You all know Ashley March by now. She's that Canadian lady who tweets about hockey worldwide, with a particular affection for our own Elite League.
Well, you may not be aware that she's intending on coming over to visit every rink, and wants to write a book about the experience, while recovering from liver surgery.
Over to Ashley to tell you more.
Some of you my know who I am as I’m pretty much everywhere on the internet in hockey circles. I am the opinionated hockey woman from Canada who happens to spend an awful lot of time writing about the sport. Call me crazy if you want.
Anyway, what you might not know about me is I live and struggle with liver disease. I was 21 when I was diagnosed and being a young non-caring woman, I didn’t think too much of it. Fast forward to recent times. In the past two years I’ve had four surgeries to help correct my liver. I’m 27 year old and have the liver of a 70 year old alcoholic. I barely drink.
You can just imagine the kind of stress that goes through your body not just physically but mentally as well. I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder and social anxiety on top of this. While my depression is very much in control, I find the need to speak out about it. If I can help one person through their mental health issues just by being there to talk too then I can sleep soundly at night. It’s time to end the stigma.
During my depression and while recovering from surgery I turned to hockey for my enjoyment. I found a passion writing about it and in turn it has opened up doors for me that I never thought was possible. There’s one league though that pulled me through everything the most however; the Elite Ice Hockey League.
Watching the games, conversing with fans, coaches, referees, and players on Twitter meant the world to me as I was struggling. Along with my family, these new found friends became a reason to keep pushing and conquer my illness. I am forever in the UK’s debt and would love nothing more to able to pay back what was given to me.
For the past 6 months or so I’ve been toying with the idea of touring the teams of EIHL and writing a book on my experience. Basically an Elite league experience from the eyes of a Canadian. I’ll interview players, personalities, anything that surrounds the league. I don’t even care if anybody reads it; I just feel it’s something I have to do.
This is where Hockey Players Assemble comes in. Needless to say this bout has left me out of work without income. After talking with Chris Frank, I made my decision that Hockey Players Assemble could help me in my journey and dream to document the teams of the EIHL for a few weeks.
I am going to aim for the beginning of the 2015/2016 season in order to give myself some time to heal and to plan the trip accordingly. I will document it my experience through the blog too with pictures, video and words.
Hope the hockey world can make this one girl’s dream come true. Who needs the NHL? Not me.
I have my EIHL family.
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So there we are. Ashley wants to give full exposure to our league - lets help her do it.
For more info, visit the March Across The UK page here.
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