This might have been the most creative penalty I've ever taken

I was a little late getting out of the shop last night before my game. As the result, I was the last guy out of the room and onto the ice. The buzzer announced the end of warm-ups expiring just as my skates touched the ice. I sneaked in four or five laps of our half of the rink while the stray pucks were collected in Homer's Orange Bucket. It was almost enough skating to get the blood flowing a little faster, though not enough to warm any of my many stiff muscles.

As the dubious honor of team captain fell to me this season simply because I was the only guy willing to organize the team. I headed to our bench and was sorting out who would play where. It was slightly challenging due to the odd number of skaters. Ten or thirteen is perfect, we had eight when I left the locker room and nine when I hit the ice (thanks to a last second sub player). I'd set our defensive lines and was working on the offense when the linesman skated over and asked, "Who is your team captain tonight?"

"That's me." I answered, wondering who on the team was in trouble as officials don't generally invade the pre-game strategy meetings.

"We need to talk to you at center ice before we get started."
"OK." This was an interesting development.

I skated to center where the referee and Tom, the opposing team captain, waited.

I asked Tom, "Are we starting out with a team captain fistfight tonight?"

"I'm good with that." Tom replied, a disturbing grin on his face. He's a bit bigger, younger and does cross-fit. (Aside from hockey, the only exercise I've had time for lately is 12 ounce curls). My chances toe to toe with him were more dubious than the question of team captain being an honor.

The ref, apparently not one to mince words, told us, "Both of you are going to start the game in the penalty box."

In response to our obvious but unspoken pleas of innocence, he continued, "The rules clearly state that no one should enter the rink until the Zamboni door is closed. Both your teams were out here early tonight. You're serving bench minors and we'll start the game 4 on 4."

Tom protested mildly, "I was one of the last to leave the locker room."
I added, "I completely missed warm ups."
"It doesn't matter."

I sighed, "Tom, how about you go punch everyone on my team in the face and I'll go punch everyone on your team in the face?"

We decided not to do that, instead thanking our team for the two minute rest we'd get to start the game. Then we settled in for a couple minutes of lighthearted banter yelled back and forth between our glass cages.

"Your sub goalie said she'd spot us fifteen goals tonight."
"That's right, she was playing the night we beat you 15-1, right?"
"I was sick that night."

With this new time spent in in the sin bin I tied my personal best of four penalty minutes in a season. Maybe I'll have that fistfight next time Tom and I meet just to improve my penalty stats. I'm probably out of the running for the Lady Byng award this season anyway. Besides, Tom's the kinda guy who'd have a beer with me after the fight no matter who won.

Anyway, that's how you can take a penalty while you're still in the locker room. It also explains that whistle I heard while I was still lacing up my skates. Next week, I will see if I can find a way to serve a penalty for a team I don't play on . . . that might be challenging.

Here's why I'm not changing my name to Clutch McHockey

If I can paraphrase Danny Glover's catchphrase from a few movies, "I'm getting too old for this stuff." (He didn't say stuff, but I'm trying to keep things family friendly here).

Our league, is officially C level, an intermediate level of play with A being the most skilled and D being the bottom of the bucket. Despite this, the skill level significantly exceeds that boundary. The four teams in our league feature one player fresh out of a pro career, several former college players and about half a dozen kids who have played junior hockey (several of whom believe they are on the way to pro or college hockey in the fall). Most of the remaining players at least played competitively through the high school level before retiring to the beer leagues (some of them last year).

I however, was not a pro player, not a college player or even a youth hockey player. Those readers who have seen me play are muttering a sarcastic, “really?” I started playing in my thirties and was nearly forty before I branched out from playing only goalie. Don't get me wrong, I'm not the only guy who took up hockey late in life, nor am I the only old guy out there. But there are precious few of us who are both old and took up the sport late in life. As such I do things like make such amazing fakes while puck handling that I fool myself or impress the other team with my footwork which is right out of the school of drunken hockey.

Our week three game found us playing against the team with the oldest average age in the league. This team definitely features some skilled players, but their two biggest advantages are that they've played together for years and they they don't have anyone who is terrible. My team had played together for two game before facing them. We don't have the luxury of not having anyone terrible (even if I'm only counting me). On the positive side of our balance sheet, we do have a lot of young legs and probably two guys who are more talented than any our week three opponents can boast. More importantly, we have a less . . . shall we say . . . passionate approach to the game.

