Hockey season starts this week

We've made it through the summer.

I’ll have a more in-depth breakdown and preview of the 2024 Traverse City games (it’s hard to call it a tournament anymore) later this week.

For now, I want to officially celebrate the start of hockey season here at Shap Shots. In less than six days, we will have real games with real players playing them. I will be driving up to Traverse City on Friday night and covering both games between the Dallas Stars and Detroit Red Wings prospects teams.

Assuming that tickles your fancy, I’ll have a 20/20 from both of those games for paid subscribers here at Shap Shots — that’s right folks, we made it through the summer.

For me, the Traverse City trip is always both a celebration of hockey season and a trip down memory lane. Before I ever had an NHL beat job, as far back as 2015, I would pay my own way to get from Austin to Traverse City.

For me it was a long-term investment, I was covering the AHL at the time and would use the tournament to build relationships in the hockey world. I got to better know scouts, coaches, and players, and I learned on the fly with eight NHL prospect teams each playing four games over the span of five days.

Connections I made at the Traverse City tournament as far back in 2015 have helped develop my career, and some of the players I watched in those tournaments have already had NHL careers come to an end — I’m starting to feel old.

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It’s also a fun week because tomorrow morning we will have wide distribution of the beer league hockey movie I’m in, The Late Game.

Starting tomorrow you’ll be able to see the movie on more platforms, including Apple TV. Most notably, the movie will finally be available in Canada for rent and purchase. It will also be available in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand — I know we actually have a couple readers here from Australia.

If you are in the Toronto area and a reader of this site, I will be in Toronto promoting the movie Thursday evening at the Penalty Box Pub. Swing by, say hello, I’ll buy you a beer.

Also for those of you have done rough math, yes that means I’ll be driving back from Toronto Friday morning and then driving straight to Traverse City, so putting a lot of hockey miles on the truck this week.

But that’s a good sign. We’ve made it through the summer, there are games this week. Enjoy.

As always, if there is anything you want to read about or want me to dive into, let me know.