The Stench

My husband plays hockey. I love that he plays hockey. It's good for his health. He has a great group of guys on his team. I met one of my dearest friends at his games. It has given us another way to connect with our best friends. He looks great when he is all dressed up in his gear, and I know that some day his little buddy Rusty will be really proud to watch his daddy out there on the ice. It is a Canadian tradition, for goodness sake. One thing I don't love about my husband playing hockey? The stench. Allow me to explain.

If you are the loved one of a hockey player, you know the stench I am talking about. It is that smell...the smell of dried, old human sweat. It creeps into the pads, the helmet, every part of hockey gear. Now, if the hockey player manages to unpack that gear and get it dried out right away, it's not much of a problem. I always simply held my breath when walking by the dressing rooms at the rink and that was as often as I smelled that nasty, disgusting smell. We had a great system at our old place, and it seems to be one of the few things I miss about it.

We had a massive laundry room. In this laundry room was also the hot water heater and the furnace. Kevin's routine was always as follows: come home, unpack bag, wash uniform and gear that can be washed, set out other gear to dry. Because that room was so warm, the gear dried quickly and I never smelled the stench. Not the case here in our new place. We are still trying to find a place for his gear. One week we made the colossal mistake of putting it into a tupperware bin and putting the lid on. Yikes! When he opened it up to get his gear out for his game the next weekend it was still wet and the smell! It was overpowering! I had to keep a candle lit in there and Febreeze the heck out of the room just to be able to stand to walk by it.

He has started putting his stuff into various places around the house to dry it, but the main one is our little mudroom. It has all of these hooks on the wall for hanging our coats. Naturally, I hang all of my jackets in there. Today, I put one on to take Rusty for a walk. When I came home, our house was a bit cool, so I took my vest off, but left the jacket on. As I was sitting on the couch holding Rusty as he drifted off to sleep, I noticed something...I kept smelling that hockey stench. I looked and the mudroom door was open. Thinking that was the problem, I closed it. Nope, still smelling that stench. Suddenly, I realized. It was ingrained into my jacket. The jacket had been on the hook above the hockey bag, and that STENCH, that SMELL was now in my jacket! I quickly shrugged out of it and changed, hoping the problem would go away. Nope, it had seeped into my shirt!

So, here I sit, one fresh shirt and hoody later, wondering what we are going to do about that stench.