Week Eight (Dec. 4)

There are many ways to celebrate a 25th birthday: go to a bar, go out to eat, have a family party, pretend you're still a kid and go to Discovery Zone (I wish that place still existed)...the possibilities are endless.

I chose to celebrate my 25th birthday by going to the wrong hockey rink.

Our location changes from week to week, alternating between rinks in Dorchester and Canton. Since our previous week's game had been in Boston, I assumed this week's would be in Canton. I checked our schedule online and saw no mention of our clinic, but also saw no one penciled in for our time in Canton. As this had happened before, I decided Canton was the spot, and headed there after work.

For increased comedic value at my expense, the Canton rink is a solid 35 minute drive from my work; the Dorchester rink is more like 15. I drove down the Expressway to Rt. 24, blissfully listening to my music, wondering how many goals I was going to score in that night's scrimmage...you know, the usual.

I got to the rink in Canton, and there were far fewer cars than usual. "Weird," I thought. "But I'm not usually early, maybe that's why no one is here."

Still, I doubted myself enough to leave my gear in the car when I went inside to have a look around. There was a game on one rink, and a younger kids' practice on the other. I looked at the rink's video schedule-board, and saw that there were no sessions scheduled on either rink after 9:20.

Shit. Wrong rink.

My bad.

At this point, it was about 8:55, and if we play in Dorchester, we start at 9:20. Unfortunately, my Honda Accord can't fly, so I was considering just going home and calling it a night. However, I talked myself out of it and hit the road, somehow arriving at the rink right around 9:25. I went inside to make sure we were playing there, and sure enough, my teammates were already taking their warm-up twirls around the ice.

By the time I got back to my car to get my stuff and made my way inside, the scrimmage had already begun. We had refs, but no goalies; instead, the nets were turned backwards as if we were playing some kind of bizarro-world hockey.

I made my way to my team's bench, and sheepishly approached my coach; the scrimmage was about three minutes old at this point.

"Am I too late, or should I go get dressed," I said, probably making some kind of sad puppy face.

"What color are you?"

"This one," I said, gesturing to my teal teammates in front of me.

"Sure," he replied. "Go get dressed."

As I've said before, rushing to get dressed or get ready always leaves one feeling like something is missing; this time, I had to really rush, because the game had already started. Yeah, it was just a scrimmage, but I wanted to play, and wanted to get out there.

I entered the locker room with 21 minutes left to play (we ended up playing two 25 minute, running-time halves), and emerged fully dressed with 14 minutes left on the clock. NOT BAD.

Replace the office supplies with hockey gear and you get me, getting dressed.

I made my way to the bench to find that my team had four defensemen and six forwards; in other words, I was the "extra" guy. Things would've been easier without me. :(((((((((

I approached my coach and said, "so, what are we doing?"

"We'll rotate lines," he said. "You replace the right wing on the next change. You then play a shift at right, then next you go to center, then you go to left, then you come off and sit."

"OK," I said, having pretty much no idea what he was talking about. "I meant about the nets, how do we score? Just get it around the back."

"Nope," he answered. "Gotta get it in off the boards. Bank shots only."

I was stunned. Here we are, pretty much unable to skate efficiently, and these guys essentially want us to play pool on blades of steel and a sheet of frozen water. GAME ON!

Like this, but with hockey sticks. On skates. On ice. PIECE OF CAKE!

As I watched the shift in front of me, things unfolded hilariously predictably: shots skittered well-wide, pucks banged into the side of the net, and even the most carefully aimed shots flew passed the net mouth, almost as if physics itself was mocking all of us.

"You call that a bank shot? NOPE."

The skaters came to the bench for a change, and I didn't move. I didn't think he'd throw me on right away, considering there was a line behind me.

I was wrong.

"What are you doing?! Get out there, full change, full change!"

Oops. I charged over the boards and into the action, already imagining what kind of pool trick-shot goal I was going to score.

Truth be told, it's harder than you'd think. Because the puck isn't shaped like a ball, it's a little harder to judge which way it's going to go when it hits the boards. I found myself with the puck by one of the faceoff circles, and decided to just fling it at the net.

It would've been a great shot...if the net was facing the other way. The puck went off of the netting and onto the stick of an opposing player. Backwards Facing Net 1, Me 0.

After my first shift, our team scored to knot things at 1. Time went by, and I went out for my next shift. I think I was supposed to play center, but I didn't. I kind of just floated around, aimlessly looking for the puck, attacking when I got the chance.