Our opponents outpaced us on scoring most of the game. We'd close the gap, catching up once in a while. In one such moment, their goalie imploded screaming at the refs as we watched unconcerned. I couldn't quite hear his words across the awkward acoustics of the ice rink. I would guess from his fervor there were a fair number of words approximately four letters long. I did catch the repeated word, “crease!” I suspect he thought we were trespassing in his protected habitat when we scored. Regardless, the refs did not revoke our goal . . . surprisingly no amount of yelling I've ever witnessed has had this effect. Much the opposite, they gave him an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty giving us a two minute power play. The goalie continued to yell unintelligibly. I can only guess after the penalty, he was saying, “Please send another of my teammates to the box. It makes me happy when they shoot pucks at me!”

This seemed to be the start of the end for our opponents. The entire team began taking strange penalties. Guys who are usually pretty calm did things like dole out headbutts and attempt repeatedly to use our goalie as a pommel horse. These things along with a perfect Rob Blake style hip check (imagine backing a trash truck into an unsuspecting opponent it you don't remember Mr. Blake) did not go unnoticed by those officiating our non-checking game. Our opponents also heaped evidence on my belief that feigning indignation and surprise at being caught does as little to change a referee's mind as yelling at them. They might try carrying candy instead. “Hey, you wanna chocolate, ref? Maybe we can discuss that last call while you enjoy it.” Nah, that might not work either.

Thus the stage was set for quite a battle. Our opponents would surge forward by a goal and we would stumble back. Then late in the third period, they managed to extend their lead to 6-4. It seemed this lead would be short lived as they punctuated their sixth goal with two penalties. Once the refs sorted things out and tossed a couple offenders into the sin bin, we decided to stack up the line on the ice with our five best players going against the three they were allowed to put on the ice. There was little doubt in our mind that we'd tie this game up sometime in the two minute penalty window. At the end of two minutes, it was still 6-4. Go figure.

Finally with about five minutes left in the game we notched a fifth goal. Then inside the three minute mark we tied up the score at six each. Our opponents didn't give up. They rallied back and spent the majority of my next shift in our zone. It's a nervous time to be a defenseman with two minutes left in a tied game. Essentially it's sudden death at this point. I managed to block a pass intended for the open side of our net which even if I'm humble would have been a goal without my intervention. Instead it tipped wide and behind the net off my stick. The intended recipient of this pass is another old guy. Despite having had a heart attack after one game and slowing down a little, he's still got more skills moving and shooting the puck than anyone over fifty should be allowed.

I pressured him at the side of the net, knowing that someone was moving up behind me. He'd want to pass it back in front of the net for the potential game winning goal. When he did I was momentarily pleased to get my stick on his pass. I say momentarily because while I prevented the puck from going to the man he intended, I ended up making it a better play than he possibly could have. Hockey is so often like this. You think, yes! I made a great play, then turn around and realize that it was actually a calamity.

Our goalie had taken away the entire net away from the player my opponent intended to pass it to. Unfortunately, my deflection sent that infernal vulcanized-rubber disc across the front of the net. There, the second guy simply, and without a trace of reverence, placed the puck in our net.

I was dejected as I looked up and saw there were less than two minutes for us to draw back even. My first thought was to head to the bench where I would hang my head in shame. Certainly someone more qualified to put the puck in their net should be on the ice. Instead, as our best forwards lined up, I gritted my teeth, decided to score and stayed on the ice. (I should mention, there is a great deal more to actually scoring than simply deciding to do so . . . otherwise I would have six or seven goals every game).

The goal invigorated us. Apparently we didn't mind not winning nearly as much as we hated losing so we danced about their net, prodding at any weaknesses. At one point I crept up from my position, anticipating a scoring attempt. This went poorly as they took the puck and seeing me out of position, cleared it out of their end. With a mere twenty seconds remaining, our most talented player picked up the puck, roared back into the zone, shot . . . and hit the goalpost.

