Valentine's Day Revisited

Today George delivered my Valentine's Day gift.

I've known for two days what he chose for me, but today the package arrived.

Does my husband get me a dozen roses?  How about chocolates for the most romantic of holidays?

Not this year.

I liked the way my Aunt Lisa described it, "Nothing shouts Love like a hockey game with a possible melee on middle ice!"

At the end of next month, George and I will watch the Penguins play the Florida Panthers at Consol Center.  I'm anticipating my first trip to the new arena, even though as a person with a strong sense of nostalgia, any change of venue is bittersweet for me.

Speaking of bittersweet, I haven't seen any of the tickets for other games, but mine features Malkin and some Panthers players, but we won't have the opportunity to see Geno in action firsthand.  I'm hopeful that since the game is over a month away, our injured players might have the chance to recuperate so I can see them compete.

George and I will have been together for eleven years this Friday, and I thought I'd take a moment to go through our hockey history.

As I pointed out in "Introducing...Me," when George and I started dating, he made it clear that he hated hockey.  He didn't say he disliked it.  Or that he wasn't interested.  He told me he hated hockey.

I wasn't dismayed.  I knew it was more likely that he didn't understand it, so I didn't let it become a deal breaker.  Instead I chipped away.

During the playoffs I would lay claim to the lounge in my dorm so I could watch the Penguins.  George lived clear across campus, but he stayed up with me for the third longest overtime in NHL playoffs--92:01 of extra play (http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/12506186/).  The Flyers won that game, tying up the series, and went on to win the round too.

That same semester George escorted me to the formal hosted by our college men's hockey team.  As statistician I would attend this end of season event.  George was the only guy there who didn't play hockey.

I think George fell in love with the city of Pittsburgh the summer he spent his internship there (thank you, Uncle Rodney).  So it wasn't a difficult task getting him to the Igloo to buy Student Rush discounted tickets with my brothers and me throughout our remaining college years.  In fact, I think he was starting to like hockey by this point.

I spent part of my 2001 Christmas break with George and his mom in Rochester.  That year that we surprised each other by exchanging hockey jerseys.  I got George the Lemieux away jersey.  He got me the then new home jersey with the skating penguin.  For a [insert "poor"] college student, a hockey jersey is a pretty serious commitment.  Just another moment where George demonstrated he knew just what I wanted.

After I moved to Rochester, we spent quite a few years where we couldn't watch many Penguins games.  We focused on purchasing hockey cards.  He would buy them for my for my birthday, for Christmas, for no reason at all.  You'd think we might have caught more Amerks games than we did, but it's just not the same.  My brother Levi got us tickets a subsequent Christmas so we could go see the Penguins play in Buffalo, and we traveled the hour and a half to cheer our team to a win.

I credit Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Jordan Staal, though, in bringing us back to Penguins hockey with fervor.  Those three gave the team new life, and soon we were taking note of the Penguins in the playoffs once again.  Two years ago, George presented the NHL Center Ice package to me as an anniversary gift.

My husband has proven again and again how well he knows me by his gift giving.  While "a diamond is a girl's best friend," he knows I prefer a different kind of ice.

Thank you, George, for eleven wonderful years and all the spot-on gifts of hockey!