Hockey is life the rest? Details.
Interspersed among having to work for a living, whittle away at the list of things my wife needs me to do around the house and keeping up with five kids, I occasionally get to do what I want. Usually that takes the form of playing ice hockey.
Let me explain, I was born in St. Louis, MO in (as you can calculate if you read my profile) 1965. In 1968, my father took me to watch the St. Louis Blues play the Toronto Maple Leafs play in the Checkerdome in St. Louis. As a result of that experience two things happened. One was that yours truly got to grace the cover of one month of the Blues' fan magazine (I've never seen it but my mother swears it's true). There I am at the age of three standing in my seat and screaming (to quote my mother) "Go Bwues! Go Bwues!". The other result and much more significant in my view of things was that a seed was planted.
I started out at the age of six and played forward until I was 10. At the age of 10 quite literally on a lark I took a turn in goal, and nothing was ever the same. I have played since then, as well as coaching and officiating.
This last weekend (17-19 June 2005) eleven men ranging in age from 20 - 45 took to the ice to play a tournament in Huntsville, AL. For those of you who live in colder climates than here who just went, "Ice hockey in ALABAMA?" Huntsville, AL is the home of the University of Alabama at Huntsville Chargers, the ONLY NCAA division I ice hockey program south of the Mason Dixon line.
This post chronicles our adventure this weekend.
In our first game on Friday night we outscored the other team 6-2 in a contest that was really not as lopsided as the score would indicate. Both teams skated hard and there were a number of good opportunities on both sides. I would like to think that better goaltending won out, but in all candor it was the guys in front of me who made the difference.
Our second game (Saturday morning) got off to a good start scoring first and holding the 1-0 lead going into the second period. In the second period yours truly sort of went to pieces and experienced a major brain hemmorage and gave up two goals that I should have stopped. Unfortunately we never recovered from that and finished the game in a 1-2 loss.
Our third and final pool game was building up to be a real scorcher. If any hockey game between 40 year old beer league hockey players can be considered a scorcher. It was important as the winner would go to the championship game and the loser would go home. We got down on a really good play by the other team when their winger pulled my defenceman out of position and got the pass across to a waiting center. Hard to argue with a good goal. Midway through the third period we evened it up, and I was starting to think in terms of overtime with 30 seconds to play and the puck in the other end. One of my forwards (God bless him) decided to answer the question right there and scored the game winner with 2.5 seconds to play in the game to send us to the championship game.
The championship game was Sunday morning against the team that had beaten us the previous day. Again we got up by a goal early, but this time we added another one to pad the score. Late in the third period with us up 4-2 my defenceman and and I miscommunicated and coughed the puck up to give them an easy goal to make life interesting but we still won 4-3 to claim the championship and bragging rights for the next year.
In the locker room champagne flowed and much celebrating followed. Hey, we may be getting old but we still know how to party.
As for me, a goals against averag of slightly over 2 for the tournament. At my age and no more than I get to practice, I'll take it. It was a great tournament, and you can count on the Geriatric Commandos to be back again next year.
J.
Let me explain, I was born in St. Louis, MO in (as you can calculate if you read my profile) 1965. In 1968, my father took me to watch the St. Louis Blues play the Toronto Maple Leafs play in the Checkerdome in St. Louis. As a result of that experience two things happened. One was that yours truly got to grace the cover of one month of the Blues' fan magazine (I've never seen it but my mother swears it's true). There I am at the age of three standing in my seat and screaming (to quote my mother) "Go Bwues! Go Bwues!". The other result and much more significant in my view of things was that a seed was planted.
I started out at the age of six and played forward until I was 10. At the age of 10 quite literally on a lark I took a turn in goal, and nothing was ever the same. I have played since then, as well as coaching and officiating.
This last weekend (17-19 June 2005) eleven men ranging in age from 20 - 45 took to the ice to play a tournament in Huntsville, AL. For those of you who live in colder climates than here who just went, "Ice hockey in ALABAMA?" Huntsville, AL is the home of the University of Alabama at Huntsville Chargers, the ONLY NCAA division I ice hockey program south of the Mason Dixon line.
This post chronicles our adventure this weekend.
In our first game on Friday night we outscored the other team 6-2 in a contest that was really not as lopsided as the score would indicate. Both teams skated hard and there were a number of good opportunities on both sides. I would like to think that better goaltending won out, but in all candor it was the guys in front of me who made the difference.
Our second game (Saturday morning) got off to a good start scoring first and holding the 1-0 lead going into the second period. In the second period yours truly sort of went to pieces and experienced a major brain hemmorage and gave up two goals that I should have stopped. Unfortunately we never recovered from that and finished the game in a 1-2 loss.
Our third and final pool game was building up to be a real scorcher. If any hockey game between 40 year old beer league hockey players can be considered a scorcher. It was important as the winner would go to the championship game and the loser would go home. We got down on a really good play by the other team when their winger pulled my defenceman out of position and got the pass across to a waiting center. Hard to argue with a good goal. Midway through the third period we evened it up, and I was starting to think in terms of overtime with 30 seconds to play and the puck in the other end. One of my forwards (God bless him) decided to answer the question right there and scored the game winner with 2.5 seconds to play in the game to send us to the championship game.
The championship game was Sunday morning against the team that had beaten us the previous day. Again we got up by a goal early, but this time we added another one to pad the score. Late in the third period with us up 4-2 my defenceman and and I miscommunicated and coughed the puck up to give them an easy goal to make life interesting but we still won 4-3 to claim the championship and bragging rights for the next year.
In the locker room champagne flowed and much celebrating followed. Hey, we may be getting old but we still know how to party.
As for me, a goals against averag of slightly over 2 for the tournament. At my age and no more than I get to practice, I'll take it. It was a great tournament, and you can count on the Geriatric Commandos to be back again next year.
J.
posted by OOPLord at 08:35
2 Comments:
Way to go!!! Glad you guys came out on top!!!
It was a great weekend. Lots of hockey, lots of fun.
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