Goal!

Friday night

I was a member of a small hockey team captained by my friend Eddie M. We were playing a match in an arena and were being watched by an audience. I was an eager participant; too eager, in fact. It soon became apparent that I didn't understand all of the rules.

Ed took part in a face-off with a member of the other team. I thought that they had already touched the puck, so I jumped right in an smacked it away. It turned out that neither one of them had hit it yet, so that was a major foul. A little later I made the same mistake, and shortly thereafter I was looking for Ed, but he was nowhere to be found. It turned out that each time I screwed up the face-off, Ed was sent to the penalty box for an entire period.

Now our team was really short-handed. In fact, I was aware of only one other player on our side, a tall, heavy-set woman who was wearing glasses. Knowing that I had caused Ed to sit out, and that I had cost her a teammate, I really wanted to make it up to both of them. Suddenly my teammate was involved in a scrum, fighting for the puck in the top right corner of the rink. Somehow she managed to pass the puck my way, calling out my name so I'd be ready to receive it. I whirled my hockey stick over my head as if I were a polo player, and hit the puck hard. It made a beeline straight for the opponents' goal, which was pretty far away, and not defended at the moment. Time seemed to slow down as we waited to see what would happen, and the puck slowed, too; it just barely made it over the line.

*****

Yesterday I was e-mailing back and forth with my friend, Preston, and mentioned how much I used to enjoy a table-top air hockey game that used to be in the apartment that I shared with my brother Andrew.