The observant among you might have noticed that, with 2 states to go, I have played hockey a total of 68 times on this trip, spread among 65 arenas, summing to almost 85 hours on the ice.  However, I have written separate blog posts about only a small subset of those skates.

While I could claim that some of the ice times were too uneventful to merit full blog treatment, the reality is that I could tell you decent stories about pretty much all of them.  I simply don’t always get around to it.

I always update the comprehensive list with at least a small blurb about the skates, and I have been taking notes about the sessions both in my Moleskine notebook and with Evernote, so those times passed over on the blog might get more complete treatment in the book. (Really sorry about skipping you guys in Massachusetts.  Enthusiastic group at the Philips Academy Andover.)

Here’s another way to think about it.  This blog is already about 60,000 words long, which is about the length of a short novel.  I’ve covered only half or so of the provinces and states in detail. To do every one of them justice would require a considerable amount of additional writing.   No time now, but there will be time in the future.

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On a more general note, I’m now in my penultimate state: North Dakota.  Grand Forks, to be exact.

It’s cold outside, the local hockey store has a huge selection of goalie gear, and menus at restaurants call it “pop” instead of “soda.”  Clearly, Minnesota is just a slap shot away.