Don’t let your dreams die—force them on your child!

1. Dream of one day living the good life of hotels and prostitutes.
2. Have that dream quashed by your unexceptional skills, insufficient luck, and frankly lacklustre effort.
3. Find a life partner not too put off by your simmering resentment at the world.
4. Stumble through an unfulfilling relationship where Something’s Missing.
5. Decide that what’s missing must be a small human, and pretend you’re doing this to bring more joy into the world.
6. Acquire a child. Birth, adoption, and thievery are among the possible options here. Get creative!
7. As raising the child takes over your life, pretend this is actually robbing you of your last chance to Make It Big.
8. Even before they can walk, start foisting your dreams upon your child. Put a hockey-themed mobile above their crib! Put them in a cheaply-made jumper with your favourite hockey team’s logo!
9. As soon as they start to crawl, put a hockey stick in their hands. As soon as they start to walk, put them in skates.
10. Force them into taking hockey lessons the moment they’re old enough, whether they want to or not. It’s not up to them, you’re the parent! And you’re doing it for their own good!
11. Force them through year after gruelling year of tryouts, pre-seasons, seasons, playoffs (or forced practice time if their team doesn’t make the playoffs because they don’t want it hard enough).
12. Congrats! Surely by now your child is positioned to be the next great hockey player. If not, they surely hate you, so it was all for less than nothing.