Yorkregion.com - Columns - Job No. 1 should be keeping sports fun for all
Job No. 1 should be keeping sports fun for all
Bernie O'Neill
Columns
Apr 24, 2008 06:19 AM
By: Bernie O'Neill
I told the guys I wasn’t going to write about it, but it was too good to ignore.
The men’s hockey team I play on won the playoffs this past weekend. We surprised a lot of people and had a lot of fun.
What made it more fun was that I was in net this season, for the first time in — wait for it, because I certainly did — 31 years.
I imagine the other teams figured they could pour it on and the 45-year-old rookie would fold up like an old lawnchair. I was thinking the opposite — that you’re never in a better position than when your opponent underestimates you.
How that all came about is hard to know. I played a lot of hockey as a kid and ended up, usually as the backup goalie, on what we then called a AAA tournament team.
Several kids on that team, which carried the same players throughout my childhood, went on to great heights, including Ron Francis, now in the hockey hall of fame.
But for some of us, hockey glory ended a lot sooner. For me, it was in September of Grade 9 when I had just turned 14 and got cut from a pretty good bantam team, after having to get my release from another team for the right to sign.
It left me with no team to play for, my parents upset by the whole ordeal and all of us a little less interested in a sport that had got more like a business and less about just playing the game.
Besides, I was small for my age in a time when goalie gear wasn’t very good, with guys ripping slap shots so hard, you always felt thankful to have survived the warmup. After a game, I’d have bruises on my arms the size of softballs. I’d broken my hand, had bloody noses and came close to being knocked out.
Going between the pipes was definitely an act of courage. And only the best got to keep playing.
Before I knew it, I was getting a ski pass to spend the winter at the ski hill with my brothers. And that was that, even though for the first year or so I missed it terribly.
It wasn’t until years later, when my own sons got into the game, I started playing and eventually joined my local men’s league, as a forward, for fun and exercise. I thought if I kept at it I’d imrpove, but didn’t.
Meanwhile, something inside kept telling me if I went back to goaltending, I might not be half bad. I mean, what has it been, three decades?
There was a small matter of buying the equipment, which, if purchased new, would maybe be in the $4,000 range. I looked for deals and acquired it slowly.
The first thing I bought was a trapper, on eBay. The pads were from a second-hand sports store. The pants, knee pads and mask were new but still hard to find, as I am no longer small for my age.
Try finding size 13 goalie skates. It’s a challenge fit for reality TV.
And the mask/helmet. I seem to have a pretty massive cranium.
After many months, I was all set to go and expected to fill in the odd time for goalies, who were sick or away in Florida. Until a friend of mine told me I had been drafted onto a team (it was like they were sending me to Vietnam).
They were short of goalies and needed any warm body they could find. Before I knew it, I was a goalie again.
I had a pretty good season. My reflexes got quicker. My positioning and rebound control improved.
I let in bad ones and had bad games, but the good games started to outweigh the bad and, by playoff time, I was ready.
So was the rest of the team, which had a lot of standouts in a league that has a lot of very talented players who played at a high level in their younger days.
Plus, we were all wearing our lucky underwear, had our kids’ medals from tournaments and other good-luck charms in the hope it would make a difference.
We shut out the first place team the first game. We tied our second, won our third and needed another team to win to put us in the final. When we scored on the empty net to make it 4-2 with about a minute to go in the championship game, I just started to laugh. It’s how I’d pictured the whole season — that we’d all crank it up in the playoffs and win the whole thing.
There is supposed to be an important point to these columns. I’d like to say that you’re never too old to go back — but, in fact, my back, which I wrenched in the third game and still hurts four days later, is telling me that might not be true.
I do think hockey is a great game, as a sport, for fitness and for friendships. But it is just a game. The adults who run sports should keep it fun and ensure those who want to play have a place to play, as kids, teens or young adults, even those not destined for the pros.
Because, in the end, we’re all playing for our own Stanley Cup, beer mug or championship T-shirt.