“Didn’t we lock you in a Dumpster one time?”
“Yeah, I got out.”
“Cool man, I’m glad you did.”
— “Old School”
So I’m here to report that I’ve emerged from a YouTube rabbit hole, one I willfully stepped into but struggled to get out of. I started innocently enough, reading this terrific first-person essay from former Islanders’ great Bryan Trottier, writing a letter to his younger self about all the experiences that lay in front of him.
Trottier pulled it off well — talking about his father pushing snow off a frozen creek near their house so he could skate, leading into his time in juniors with “Tiger” Williams as his coach teaching him to fight, and then through all the six Stanley Cups he won.