Ten To Nine
as the sun set drawing close to yom kippur, the stage was set for another type of atonement. a rematch between rival hockey teams in the leagues championship game. in the last meeting, we lost in overtime ending our season the same as it began -- with a loss. all the games in between, however, were victories that gained us the number one seed into the playoffs.
i'll cut to the chase. we won. it was a special victory for a number of reasons. not only did we defeat our rivals in overtime as they had done to us at the end of the season, not only was this our second consecutive championship, but our team was built on the idea of playing hockey for fun. to enjoy the game with the people we enjoy spending that time with.
see, the team is made up of father/son pairs (with the exception of our goalie). the oldest player is in his mid-50's and the youngest is my son at the ripe old age of fourteen. with this season i get to mark off of my todo list something i had been looking forward to for some time -- play a couple seasons of hockey with my son. if i never lace them up again, i have 6 months of memories and two t-shirts that say "champions" on them that we got to earn together. yeah, i'm happy about the win, but to me and i think i can speak for the other dads on this as well -- it wasn't a matter of winning or losing, it was a matter of us doing it together.
Posted by ac at September 25, 2004 11:30 PM