Playing sports

We've had some cold weather lately. The lakes are now frozen. There's all kinds of people on them skating, playing hockey, ATVs and ice fishing huts. Last Sunday I was on the ice with my two boys at my wife's parents house. They're right on the lake. We had a nice time. We had out some sticks and pucks. I haven't handled a puck on the ice in a good while so it was nice stickhandling and passing and skating.

On Monday I was at Cleve's Sporting Goods in Bayer's Lake getting my older son's skates sharpened. The shop guy had a couple of other pairs to do first so I had a few minutes to wait. Walking around through the sections in the big warehouse store made me think about sports I used to play in the past. I don't play any sports now and haven't in quite a while.

These are the sports I enjoyed in the past and when I last played them in some kind of regular way.

running - 1997
tennis - 1996
ice hockey - 1999
ball hockey - 2002
golf - 2005
softball - 1999
football - 1986

So why did I stop playing? Well lots of reasons: not enough time, not enough money, not enough energy for it, not motivated for it, perception right or wrong that it was just too much hassle. Some of these things are interrelated. For example if money is tight then that's a demotivator. If you can't or won't "make" time for it then you probably don't have the energy for it either. "hassle" is an aggregate term for all the reasons taken together, a substitute for articulating the reasons individually.

Still, walking through Cleve's, I felt I missed playing sports. I haven't felt that way in a long time. So with some motivation I should go out and get playing at least some of them again.