My last confession was nearly a year ago. Good thing you gentle readers don’t have to pay for this subscription. Fortunately for all of us, I am now more interested in procrastinating Christmas cards than in procrastinating this blog so I’m back in action.

To ease myself back in, I’m re-visiting the topic of my fabulous women’s beginner hockey club — the Cold Muthas. It’s been awhile so you may need to come with me down icy memory lane. In case you missed an episode, I have provided an archive for you here:

Cold Muthas – Day 1 circa November 2012

Cold Muthas Heat Up the Ice circa December 2012

Cold Muthas Establish New Hockey Dynasty in First Season circa February 2013

Game On — Cold Muthas v Kelts circa February 2013

Crashed Ice — Made for the Cold Muthas circa February 2013

Cold Muthas Rub Out the Icy Hots circa February 2015

Return of the Cold Muthas circa January 2017

Trolling for Sponsors Pays Off circa January 2018

Product Placement circa January 2021

In the now 12 years of existence, the Coldies, like many of your typical sports dynasties, have had their ups and downs. I didn’t think we could recover from the tragic loss of our dear Absolute Zero in 2018, and we’ve had some retirements. But last year, perhaps not coincidentally, we upped our swag game and experienced a boost in numbers. The Zamboni drivers started a Friday morning early bird shift, delivering smooth as baby’s bottom ice for our skating pleasure. Previously the only Zamboni attention we had received was when Bob Berasi, the dad of our 13-year-old Coach Katherine the Great, cut the ice since he already had to drive his daughter to practice.

Word started spreading that knowing how to skate was NOT a prerequisite, we’d do our best to help find gear, and we weren’t that keen on playing by the rules. Offsides? So what? Icing the puck? Who even knows what that means? This freedom from rules releases a certain joyful creativity in our play.

The only rule we enforce is No Apologies. The natural slipperiness of the ice and the cold hearted ambition of the Muthas occasionally leads to collision and we simply cannot tolerate the profuse sorries. Sometimes we watch film of NHL hockey fights to get a sense of just how not sorry seasoned players are.

I now skate with women who used to play hockey with my daughter, affectionately known (back in the day) as Her Royal Highness, or HRH for short. I have barely progressed in my skill level in this decade plus. But I less frequently head out onto the ice with my skate guards on and I can sometimes pull my own jersey over my shoulder pads. And for one hour every wintery Friday, my abs hurt from laughing and I delight in introducing women to one of the most magical experiences in Podunk.

P.S. I have been an extremely lazy writer and you deserve better. But diving into the archives of this little project revealed to me that I have written 195 posts over the years. By comparison, there were only 180 episodes of Seinfeld. Just sayin.