Hi Folks,

Got any dream interpreters on IHC?

Tonight I woke up late in the evening, at about 11:25 p.m., after settling down for a ?few minutes? rest. As I slept, I dreamed that I'd moved to a place with a backyard that overlooked about five ice hockey rinks. I believe that my nephew Marcus was living with me, and I also noticed an ice hockey rink was somehow connected with our house (which was apparently my sister's house), and which I was cleaning up for what seemed to be the hundredth time. It was when I'd almost finished cleaning up the room that I found that the rear edge of the room was connected to a gross kind of backyard wall that had weird skull-topped sculptures mixed in with the detritus I was cleaning up.

When I looked out from the backyard, I saw a patio below me where someone had a big-screen TV. Young hockey players appeared to be playing on the several rinks shown on the TV set. Then I looked to the right and below the patio and discovered the five large rinks. Four were filled with people being taught ice hockey; one, if I'm not mistaken, had grooves in the surface like the ones in the old tabletop ice hockey games I used to play as a kid; the grooves were there so that the metal players, which were connected to metal rods beneath the game board's surface, could move up and down the rink -- propelled by the people playing the game. I was thrilled that we could play ice hockey right next to where we lived.

Once I had cleaned up enough, I discovered the additional rink next door to the left. I asked a woman walking by who owned it and she said the company that owned the five rinks below. I asked if we could fix it up and skate on it, and though I don't remember her answer, she didn't say no. Then she asked me if I'd go and find out what time some local business closed. ?Thinking? about the easiest way to find out what time the business closed, so that I could hurry up and finish cleaning the ice hockey rink so that we could play, I woke up.

I realize that the dream had a few elements of wish fulfillment in it. One was just being with my nephew Marc, who is currently in trouble with drugs and the police. I'm just broken up over my nephew's problems, mostly because there doesn't seem to be anything that I can do to help him. I took care of him and his brother with my father for two years when the two boys were 3 and 5, respectively, and I love them both as if they were my own sons. Marcus even played inline hockey and volunteered at the first IIHF Inline Hockey World Championships at Disney Ice in Anaheim, where he swept the rink in between periods. He also was a bench assistant for the Las Vegas Flash's one year of existence in Roller Hockey International.
Another aspect of wish fulfillment, obviously, was the hockey rinks, and the ability to play on them right next door. (The fact that they all appeared to be ice rinks shouldn't make any IHC readers mad ? I didn't inspect them all carefully, and for all I know, some of the rinks could have been inline hockey rinks!)

As for the ?weird skull-topped sculptures,? I think those were dead NHL fans who'd forgotten to leave the building after the lockout was announced...

Sincerely,

Richard Graham
Editor
Inline Hockey Central