Game seven

Played Game 7 last night. Here’s how it went down:

Home – 90 minutes to game time and I’m seeking answers the universe can’t possibly provide. For example, why did I eat the spicy pizza with extra chili flakes for dinner? Why did I wash it down with a couple of craft beers? Why did I leave my wet gear in my bag to bake in the back of my truck in the hot sun? And will we have enough players tonight or is it going to be a bag skate? No one really knows.

Arena – the cluster job begins. Our team is gathered in the hallway like a bunch of lost puppies because our designated change rooms were locked. We spend 15 minutes with our thumbs up our butts waiting for the rink manager to come open them. We finally get into one, but it’s the wrong dressing room. This is a problem which becomes evident later.

Change Room – with little time to get ready, the pre-game banter is at a minimum. It’s mostly collective headshaking about the change room mix-up. We gear up and get out to the bench only to see the opposition wearing the wrong colours. We were supposed to be Home, but to make life easier, we all march back into the change room to our Away colours. Sigh.

1st Period – the game starts off with a handshake between our centers. I’m a fan of sportsmanship, so I like where this is going. The game starts and we’re all playing well, but it seems like the other team is playing better. They score first and we immediately answer back. 1-1. Then we score again. And again. They keep coming at us, and it seems like they should be scoring a lot, but nothing goes in. It’s bizarre.

2nd Period – we go up 5-1 by the middle of the period and that’s when things heat up. They’re frustrated, so the physical play gets intense. We let them take their penalties and just carry on. There’s also some top-notch schoolyard whining going on from their side, but we’ve learned by now to let the scoreboard talk for us. Mostly.

3rd Period – the four-goal differential holds all the way until the dying minutes of the period. With three minutes remaining the game goes off the rails. One of their guys decides it’s a good idea to take some whacks at our goalie. Not cool. And it’s the same dude that shook hands in the first! I push him out of the way and tell him to stop being an idiot. We face-off in our zone and he immediately starts interfering with our goalie, who, incidentally, is the same teammate that took a skate to the back a few games back. He doesn’t take too kindly to the behavior. He uses his lumber to relocate dum-dum with a hearty cross-check to the back. I skate in to separate them, and the whistle goes. The refs toss the guy and try to restore order. Guys on both sides are beaking off at each other and it looks like things could go down. I skate over to the Stripes and tell him about our dressing room situation. Because of the earlier mix-up, the other team needs to go through our bench to access their room. What could possibly go wrong? The ref takes note. In the middle of all this, the rink manager shows up on the ice getting ready to bring the Zamboni out. Dude, we’re still playing and you’re 15 minutes early. Also, what the hell are you doing on the ice?! The refs send him away, too. That little bit of weirdness offers a sufficient distraction, heads cool, and we get back to the game. Within a minute they put two in the back of the net. Two minutes to go and they closed the gap to 5-3. Unreal! Nevertheless, we hold them off and manage to secure the win.

We do the post-game handshake and then head to the change rooms. The refs force the other team to take the long way around to theirs, so we avoid each other. We happily head back to our room, pop open some beers, and celebrate our 5-game win streak. There’s just a teensy bit of bravado in the air, with some added trash talk and jokes too juvenile to share. It was another solid night with these lads!