A Fathers Love – Paige’s Story
I started playing hockey when I was eight years old, before that, ever since I can remember my older brother played. Every week, my brother had a practice on Saturday mornings at 7 o’clock, and knowing how much I loved going to the rink, my dad would wake me up and take me to watch my brother’s practice where I would just stand, little hands pressed against the glass and my eyes the size of saucers. After my brother quit playing, I took it up in his place. I knew how happy my dad would be that his figure skating daughter wanted to be a hockey player. I remember the first time he put me on hockey skates, instead of teaching me, he just stood back and watched me, the same way I used to watch my brother’s practices. Every Saturday after that we would get up at 5:30 to go to the rink, not because the practice was at 6:30, but because we would stop at Tim Horton’s on the way, and every time, without fail, my dad would bring me a Hot Chocolate even when I didn’t ask for one. As I got older, the practices got later, but still he always bought me Time Horton’s whenever we went to the rink. When I was 12 or 13, I started time keeping for the “old timers” league that he plays in on Sunday mornings. Our little Timmie’s tradition (as he likes to call it) carried over. My mom used to get so mad when she found out because she would say “we have coffee and bagels in the house, why do you need to go to Tim Horton’s” and he would just look at me and smile. Since then, I’ve moved from our little small town to Montreal to go to University, and for my 18th birthday, he drove five hours (after a 12 hour work day) to pick me up just so I could be at home and he could take me to the rink (and Tim Horton’s) on Sunday morning. It’s not the first time he’s driven five hours to pick me up, and it probably won’t be the last, but even though he never says that he loves me, or that I’m still his little girl, he says it whenever he brings me Timmie’s or when he takes that drive up to see me. I hope this story touches you like it does me.
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