A good goodbye to 2022

 HAPPY HOGMANAY HOCKEY

There have been a lot of aspects of 2022 to be unhappy about, from both a personal and wider point of view.  Some of the personal I've documented here previously.  More widely the greatest worry I see is the steady growth of the far right in our society, which appears to have been boosted on Twitter by the takeover of the idiot Musk.  

So it's good to end the year on a proper high note.  I've written before about the return of Edinburgh Capitals into our lives and the pleasure of going back to be hockey fans.  Since that first post on the subject the team has improved, the results have started to come, and we're up into the top half of the league, still with a couple of games in hand.  But it's the experience that counts, the lows and highs and tension and excitement and being part of something bigger for a few hours.  Back in the day the highlight of the season was always the Hogmanay game against local rivals Fife Flyers, when our ageing freezer of a building saw the biggest and noisiest crowd of the year.  Now, playing at a lower level of the sport, the local rivals still come from the same rink in Fife, but now it's the Kirkcaldy Kestrels we face.  

Caps v Kestrels, Hogmanay, and, once again, by far our biggest crowd of the year, probably close of even over four figures.  Lots of new people coming along, hopefully with many to return.  That possibility greatly helped by a thriller of a match.  Not many goals, but end to end stuff, great performances from both goalies, and a superb goal to settle the matter.  twice Caps came back from being a goal down, and it was two apiece at the end of regulation time.  And so we went into the nerve shredding period that is three on three sudden death overtime.  Cue our captain, Joel Gautschi, who tipped in a floated lob of shot from the new guy (first match today) Ryan McFarlane.  The poor keeper didn't stand a chance and suddenly there were lots of happy Caps fans.

If that isn't enough to win us some new supporters...

I'm pleased I also decided to give a first airing to my worst-taste old Caps shirt, the Xmas special of 2017.  And that it won't come out of the cupboard again until next Hogmanay.  Happy New Year folks!