Hockey Night in Boon-town

Not sure where this notion came from, but out of the blue Q decided to start playing roller hockey, again. Why? When? How was this decision made? I have no idea. I just knew that it happened. And so for about 3-4 weeks Q and I had hockey conversations - how to shoot, where to skate, techniques, etc. He had also advised that I should start playing, too. But what was the point of that? First of all, I couldn't find any roller hockey leagues here. Secondly, I didn't have my equipement. Thirdly, I haven't played in 10 years, and haven't played ice hockey for 20 years. But he told me just to do it, and talking over techniques and tips on his games helped give me that extra kick in the butt that I always need to get me going. Before I knew it, I was at the Pan Am Plaza rink downtown, watching rinkside a bunch of kids scrimmaging.

Watching the kids skate around the rink, hearing the puck being shot against the boards with its reverberating booming echo, feeling the coolness of the air, and smellng the slight residual exhaust from the zamboni mixed with ice was enough to convince me. For this assault on the senses breathed new life in to me and for the first time ever I was actually excited about being in this defunct little town. Hmm...Q was absolutely right. Again.

But wait. If memory serves, playing hockey was extremely expensive. 20 years ago it cost 10 bucks to play for about an hour and a half. After looking in to prices over here, it was....10 bucks to play for an hour and a half! Alright! I'm in.
The next 2 months were spent researching equipment online and at the rink, calling up stores, trying on new equipement, etc. I did have Mom and Dad send me my helmet, but all my pads were either rusted or decintigrated. And as far as my old skates...I'm not even sure what happened to them. Great, there goes another few Benjamens. Through my research I discovered that a lot of the things we bought 20 years ago were either the wrong sizes or the wrong equipment.

So after about 2 months of scrutinizing just about everything, I finally finally FINALLY got all the equipment I needed. I had been dying to play, and my patience was tested as all my things were mailed to me. But when I finally had everything, nothing could stand in my way of going to the rink. Nothing.....except Richel, of course (Honey, can I go out and play?). And I knew I had to get in as much playing time as possible because once the baby came, then that would be it: all vestiges of freedom would be forever lost for the next 18 years as Goh had forerwarned me (oh yeah, I'm going to be a parent, soon. But that's a minor point. More importantly, I got my equipment and was ready to play hockey. If anything, the birth of the new child would mean buying even more hockey equipement and going to the rink more often - just like every good Canadian parent).

After going to about 4 or 5 independent sessions where you can just skate around on your own and take shots, or work on your stick-handling or whatever, I felt that maybe it was time to test the waters and play a game. And if I were in California I would have definitely been able to get away with it. But not in the midwest. The players here have been on skates since the age of 2 or 3. They're good. Damn good. Better than I've ever seen outside of an NHL game.

Needless to say I was the worst player out there. Relatively speaking, I couldn't skate, I was slow, I was always 2 steps behind the play, couldn't pass, couldn't shoot, nothing. Contributing to my embarassment was the fact that this day was the first day I wore a face cage instead of a plastic shield (big difference in visibility). So it was my first ice hockey game in 20 years and I was skating around half blind; it was only a matter of time before people would stop passing to me. And I was so ineffective that I got to a point where I didn't want people to pass it to me, either.

"Hey, don't give me the puck! I don't know what to do with it! And even if I did I couldn't do it, anyway!" After recounting the experience with Gah, she dubbed me the next Eddie Shack.

I'd say that's right on.