Forget the Leafs: A season of good local hockey has come to an end

As local hockey fans lament that the annual Stanley Cup playoffs are going to take place with the Toronto Maple Leafs conspicuously absent, there is some comfort in the fact that there's been plenty of good hockey played around here over the last couple of months.

True, it's mainly kids' hockey, meaning it's mainly of interest to the youngsters who are playing it, while they carry dreams of being the next Wayne Gretzky, and to their parents, who possibly permit themselves similar dreams.

But this should not be sold short. It is hockey at its best because it is hockey played strictly for fun.

Any adult who ever laced up a pair of skates when they were a kid can harken back to games they played many years ago, when it sometimes took a couple of seconds to figure out where they really were supposed to be for a face-off, with one of the guys in the stripe shirts often having to gently guide them; or when it took several seconds to determine who won a draw.

There's a nostalgic feeling to watching little kids who have barely learned to handle a hockey stick trying to manage a puck, or make their first serious attempts at skating backwards, usually ending up sprawled on the ice.

Then there was more serious hockey, at the rep level, etc.; serious, but still with an undercurrent of fun built in.

And there were the more advanced levels of junior hockey for King fans this year.

There was the junior C play of the Schomberg Cougars. True, this was something of a rebuilding year for the club, with a number of younger and inexperienced players who have some learning to do. Every team must endure seasons like that, as the Leafs and the Habs found out the hard way this past weekend.

Then there was the King Wild, a new team playing in a new league, and both of them clearly required some ironing out. The games were entertaining, but players have to learn a little bit about discipline, and grasping that it's not necessary to throw a punch every time an opponent does something that makes them angry. There are better places than the penalty box for self assertion.

It's also true that some of the adults in the league could have set better examples for the young men in their charge. But we have to temper such thoughts with the understanding that it's the adults who are willing to step up and get involved who make it all possible, and that's at all levels of minor hockey.

There's some learning for all these young players to do, but isn't that really the idea behind all the fun?