late nights pulling on long firehoses, flooding the rink for the next day's skaters who dreamed to be heroes and champions.

All kinds of kids hung out at the playgrounds. Rich, poor, black, white, Irish and Romanians. And yes, Vikings fans and Packer fans. Neighborhoods were not as defined as they are now. The business owner lived next to the tradesman. Their kids were on the same teams. So, sports united us more than class.

The St. Paul city leaders knew something the sociologists had to study: Communities need a meeting place and an activity, a sport, where race and class and status can be equalized and communitized. They knew that kids could stay out of trouble in a relative way if they had a place of their own.

Religion in St. Paul tended Catholic. Hockey blended with religion and that was good for religion.

The dozen or so Catholic grade schools had hockey teams. I switched to St. Andrews in 6th grade hoping to make one of their five grade school hockey teams. They had an A, B and three C teams. I didn't make any of them. The coach told me I just wasn't experienced enough.

In 7th grade, I switched back to the Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and tried out for their one hockey team. But the Blessed Virgin did not look favorably on me or my goaltending skills.

There was a guy named Thomas Raiche who beat me out for goalie. The only thing he ever said to me was he liked to "eat pizza and sleep." So I was not a stellar player to get beat by Raiche.

I tried out for the North End regional hockey pee wee team. Got cut.

So, it was back to the Front Street playground team, another switch. Catching cold pucks in outdoor hockey tends to hurt more than getting cut. But, like others in these neighborhoods, I endured because hockey was what you did in the winter.

Then one day my parents got a call. Seems the North End regional team wanted to take another look at me. The two goalies they chose were not doing that well. We're talking pee wees here and it's like the NHL draft. I went to practice. They apparently liked what they saw.

I was the starter in their next game the dreaded and hated Harding area team that beat us 8-0 in the first game. At some point in life, kids are tested, sometimes when they are not yet 13. It's not ideal.

Parents are ready to cry before their kids at disappointment in sports. It's a black and white thing. Win or lose. They worry that their kids are not yet ready to understand the gray areas of life.

My parents didn't have to worry. We won 2-0. My first shutout. Ever. I was blocking pucks with body parts I didn't know I had. There are no words that could describe my feelings as a 12-year-old kid coming to this hockey redemption. When I think of it today, I get goosebumps.

I was in. Accepted. Self confidence skyrocketed.

This early success led to later achievements, an idea that I think about often. I eventually became the starting goalie as a sophomore on my high school hockey team, the Washington Prexies.

While we did not make the state tournament like Johnson and Harding, we had moments in my senior year. I recorded two shutouts, both against Central, the worst team in the league. We upset St. Thomas in the first round of the playoffs but lost to St. Paul Academy.

Today I consider others who had an impact on my glory days. My accomplishment was not achieved without the tireless work of volunteer coaches, blue collar guys who had full-time jobs, and who were not hesitant to advise us about premarital sex in blue-collar terms effective for their clarity.

Sponsors were the unsung heroes of youth sports.

The Iron Workers local union sponsored us, as did the VFW on Rice Street. Unions and organizations had an incredible commitment to youth that seems to have faded away. I'm not sure why, but I suspect it has something to with poverty and crime and the loss of union jobs.

The North End, Rice Street, was recently described as the poorest neighborhood in St. Paul. Youth hockey is all but gone. But I've got a 40-year-old puck in a 40-year-old Riedell goalie skate box to remember it by. Some things are worth remembering as long as we can carry them forward.

Confidence of youth, community well-being. These are serious subjects we must consider, always.

We often underestimate the confidence-building power of athletics. But sports is not the only place we can find this confidence. We can gain them in academics, robotics, speech, debate, band, choir and the arts. And we should pursue and support them whenever we can, as much as we can.

Young people matter. Let's remember our own experiences and help them win with confidence, endurance and the mental stamina required for understanding that it's how you play the game any and every game that matters.

Winning with regard to this idea isn't everything. It's the only thing.

Joe Spear is editor of Mankato Magazine. Contact him at 344-6382 or jspear@mankatofreepress.com. Follow on Twitter @jfspear.

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The spirituality of hockey ... and other things that matter - Mankato Free Press