the story of the stick

well, the good news is that my hockey stick fits in my trunk now.



the game yesterday was really fun for the most part. we played well. i actually scored the first goal off of my own rebound. in the ten years i've been playing, i've hardly ever picked up my own rebound. anyway, things were going okay until i broke my stick. it was the worst possible time to ever break a stick. and i did it!

we'd been leading almost the whole game, and the other team was slowly catching up to us. very close to the end, it was tied and hugo got some kind of weird penalty. rick and i played defense. the ball went into the boards, and i chased it down. brian, from the other team, chased me down. i was so in the zone. i knew i couldn't let him get possession, and i didn't back off, even when it looked like he was going to run right over me!

well, he didn't run right over me. my stick got pressed between me and the boards, and brian skated right through it, snapping it almost in the exact middle. i saw all these slow-motion splinters flying around, and the bottom half of my stick spinning in the air. that was a really BAD feeling. the worst part was that i was about as far away from the gate as possible.

i dropped what used to be my stick and skated as fast as i think i ever have toward the gate, yelling, "SUB!!! SUB!!!" and leaving rick to play defense, 3 0n 1. about one second after david's skate touched the rink, the other team scored. at that point there were about ten seconds left in the game.

can you believe that?!? the time i have to break my stick was in the last twenty seconds, when we're tied, killing a penalty, and when i'm all the way across the rink from the gate. the only way it could have been worse is if it had been a championship or something. it's weird being mad when there's really no one to blame... it wasn't my fault or brian's fault or rick's fault or hugo's fault... it was just bad bloody stinkin luck. when they scored right after i made it to the bench, i actually lost my temper and threw my gloves as hard as i could into the back of the boards. i don't do that very often, either. about as often as i pick up my own rebound.

we didn't recover in those last ten seconds and lost by one.

grrrrrrrrrrrr.