Icemen Hockey at its finest

It was one of those nights where I thought about not going. Still trying to recover from the weekend, playing 4 games in 48 hours. But, at 9:00 I get a text from "dad". Pick me up for hockey? Well, I can't back out now and anyways, maybe it'll help me loosen up a little. It looks like we'll have 3 lines so it won't be the toughest skate of the year by any means.

We arrive at the rink and the usual suspects are there already with some more trickling in shortly after our arrival. Pud, JC14, Dusty, Kards, Blondie, Jmo, Mitzy, Rogers, Rocket, Coach, Dad & myself (db6). Cowhead pulls the pin on the game last minute and Big Chris is out tonight (our goalie), so Blondie called up "the kid" to play with us. It's getting close to game time and still no "kid". We hear the door swing open and finally, "the kid" rolls in. Looks like we've got 12 skaters. That means 4 D-men, 3 sets of wings and 2 centermen. I play center so that means I'll be double shifting with Dusty all night. I think to myself "I hope I have enough gas in the tank!"

The last of the boys finish lacing up the blades and we hit the ice for warm-ups. Luckily we're playing the Hawks tonight (not one of the strongest teams out there) but they usually give us a pretty good skate regardless. As we warm "the kid" up (he looks pretty sharp between the pipes tonight), we notice the Hawks have a few new skaters on their squad...young, and fast. Well, I guess we'll see.

The puck drops and we quickly fall behind 1-0. The score stays that way for the first 30'ish minutes. The Hawks call-ups are good. In fact, I don't think we've played against a quicker line this year, their one winger is smooth and has had probably 10 shots on "the kid" in the first 30 minutes already but "the kid" is up to the test. Then, the Icemen get rolling.

We tie it up and it stays that way for at least 15 minutes. 1-1 and we're 1/2 way through the game. Not sure what it is, but I'm working like a dog out there. I feel stronger and quicker than I have in quite a while on the ice. Every shift, I'm putting in 110%. I'm here, I might as well right? I can't remember sweating this much in a long time. It's one of those workouts where you know you're going to leave it all out there and likely pay for it the next day, but it's so worth it.

The Icemen start clicking. We pour it on in the second 1/2 of the game and the final tally is Icemen 8, Hawks 1. I manage to slip a sweet backhand past the goalie for a Gino, ring another one off the iron late in the game and chip in a couple of A's for good measure. But the real star of the show tonight is "the kid" in net. Overall, a solid effort by every skater. Man, those beer taste good tonight after that skate! We knew that it would be a tough skate coming off the weekend tourney but everyone upped the ante and we showed why the Icemen are a force to be reckoned with when we play together like this.

Every one of these guys are a gem! Love playing this game with the boys!

DB6