Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Street Hockey
I was laying in bed looking up at Yaz and closed my eyes for a moment. “Please Yaz, this is a very important day for me.” I heard Sid, The Jarhead’s footsteps on the stairs and jumped up to quickly pull the bedspread taught. Sid opened the door and scanned the room. “Alright, go ahead”, he said, “but be back when the street lights come on.”
I was already down the street, full sprint with my gloves and stick. I bombed down the dead end side of Donellan and cut through Fat-Boy’s yard coming out on Katherine near McBurnie’s. Running up the hill at Rinaldo onto Green I slowed a bit to see if the Douhgboys were gathering at Devine’s house; there was no one. I had to get moving though, I knew I was running late. There was no way Bender and I would play unless we were there early enough to get picked. We just weren’t good enough to come late and still expect to play; besides this game was huge. If we could beat the Jets, then we would get to play the Doughboys for, well, so we could say we got to play them. They were older, and really good. The Jets were good too and our age. Mule and Dave Delinquent, Wink, Head, they were all good, but we knew we could beat them. There was only one major obstacle, Picka, in the net.
I got to the shack but didn’t see the wagon. “Crap”, Bender must still be at church. “That friggin preist at St. J’s was always holding them up to talk to Mrs. P.” I looked through the back yard to see McCulloch, “crap, crap, crap”, the Tags were assembling. "I might have to go it alone" I was thinking just as the blue wagon turned into the driveway. I ran around to the door where Bender was sitting as if he needed help getting out. “Come on, we’re late”, my hands were waving towards McCulloch. Bender looked over at Mrs. P and she gave the go ahead. “Sweet”, he ran into the house to change clothes but when he came back he looked, not so excited. “There’s a complication”, he said, the “El” and “Dee” want to play. “You’re kidding”, I responded, “they know this isn’t baseball, right?””El thinks we could use her in net”, Bender replied. I thought for a moment, she may have a point, but there was no way the Tags would go for it. “No way, tell her she can be catcher next time we play baseball”, was my bargaining chip. Bender looked back at the house, “let’s just go, before they come out”.
We ran over to the school and the Tags were warming up. It looked like we would have just enough, and Carl barked “let’s go” so we headed towards Julia Road. We were pumped. Julia Road was the best place to play. There was a fence around the “rink” and actual “nets” for goals. They even had lines drawn for center ice and blue lines. Sometimes, there would even be a small crowd to watch, usually made up of younger kids, and once in a while the Doughboys would come down to watch too. The last time we played there, we beat the Saints. We always beat them. They were younger, made up of Mule’s younger brothers and Micka, Flick, Nighta and Dub.
Our team, the Tags, usually did ok. We had won a tough game against the Bargy’s, who had Huck, a fierce stick handler, and the Deveau’s with their lightning speed. We had lost to the King’s though, from Prospect Hill. Those King’s knew hockey plus they had Red-eye and Wimp on defense and Meatball and Ollie would rotate in the net.
As we walked down the hill to Julia we could hear the clicking of the sticks, the puck clanging off the fence and the Jets arguing over who would play what position. It was easy for us, Bender and I were always defense and the Tag boys and Bruce played up front. They liked us on “D” because we were fast getting to the puck and fearless blocking shots. We usually put Boop in net. I’m not sure why, maybe because he couldn’t play anywhere else. Unfortunately, that was our weak spot. Boop even cried one game when his chimes got rung by a Dubba slap shot. Pretty lame. By the time we got to the rink they were ready to go. We didn’t get any warm-ups. Worst of all, Picka was there. We never scored a goal and we never got to play the Doughboys. I tried a couple of my patented “Bobby Orr, length of the rink runs to the net” but it never worked for me like it did in real life. I don’t remember what the score was, but it didn’t matter; we got to play until the street lights came on.
POSTED BY STAN at April 21, 2009
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