The puck bounced about in front of the net. No one could corral the thing until it took a hop in my direction. I shot low through traffic toward the part of the net the goalie wasn't covering. It skimmed the inside of the post and rolled to the back of the net. I looked at the clock. We were tied again and there were only 5.4 seconds left.

There is no overtime in our league. There is no shootout. We ended that game in a seven to seven tie. Had there been a shootout, I would not have gone out to shoot until almost everyone else had. Would I have scored? Who knows? I've scored in three games now on three shots. But the shootout is another animal and I'm sure the goalie knows both of my breakaway/shootout moves . . . I'm kidding, I only have one move move.

But I digress. The reason I won't be changing my name to Clutch McHockey is simple. It's a stupid name.

An improbable thing happened at summer hockey last night.

I knew I wasn't going to be bringing my best game as I pulled a muscle and have been struggling with sciatica since Friday. It hurt bad enough I thought about skipping the game altogether. But there was a question of how many people would show up and I didn't want to leave my team short. I jumped on the stationary bike and warmed up for ten minutes before the game. It didn't really help.

Our team is a thrown together hodgepodge of skaters. Half a dozen of them in their early twenties or younger (most of whom have played hockey longer than I). I was in pain and I'm not a big goal scorer, so when everyone was fighting to play forward, I had no qualms about volunteering to play defense. It's closer to my natural home as a goalie anyway. There aren't a lot of guys who will stand in front of a shot in a recreational league game. I can't help myself; it's just in my nature to stand in front of fast moving objects. I don't know why.

The first shift of the game was rough. I was playing with a new partner and we really didn't read each other well. Not to put any blame on my counterpart, but our efforts were just short of making us the best players on the other team. Our opponents spent the majority of my first shift using our goalie as a ballistic impact testing device. Fortunately he was up to the task and kept the barrage of rubber out of the net.

My second shift, I ended up with another defensive partner. My first one headed off to grab a different stick. This was likely an excuse to escape my early game mediocrity and play hockey with someone else. While some might find this insulting, I must applaud that type of quick thinking. Regardless, the second shift was slightly better, though there was one bad breakout when both of us were playing the same side of the ice.

My new defensive counterpart and I discussed this on the bench: 

“I thought you were on left D?”

“Huh, I thought you were.”

“You want left?”

“I don't care.”

With that not so clearly decided, we both took left D when we got back on the ice. This worked surprisingly well though. We swapped a few times until I ended up on the right side toward the end of the shift. Surprisingly, the game was actually being played in the attack zone once in a while. We were finally starting to gel and even had a few shots on net, but still not quite taking it to them. I'd guess the shot count at this point was about 64 to 3 (us having the three).

The pace was blistering. I haven't played a league game in a few years. It's amazing how much harder people work when there are refs, scorekeepers and post-game beer. Compared to the lunchtime pickup game I play three times a week the only way to describe it is frenetic. It's likely that I was the slowest guy out there, even certain with my pain-diminished skills. Perhaps, other than the opposing goalie, I was the oldest guy on the ice, but that goalie, he's some kind of fitness freak who apparently still can pass cars while riding his bike up steep mountain roads. Why would anyone ride a bike up a mountain if they're old enough to drive?

Thus, when one of my teammates passed the puck to me, the old guy at the point, I was slightly surprised. With the puck on my stick, I made a move to elude the left wing. He was clearly surprised as well as he ended up seven feet behind me going the wrong way. Perhaps the entire opposing team was confused. There was a huge void between me and the net as they ardently protected the boards. I was thinking pass, but as I curled toward the net, I had a shooting lane and a sliver of goal. I pulled the trigger and watched. I wasn't sure I could trust my eyes as the puck tickled the wide side of the net, an inch inside the pipe, four inches above the goalie's leg pad.

The ref pointed to the net. I was awarded with fist bumps and the type of nods generally reserved for a fine painting in a museum. I thanked the teammate who passed it to me and skated back toward the bench. As I passed the scorekeeper's box, the guy inside gave me an inquisitive look. I'm not sure what he was thinking, but I figured it was, “Seriously? With all that talent out there you were the first to score?”

I smiled and nodded at him (mostly to make sure he credited my goal to the right person). Maybe I smiled too broadly. Maybe I nodded too ardently. But my back was killing me. I just scored the first goal of the season. I knew I could it would be okay for me to leave the ice early. 

