As of late, I’ve been thinking about the same topic. I was using it as a potential reason why I have been struggling with such debilitating writers block. I never had the chance to play hockey or lacrosse myself – they weren’t offered at my school, and youth programs for girls in both sports were still rare when I was young. When you have less knowledge of being on the ice or field, you tend to use stats almost as a crutch – as your main tool of evaluation because you don’t have that first hand experience to fall back to.

I may watch an entire game intently, but I immediately turn to the stat sheet when I start to write a game story. Because I haven’t played first hand, I always have that worry in the back of my mind that if I try to describe what I just saw, I am not doing the game justice or could be explaining things incorrectly. What can I interpret without the first hand experience? Stats.

Readers yearn to read that first hand experience. I am one of many hockey fans who eagerly await pieces by Jason Bourne, a former college and pro player turned excellent writer for Yahoo Sports’ Puck Daddy, among other sites. And one of my lacrosse writing idols and someone that I have been lucky enough to have as a mentor, Andrew McKay of The Laxist, skillfully weaves in his own experience scouting and working within the game into his coverage. Unfortunately, the number of former high level athletes in both sports who are great writers are few. Having the written perspective of a former athlete, which fans desire because of its behind-the-scenes nature, is rare.

But that isn’t to say that if you haven’t played the game, you can’t report. The majority of sports writers haven’t played the game they cover. For many of us, we write because our siblings and cousins played the game(s), and we desired to participate in a way in which our talents provided us. Or it’s because the stories we read in the sports section of the newspaper captured our imaginations much more than any political analysis on page A3 did. Or maybe we played, but were too short, too slow or not able to afford further training to advance.

As writers who haven’t played, how can we step back and capture the game’s action and finesse without years of first-hand knowledge? If you have the ability, ask the athletes about the movement and tempo of the game. Use the athlete’s description of their play to guide how you write about it – the act of it is far more interesting than the fact that it was their 24th goal of the season. Ask teammates what they saw of certain plays while on the bench. Watch practices and the drills run, then find out what those exercises are for.

Use the age-old tenant of all writing that was imparted on me the first day of creative writing in seventh grade: Show, don’t tell. Is the team skating with speed, or through molasses? Are the teammates and coaches on the sidelines yelling at teammates in frustration? Are lines being changed mid-game? Is someone getting a lot of shots, but just not being able to convert them? Don’t be afraid to say what you see. Move past what a reader can get in a box score, and describe the game to someone who didn’t have the opportunity to sit next to you.

The man in front of me has a Verizon Mi-Fi card. I have been staring at this card and his MacBook for three straight hours, as he command-1-2-3s from Gmail to TweetDeck to Excel, and my iPhone and Mac keeps telling me, “Hey, there’s internet right in front of you – but it’s password protected. Haha!”

Mean, Mi-Fi. Mean, mean, mean Mi-Fi.

I’ve written one article – a piece for the Brookline Patch about the birth of Skating magazine – because all of the sources were hard copy Skating magazines from two years ago, along with one email from Ben Wright (someone I never in my life ever thought would email wanna-be journalist me, but there it was, Sunday morning in my inbox…ask my husband, I fell over in my chair) that I was able to bring up on my phone.

But can I post this piece and assure my editor that it’s done? No, because Amtrak doesn’t offer internet. Greyhound, of all means of transportation, now offers internet, but Amtrak can’t. And because I’m too chicken to ask the man in front of me for access to his Mi-Fi in exchange for five bucks. (Yes, I’m willing to pay at this point.)

There he goes again. Command 1. Command 2. TweetDeck, Excel, GMail. Mean Mi-Fi.

So while he justly hogs his internet, here are some sports related thoughts:

- Despite all of the proclamation that New England Patriots WR Wes Welker is healthy from his MCL/ACL tear, I’m concerned about his possible overcompensation on other joints, which could lead to another injury if he revs back to 100% immediately. Remember that Tom Brady’s tear was preceded to a summer of foot and ankle problems that would lead to him relying on other portions of his legs to pick up additional work – a trait true of any injury. In order to get back faster, you over compensate with other joints what that injured joint, tendon, bone, whatever was slated to do.

Thus, Welker has to get to the point where that injured leg is doing exactly what it was before – and that the non-injured leg isn’t picking up more than it’s usual share of the work. Then he’ll be truly back.

