Everything has happened so quickly that it is difficult to take it all in. One minute the extent of your sporting endeavour is either hanging expectantly around the Tyrone dug-out during National League games waiting for the nod from Art McRory to hop over the wire and go in at full forward instead of Peter Canavan or a wheezy game of five-a-side on a Thursday evening.
The next thing you're an international sportsman mixing it with household names like Kory Korlander and Doug Searle on the Belfast Giants ice hockey team. After so long waiting for a chance, suddenly it has come along. As coach Dave Whistle is always telling me and the rest of the boys, if you really want it you just gotta go out there and take it.
Since the ice hockey revolution hit Belfast a few months ago only the most cynical could have failed to be moved by the opportunities it offers. Controversial though this might sound, there is no doubt that this is the biggest international sporting event to hit Belfast since the powerboat racing series here last year. That is the sort of level we are talking about.
For so long it looked like it wasn't going to happen. You couldn't lift a newspaper or watch the sports news without coach Whistle - all broad American vowels and fresh-faced optimism - popping up talking about this new goalminder or that new "offense" player he had just signed. Here was a man who could talk the talk but he seemed determined to pass over all the local talent that was right there on his Belfast doorstep. But even coach Whistle, experienced old hand of the ice hockey world that he is, melted under the charm offensive.
The first stage of this intricately-planned strategy was to bombard him with old newspaper cuttings that we keep under the bed beside the perfectly-preserved match tickets from Tyrone's All-Ireland final appearances and a match programme from a 1980s Ulster championship game autographed by Frank McGuigan. These admittedly brief extracts from the "Club Notes" section of the local paper detail an underage hurling career clearly on the up and up. The potential of the exciting blank canvas with which he could work would be obvious to any top quality ice-hockey coach.
But the clincher was a grainy video copy of that under-14 Ulster Colleges C (Reserves) clash with St Mary's CBS when the full back was tormented in a way that can only be described as like the great DJ Carey had he been born in Tyrone. After just a few seconds watching that coach Whistle was hooked, got straight on the telephone and the rest has passed into the ice hockey folklore of Belfast.
Since then it has all been a bit of a whirlwind. We were all immediately whisked away to a top-secret training camp on Rathlin Island just off the north Antrim coast. Cut off from the outside world for three whole weeks we were left alone with our thoughts. At times it was a frightening experience, but the coach felt the isolation, the eerie silences and the desolation would be useful preparation just in case the crowds for our British Ice Hockey League games at the Odyssey Complex don't meet expectations. The regime was Spartan to say the least but we had to bond and we had to bond quickly.
Of course there were teething problems along the way. One morning sticks out. The coach was sitting in his office chomping on a cheeseburger and drinking his strong black coffee. I shuffled in and mumbled something about not being sure if I was cut out for such a drastic change in sporting direction at my time of life. Training hadn't been going well and my teammates were leaving me way behind. But fair play to him, like all great tacticians coach Whistle plotted a way through those choppy waters. Since then things have improved dramatically. I've switched from football boots to skates and stopped trying to solo run with the ice hockey puck balanced on the edge of my stick.
The other concern was, hard though this may be to believe, that the concept of the Belfast Giants and ice hockey in general might fail to capture the imagination of the city's sporting public. Now this is such a ridiculous suggestion that it hardly merits comment but make no mistake, the operation surrounding the Belfast Giants is nothing but thorough.
So a tour of sorts was organised whereby the team would spend a week or two visiting various events and soaking up the atmosphere of Northern Ireland sport at its very best. Our first stop last month was the Antrim senior Gaelic football final between Cargin and St Paul's. What an inspired choice. The game itself wasn't much cop but when that big fight broke out between both sets of players at the end it was just like being at a hockey game in Montreal.
The most encouraging thing for us was the way the people in the crowd weren't shy about getting involved themselves and even went to the trouble of climbing over a fence and nipping past the line of stewards so that they could get a real taste of the action. On that evidence, we're going to have put on a good show at the Odyssey to keep them all happy.
After that it was off to a few Irish League games to pick up a few tips about how people here like to be entertained when they shell out hard-earned cash at the weekend. Again it was all a bit disconcerting. Strange as it might sound, the supporters seem to like standing in the open air on decrepit and crumbling terraces watching dreary, foul-ridden games. At least it will be dry down at the Odyssey.
By this stage we were itching to get going and we finally got out on to the ice for our first competitive games a few weeks ago. Our rink at the Odyssey isn't quite finished yet, so we're playing our home games in Coventry. A strange choice, admittedly, but we're the nomads of British ice hockey and we don't care. All this uncertainty has been unsettling and it's fair to say we haven't quite been at our best yet. Part of the problem is coach Whistle's continued refusal to give his one local player his big chance.
Every time there's a crisis he turns to one of his big Americans or Canadians instead of drawing on the reserves of home-grown talent. If ice hockey is to survive we have to stoke up some local interest. A squad system is all well and good but it is starting to look like the Giants are facing their first big crisis of the season. I've become the Maurice Fitzgerald of Irish ice hockey, good enough to start but destined always to warm the bench.
