Sore Loser

Y'all remember last week when I was complaining about being really sore from playing way too much hockey in a such a short time? Well, I managed to play five games in a little less than 30 hours this weekend and I hurt sooooo much worse. Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. It's a good type of pain. The type that you can only receive from a great workout. I've still got a tournament next weekend where I should play at least four more games.

Friday morning when I got to work and checked my email, a friend had invited me to play in a local tourney that he was playing in. His team needed one more player, as one had dropped. I contacted the team captain and let him know that I was interested. But, was informed under the circumstances that I would be a sub. After their first game Friday night, they called and told me to show up for the rest of the tournament. It was a fun group of guys who I had never met before. The best part is that we were an orange team. My new jersey is possibly my new favorite. It has a screen print of a traffic cone on it. We were officially "The Pylons". That name was very fitting.

I was the best overall player on the team. I'm good at hockey. Not great, but I can and have played with a very diverse range of skilled players. From horrible, to average and good to great. Some high level juniors and a few D-1 NCAA guys. I've even played against a few over-the-hill NHLers from time to time. One was involved in our level of this tournament. So, I can gauge my skill against that. Unless you count roller hockey, I have never been a prolific offensive player. I skate well and pass well, but, I am a defenseman by trade. The scoring touch was never bestowed upon me.

That being said, I was one of the teams leading scorers with my one goal. We lost every game. The only one that was even close was the last one, where we went about 10 rounds deep into a shootout to lose. My poor friend Todd, the one who invited me, was one of our goalies. He's probably shell shocked at this point. I have never had so much fun losing so horribly. These guys were all good sports, and except for one team, where someone threw a hat onto the ice for a hat-trick, after their 12th goal (12-1 at that point, and the guy who scored is a junior A player, playing in the middle skill level division of the tournament), the rest of the teams were really good sports a well.

I think as a team, they should have put us in the lower level of competition. But, I really enjoyed playing at the level we played, and against the teams we competed with. However, I can't wait until next weekend, when I will be one of the worst players on my tournament team. It makes the game very simple for me. Play defense, make good passes and let the natural born finishers try to score the goals. No real pressure.