A Scoring Change

Normally at this time of year, I'm knee-deep in watching the NHL playoffs while keeping an eye on the AHL and ECHL with the hopes of finding out who will be named to the national teams for the IIHF Men's World Ice Hockey Championship. It's also that point in the year when the summer creeps into my normal winter activities as umpire clinics for baseball and softball are being held and diamonds are being groomed for play this season. HBIC isn't diving into baseball in terms of breaking that game down, but baseball may play a much larger role on this blog this summer in occupying a considerable amount of time as I've decided to umpire less often and score games more often!

Officially, I'll be scoring games for professional baseball in my city as I accepted a position with the local minor-pro club to score games this season. There are fifty home games through the months of May, June, July, and August, and I'll be part of team that will be there whenever the lights are on at the ballpark. Yes, I'm excited for this opportunity, but it may affect my normal routine of blogging in the evenings.

My schedule when umpiring was to work one night per week from 6pm until midnight, so it meant that I was tired the next day and I was behind by a day when contributing a story to this blog. The good news is that it usually took me a day to get caught up on the blog, a couple of days to make up the sleep my body craved, and things would be back to normal.

The trade-off with this new scoring position is that I'll work more nights per week, but put in less hours on each individual night. Being home earlier means that my sleep schedule shouldn't suffer too much, but the nights spent at the ballpark will certainly eat into my available hockey-watching and blog-writing availability. It won't mean that I won't be posting something, but the long-winded pieces where I dive into specific topics may be fewer than before.

With regards to The Hockey Show, Jason and I may pre-record a few more shows for Thursday nights where I'm required to be at the ballpark, but that will be totally dependent on the scheduling upon which the team decides. The good news is that The Hockey Show will still air as scheduled with no interruptions. The bad news is that we may have to push Survivor exit interviews to a week later than normal based on scheduling.

Beyond that, don't expect to see a lot of baseball crossover into this blog space unless there's a distinct hockey tie-in that should be discussed. There won't be recaps, discussions, or highlights of things that happened at the ballpark because Hockey Blog In Canada is meant for hockey. If something hockey-related is found at the ballpark, I'll see what I can do about having a little fun with it. For example, getting to see Madison Willan, Kaitlyn Ross, and Carly Jackson on the diamond last season was totally awesome, so something like that is where you'll see baseball land on HBIC.

As for umpiring, I'll still do a few tournaments here and there on the weekends, but the facility where I used to umpire is officially closed due to the amount of renovations and repairs needed on the fields. The fields weren't terrible at this facility, but the costs in bringing them up to a standard where major national tournaments would land ended up being a seven-digit dollar amount that seemingly no one wanted to pay. As a result, my one night of umpiring disappeared, forcing me to consider other options.

It's funny how we urge kids to participate in different sports throughout the year in order to make them better athletes, yet we, as adults, often spend our summers attending coaching clinics and watching informational videos on how to make hockey better. Personally, I know I'm a blogger and my impact on the game is negligible - meaning zero - at best, but I've found that if I focus on hockey all year long I care less about it when it comes to pointing out the stupidity shown by some, the incredible plays made by some, and the excitement I have for the game when it comes to covering great stories.

Some may call that "burnout", and that could be true considering how long the hockey season extends now. Engaging in something entirely different than hockey thoughts, though, should allow me to reset that excitement level for the game. Thinking about scoring plays and rules in a different sport may also give me a better perspective on how hockey can improve its game as well, particularly when it comes to speeding things up like they did in baseball with the pitch clock.

Whatever the case may be, I'll be up in the pressbox at Shaw Park watching baseball for a lot of the summer this year. My expertise in colouring in small diamonds and figuring out how to score passed balls and two-base errors on two separate computer programs will be my trial-by-fire in the professional baseball scoring world. Hopefully, there's a way to fix mistakes because I'm sure I'll make a few, but I'm excited to watch baseball all summer long as I escape indoor arenas for a few months!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!