One thing I've taken to very well is forechecking. As I said in a previous post, I've learned that attacking (most of) the defensemen in our clinic leads to either a turnover directly to me or a harmless dump out of the zone that my team retrieves. I consider myself tenacious on the forecheck, to borrow a term from Jack Edwards.

On one shift, I decided I'd attack the D and try to force a turnover. My target was a guy I didn't recognize wearing one of those old-school Calgary Flames jerseys with the flaming horse head. I set my sights on this Jay Bouwmeester fella, and attacked.

He went right by me.

Lesson learned: don't attack the unknown guys. They're probably good.

Later on, I decided to keep attacking. I'd go after the defense every time, and usually had good results. However, one time I tried to seal off the boards, as I read that the defenseman was going to try to use that as his escape route. I hustled over the cut off the boards and headed towards him. He flipped the puck up anyways, and it went off of my blade and out.

Considering that an object in motion stays in motion (hey, second physics reference of the post!), and that me on ice stays in motion until I hit something, myself and this defenseman found ourselves on a collision course.

I didn't want to hit him, nor did I want him to hit me, so I kind of veered into the boards. They absorbed most of the impact, and we had what I'd term a minor fender-bender of a collision. However, my left arm, apparently mad at my decision to bail into the boards, wasn't too happy, and responded by yelling at me with waves of "OUCH" for the rest of the night.

Being the warrior that I am, I decided to keep playing, because I'm all that is man.

Me, at hockey.

As we headed out to start the third period, I was playing center, and realized I'd get to take a faceoff for the first time in my illustrious career. There's an art to taking faceoff in the NHL, as players will read every twitch in the ref's hand in order to get an advantage.

In the clinic, taking a faceoff is a lot like trying to kill a mouse with a broom: JUST WHACK AT IT, EVENTUALLY WE'LL GET IT!

After a few whacks, the puck squirted free, and went to one of my teammates. Career faceoff winning percentage: 1.000% Patrice Bergeron can't touch me.

Midway through the third period, the score was still tied at 1. Myself and teammate Bobby (again, I don't know if that's his name) found ourselves in a puck battle down behind the net. The puck squirted free to an opposing defenseman, and, being the tenacious forechecker that I am, I forced a turnover and put it back behind the net. Bobby's bank attempt was denied, and I found myself with the puck at my feet, facing away from the boards.

I decided to go full trick-shot, back handing the puck off the boards without looking, hoping that by some bit of birthday luck it would go in.

Denied.

Later in the third, I had three great chances to score.

• Two came on potential breakaways. Our coaches instructed us to hang out by the red line in order to draw the defense out, and to give our defensemen outlets. Twice I was fed pretty decent passes, but they were just a bit behind me. Remember: changing from forward to reverse isn't my strong suit, and neither is skating while looking down for the puck. I ended up looking like a jogger trying to see if his shoe is untied without breaking stride, and didn't really do either successfully. Foiled again!
• Down the stretch, I carried the puck over the blue line with a defender in front of me and another behind him. Considering it was late in the game, I kept going, and the defenders kept backing off. I made it to about the hash marks and decided to let one of my trademark blazing slappers fly. The puck, as if it had eyes, made it through both sets of legs, hit the boards where I wanted it to, slid towards the open net, and...went wide by an inch. FOILED AGAIN AGAIN!

In case you didn't get the "foiled again!" reference...this guy.

I headed to the bench after that last failure, and looked at the clock to see time ticking away. Realizing that I'd probably played my last shift, I relaxed a bit.

My coach and one of my teammates, clearly focused on the game, were talking about fishing, catching sharks, and how one and his group of buddies really is a "drinking crew with a fishing problem."

We sure are a unique bunch.

During this discussion, our team managed two more goals, and we ended up winning 4-1. Team Teal remains undefeated.

After the game, we retreated to the locker room, where Jay Bouwmeester sincerely congratulated everyone on a good scrimmage and pulled two 12's of Narragansett out of a duffel bag. Even though I think Narragansett is awful (I know, nonsense coming from a guy who enjoys Bud Light), I'm not one to turn down a nice gesture. So there we sat, a bunch of misfits who combined to score five goals in a game with no goalies, drinking Narragansett and laughing about the game.

I don't think I've ever felt more like a beer league hockey player.

*Cue the sentimental music.*