- Sadly but not completely unexpectedly, the National Lacrosse League’s Orlando Titans have closed up shop while they work out ownership issues, aka The Curse of Steve Donner. But the Boston Blazers were able to benefit by picking up well-known laxer Casey Powell. With the Blazers on the last year of their initial three year agreement with the TD Garden and with a city starting to latch onto the sport hard-core, the addition of Powell’s talent could be just the pebble to push it over the edge. With the Boston Cannons the top seed in the MLL Championships and the Blazers now with all the pieces to make a hard-core run this winter, Boston could finally be ready to accept lacrosse completely as a major sport.

- Dear Gwinnett Gladiators: Where are you? What’s going on? Why haven’t you signed anyone in a while? Are you okay? Are you in limbo because of the Syracuse Crunch’s new affiliation? Say something, anything? Did those evil Florida Everblades kidnap you and have you tied up in a closet? Love, Your Concerned Fan in Mass.

A new professional lacrosse league is in the works in Virginia, and all profits from the league will go to Haitian earthquake relief. Allan Harvie, the founder and commissioner, was a blast to talk to on the phone and is extremely passionate about sports and helping the devastated country. As I posted on Facebook, even if you have no interest in sports, Harvie’s story is an interesting one.

Read my article on Harvie’s plan to help Haiti through lacrosse here.

I wrote about the facts of the case, as they are known, this afternoon at the Examiner. Not only is the story incredibly heartbreaking to the lacrosse world, it strikes another chord with me because I feel also for the administrators at UVA.

In my full-time job, I have served on a crisis response committee that responds to student deaths for the past four years. Trying to make sense of the tragedy that is a young man or woman passing away accidentally and suddenly, while consoling the students who comprised the deceased’s “second family” is a test of emotions. Add to that the close-knit quality of any athletic team, and the impact must be intense. UVA administrators are working overtime, providing counseling services to students, staff and faculty members, while trying to manage a controversy hungry media, and trying to be appropriately responsive to a grieving family.

On top of that, another student of theirs is being charged for murder, a charge that allows for an nearly automatic suspension in most university conduct codes. Suspension is not at all automatic – one can’t just press a button to suspend a student – especially in a day and age where students retain lawyers to represent them in noise violations, let alone a murder. While a student facing a murder charge has “bigger fish to fry,” you would be surprised at their priorities and assumptions. Parents stunned with the grief of losing the student they knew, a son or daughter who would never commit such a devastating crime, may believe that courses could be completed from a jail cell, or that the criminal process may speed along and allow for a student to come back to school that same semester.

I do not envy the administrators at the University of Virginia right now, but I believe they have the strength and abilities to provide the best outreach during this difficult time. My thoughts are with everyone connected with this tragedy.

However, I found it curious – why would the MLL host a game in a city they had pulled out of a mere year ago? It was then that I followed some statements on lacrosse boards and stumbled upon the fact that the Chicago Machine had no home games scheduled – every upcoming game was scheduled for the “MLL Home Office.” So I wrote an Examiner piece about it – “Are the MLL Chicago Machine on the outs?”

While the NLL has a cautious optimism about the stability of their league – as evident in Commissioner George Daniel press conference on the State of the League two weeks ago – the MLL continues to run into potholes. It’ll be interesting if they do end up moving the Machine franchise to a market that they had previously moved out of, or what other cities become a part of the Machine’s 2010 Road Tour.

Alas, the Boston Blazers were defeated in the first round of the playoffs this weekend, but they still made a great showing for a team in their inaugural season. There is still much college lacrosse to be covered, and the Boston Cannons are currently in training camp and begin their season in two weeks. So there will not be a dearth of lacrosse to watch and cover – in fact, there might be too much!  Keep your eyes peeled on my Examiner page for more lacrosse coverage.

First off, on the HLOG, I chronicled how my fantasy hockey season took a turn for the weird when I had two of my top players stricken with mono. (The Mono Award)

Secondly, I was able to get NLL All-Star and Boston Blazer “Dangerous” Dan Dawson to answer some quick questions about his fourth All-Star team selection this week for the Examiner.  I think one of the highlights of doing this interview was the discovery that Dawson spells words the Canadian way, just like I do.  I was way too excited about that.  (Blazer Dan Dawson makes his fourth NLL All-Star Game; Cosmo, Belisle named reserve)

Yes, I am that much of a loser that the name of my notes section excites me.