I left because I felt like I was hurting the team and I knew I was hurting myself. I'll let you draw your own conclusion about whether there is a correlation here--my team was winning 2-0 when I left. They were down 3-2 when I limped out of the locker room during the second period. As I watched from the benches, they struggled back to a 5-5 tie at the end when an opposing player was kind enough to tip the puck into his own net. (That always makes you a favorite with the goalie). I'm not going to say that the guy twice as old as most of his teammates, with the jacked up back was the difference in the first period . . . but as I hobbled out of the rink one of my opponents yelled, “You sand-bagger! You get a couple points and leave?” I'll take that as a compliment on a team with so much skill even if I did only have one point. 

Schizophrenic Weather Musings

Winter has been striking the United States rather capriciously this winter. It seems like at any given time we're hearing about a snow or ice storm rampaging across some part of the nation. Here on the Front Range in Colorado, we have a saying, "If you don't like the weather, just wait a few minutes." Our Denver/Boulder weather has been even more unpredictable than normal this year. 

Today (Tuesday) we had a high of almost sixty degrees. Tonight we're expecting 2 to 5 inches of snow. Tomorrow should warm up to near fifty. Thursday they are predicting seventy degrees. Then Friday and Saturday . . . more snow. (I didn't make that up. The national weather service did). Our snow rarely sticks around for more than a few days before simply turning to vapor, leaving a smoke-like trail as it heads back into our dry air, often without even bothering to melt.

Growing up in the north east, I remember snow melting very differently. Sometimes when it snowed in November, it melted in February. In between these times, it often compressed into solid ice. I vividly remember a drive in such conditions one night. My father coaxed our car to a hundred yard stop from the terrifying speed of about ten miles per hour once. Our Impala Wagon came to a halt a couple feet from the intersection (well done Dad!). 

Unfortunately, the guy coming the other direction must have been going twelve miles an hour. Instead of stopping, his car spun in a slow, lazy glide. It had the energy of an amusement park ride winding down long after the exciting part was over. Still, it was coming right at us. My family let out a collective gasp. We gripped seats and dashboard tight. Then in silence we watched the other car, spinning, sliding and shushing past in slow motion. It missed us by inches. Even more amazingly, the car spun another twenty five yards into a crowded parking lot and came to a rest without touching a single vehicle. We drove the remaining few miles home at a nervous five miles per hour.

I cannot say for certain, but perhaps it was this same storm which blessed us with sidewalks of pure, silky ice. And yes, I mean blessed. For as a twelve-year-old, there was little more exciting than flying down a sidewalk covered with ice as smooth as if Frank Zamboni himself had put it there. To my regret, I never tried it on skates. That's probably just as well since helmets were considerably less chic than they are now. Instead, half a dozen of us would convoy down the sidewalk on Flexible Flyers.

This was all good and fine if you weren't the guy who owned the house at the bottom of the street. You see the hill culminated with the sidewalk taking a sweeping left turn. While Flexible Flyers do maneuver adeptly in snow, they suffer quite a bit on ice. At the end of a couple days and perhaps seven thousand sled runs, we'd managed to carve through the snow on his lawn . . . and the grass on his lawn. Had he wanted a ditch, we'd made fair headway on it. Apparently, he did not want a ditch.

Rather than thank us for this endeavor, he did a little work overnight. I was second in the convoy the next day. Denny, the kid in front of me, left his sled abruptly in my path. A moment later I struck the sled he'd rudely parked in my path. I was confused until my own sled's momentum was violently eradicated. I slid over his sled landing squarely on Denny (who was himself rudely parked my path). We were relieved at the lack of any apparent injuries for approximately one tenth of a second. The four sledders behind us screamed in procession. Then they added more steel, rope, oak and bodies to the mess on the sidewalk. 

Mercifully the demolition derby ended. We disentangled our limbs and sleds, realizing that by some miracle none of us had been permanently maimed. Our neighbor had painstakingly chipped the ice from his sidewalk and sanded it. Perhaps his only goal was to make sure that no one slipped and fell. I doubt that he envisioned a multi-sled accident as the result. He couldn't have created a more sinister sledding disaster if he'd wanted.

Be safe out there my friends!