Fun with Hockey

If you're committed to something, it will touch everything else in your life. Let me explain. One of the places I enjoy spending endless time is in the garden in front of our row house. Another, is a hockey rink in the back of Francis Hammond Middle school in Alexandria. Seminary Rink is nestled in a wooded area surrounded by apartment buildings, parking lots, and soccer fields. Its right next to the highway, but you'd never know it's there, and good luck finding it, even with directions. On Sundays, when my team plays there, the school is packed with families, and the parking lots overflow with minivans. All the soccer fields are full of kids playing in their shiny, sharp-looking uniforms, and the rink is loud with the clatter of wooden sticks, cheers, and "what the f's". On a nice autumn day, some of us spend an hour at the rink, showing up for a game, and going home. Some stay the whole day, watch, referee, keep track of goals and penalty minutes. Sometimes I like to show up early and hang out for an hour or two before the game, watch hockey on tv behind the benches, talk to whoever is there, lean over the boards and watch the games, or just read a book. That's on a nice day.

Sunday, December 5 was not nice. It was a freezing evening, and there were three guys inside a car in a dark, quiet, empty parking lot, hesitant to go out in the cold.
'Where is Scott, I thought he'd be here?'
'I'm surprised he's not behind the shed sacrificing a chicken.'

This was the night of the championship game, and this was us waiting for our goalie to come so we could start warming up. Its not surprising, but we didn't wait in the car long, it doesn't matter how cold or dark it was, there was a hockey rink right next to us, and we were out there shortly. Some extra layers and pads, the lights were switched on, a few more teammates arrived, a few stretches, warm-up shots, sprints, and here comes the opening face-off.

One bad shift, and we're down. One good shift, and we're up. 2-1 Group Therapy at the end of the first. 3-1 at the end of the second. Our team moves from the bench to the penalty box in the third, but we get through it. One last kill. Game.

If you're committed to something, it will touch everything else in your life. If you want to know what I'm daydreaming about when I'm weeding the garden, it's scoring a game winner in OT. If you want to know where all the hockey sticks from Seminary Rink end up, that would be my garden. I guarantee you that all those sticks spend more time holding up tomatoes and cucumbers then they do at the rink.

Here is my favorite Jack Falla story, from the days when Wayne Gretzky began winning Stanley Cups in Edmonton:
"...As I headed out the dressing room door, Gretzky called me back.
'You shoot left?' he asked.
I said I did and he gave me one of his sticks. I appreciated the stick, but not as much as the question that suggested what Gretzky intended I do with that stick. The same thing he'd do. Use it. I caught a late morning flight home, and by mid-afternoon, I was out on the backyard rink using Gretzky's stick in a pickup game with kids from the neighborhood. It was a good stick. Light. Strong. It survived the backyard rink season and held together for a few games of spring driveway hockey before someone inevitably stepped on the blade, whereupon I threw it in a corner of the garage with all the other broken sticks. In June, I did the same thing with Gretzky's stick that I did with 23 other bladeless shafts. I hammered it into the soft ground of the garden and staked a tomato plant to it."

Yes, I do that too. I have many non-Gretzky sticks in the garden. When my parents visited DC for Cherry Blossom Festival, I couldn't go with them because a stick bruised my ankle and made it swell up. It isn't unusual for me to not be able to sleep on my back because a stick was jammed into my lower back during a game (guess I run too close to the net). I did score a game winner in OT once, and that stick is in the garden too. I just don't know which one is which.

Stanley Cup pumpkin from last Halloween