Month: March 2017

Remember The Royals

…There was stunned silence throughout the arena. The Royal’s star couldn’t believe what he was seeing. From his perspective all he saw was an open net with a large blob like mass crouched, kneeling and blubbering behind the net. He stopped, looked around as if he was not quite sure on what to do.  He shook his head a few times as if in comical disgust then sauntered every so slowly down to the goal’s crease and tapped the puck, gingerly, into the net. All of a sudden laughter broke out from the fans. The players on both benches banged their sticks against the boards screaming and hollering in their amazement.  The referee and linemen raced toward the net expecting some sort of scuffle between the Royal’s player and McDink.  McDink seemed to be in total shock and awe and scared shitless to render himself almost comatose. I was told later they had to pry him away from the backside of the goal. They couldn’t get him up. He was a blabbering, blubbering nincompoop.  I do believe, though I can’t be entirely sure of this, that he pissed himself and soiled his shorts.  In due course they had to carry him off the ice. The game was over. 

But before all of that happened, Art skated up to McDink and in a loud, sarcastic but assertive voice told McDink in no uncertain terms:

“Remember the Royals”

And he did, and we did, for years to come.

Shakin All Over

…We let him be.  Like Moses parting the Red Sea we opened up a lane for him by moving backwards toward the boards on both sides of the ice surface. He had a clear and straight path to our goal. The only thing standing between him and hockey glory was McDink. What must McDink be thinking, especially seeing us, his team mates, opening up the lane for the enemy such that there was no impedance between the mammoth and himself? In what seemed to have been a Nano second McDink came out of his net ever so slightly, he looked to his right, then to his left, then straight ahead: his legs, his pads, forming an “A” shaped five hole that a Mack Truck could have driven through.

The fans were going nuts. The rafters seemed to be shaking. The ice melting, smokin, due to the friction and fire coming from the blades of the Royal’s star player as he was crossed centre ice in a blur. After a split second of assessment, analysis of the situation and determination McDink made his decision.   He turned to his left, then to his right, to his left, to his right, scared, dazed and confused, and then, in another split second in his fullness of time, panicking, he turned left again and ran on his blades to seek the protection of the net. Not inside the net to the back of the crease but the back outside portion of the net itself – BEHIND THE NET. And there he crouched, no kneeled, as if praying to his Lord to protect him, to save him from this terror on ice, shakin all over…

Whoosh

…Finally the referee blew the whistle as a signal for the teams to line up for the face-off and the start of the game. I wasn’t on the ice, second shift for me. Goliath was on his bench as well. Puck drops, the games on.  Confusion and chaos begin as everyone on both sides go for the puck at the same time. No sense of order, teamwork or synergy among the players. No one played positional hockey as there were ten puck hogs out there.  Everyone wanted to score.  Nobody scored.  Next!

Second shift comes out, more of the same. A little better coordination perhaps as both coaches are screaming at the players from the bench. Suddenly, a shot from us. Wide, puck ricochets into their corner.  A Royal defenseman picks it up and slides it over to the opposite side.  Another player fires the puck off the boards and down the ice.  Icing is called.  Line changes, puck is back in the Royal’s end.  Just then their wooly mammoth comes off the bench and takes his place on the right side of the circle. Puck drops; the Royal’s center wins the faceoff and hacks the puck back behind their net.  Suddenly their man gets the puck and skates with it behind their own net and just stands there weighing in on all that surrounds him. The rest of our team begin to skate backwards in rapid succession, some of us lining up on their blue line the rest of us at centre ice.  None of us would even dare to challenge this guy. He was not a normal 12 year old kid at 6 ft tall – with his skates on.  Skinny, lithe, slippery as a snake, one would think that being that tall and that skinny that one could just puff in his direction and down he’d go.  Unfortunately for us he was not the gangly uncoordinated klutz.  Far from it.  

At this moment in time I had no idea what must be going through McDink’s mind.  He surely had to know what was coming his way. He did seem to back up way into his net as if he thought by doing so would offer him some form of protection. Nope. Then out he slides, centre’d in the goalie crease and crouched with blocker and stick out to this left side with his glove hand to his right and arced slightly upward.  McDink did look the part.

The wooly mammoth of a player began to move, slowly at first, then accelerating. He deeked around a couple of his own team mates then turned on an oblique angle across his own goal toward his own blue line.  Faster and faster he went, with every cut of his blades. He leaned his tall frame expertly to his right pulling the puck with him as he went. It was a sight to behold. Then he leaned to his left until he was on a straight trajectory to our goal and our goalie, McDink. The only thing standing in his way was about 4 of us but we were in such a state watching this unfold that we couldn’t move a muscle, not that we would even try. From the centre line where I was standing, looking back at his end with him coming at us full tilt you could see, sense, feel the thrusts of his skates as he came straight for us. Like a rocket – whoosh!. His eyes ablaze, his face contorted as if his every move generated negative “G” forces. Woosh, woosh, woosh, as he flew past his own team mates then past us one by one. It was as if they, we, were standing still.  Crunch, crunch, crunch, the sound of his blades cutting into the ice; leveraging and transferring that potential energy throughout into his entire being…