I looked out over the ice, player’s scattered everywhere celebrating Klagenfurt’s 29th title. They had won it in style, in a true final game the audience holding its breath while the seconds ticked away and the team held on to a narrow 2-1 lead. I stood there and looked at the people I had been playing with for years and wondered how it must have felt to be one of them, be part of it. As a journalist you’re trained to never become a part of anything – because it distorts your view on reality they tell you. Somewhere along the road, we were split, the people over there holding the cup and I the journalist who once aspired to become a professional hockey player. I know that this is what I was destined to become one day, that it is the plans someone somewhere had drafted for me – but for that one split-second I wished I was one of them again. Because, even as you grow older the love of the game never changes.
I believe.