Reminiscence
While I hate to steal Ender's thunder, especially since I have my own thoughts on the matter, this post has been in the makings since Jonathan first broke out the hockey cards to inspire some late-August postings, and Robert at EotP's post on his father and Jean Beliveau gave me the excuse to tell my own hockey "origin story".
Edit (15:37): After noting the length, I decided to move this into a separate article.