Happy Happy Joy Joy

Remember the joy.

That’s what I tell my son before every hockey game, and it’s what I’m going to say before every ball hockey game when that season kicks off next month.

See, we have this ritual in the dressing room before the game, something I’ve done with all my boys. With Matt it was Play Hard, Have Fun, and that morphed into Play Hard, Play Strong, Have Fun with Cameron. When Jake started playing I added Be Awesome or sometimes Be Amazing. Or sometimes both.

Along the way I think I started putting too much pressure on the J Man by expecting him to be a star and shine every game. He certainly has the natural ability to do that: he was playing select hockey when he was six, before abruptly quitting the game after being cut in the rep tryout process shortly after his seventh birthday.

It was when I found myself chastising him following a game recently for not shooting enough, for not being first on the puck, etc., etc. that I realized I was putting needless pressure on him. I was acting like those hockey dads I’ve tried my best not to act like since Matt and Cam first laced up skates in 1999.

So I changed my tact.

I kept the Play Hard, Play Strong mantra for the dressing room props – it’s about being responsible for your teammates – but I took out the Be Awesome, Be Amazing stuff. “You’re already awesome and amazing every day,” I told him.

Then I reminded my 11 year-old of his younger days as an athlete. I told him to remember when he was six and scoring 66 goals in one season in three-on-three soccer. He would steal the ball, and being faster than the other kids, would just run down the field and score at will. Hell, he scored 15 goals in one game, with a big grin all day long.

I told him to remember his first year in hockey when he was five. It was just practices – instructional, it was called – until January, when they played a short slate of games. He scored 19 times in only nine or ten games and several were of the end-to-end, take the puck and just go, variety.

No pressure, just a stick, a puck and 60 feet of open ice between him and goalie.

“What did that feel like?” I asked him. “Remember that feeling,” I told him. “Remember the joy. Remember the fun.”

So that’s what I tell him now, and he responded with two of his best games all year in what turned out to be his final two games of the ice hockey season.

More importantly, the smile was back on his face. The fun was back.

Remembering the joy is a good life philosophy for anyone, and I figure it can be especially useful when dealing with the inevitable burnout that people experience when they’ve been in one career for a long time. Remember why you became a journalist, a child care worker, a nurse or a carpenter in the first place. So many things were possible back then, and they’re still possible if you remember the joy you experienced.

Just think of Ren and Stimpy and the Happy Happy Joy Joy dance.

I’ve been trying the philosophy on myself, because joy is universal and everyone can benefit from remembering what it felt like to be joyful and to have fun. I can still recall why I got into the newspaper business, though the joy of childhood is a little harder to remember.

But that’s because I’m getting old and my memory ain’t what it used to be.