A Great Hockey Player

An error on page 6 of the morning sports.

I was a great hockey player. No one could stop me, but somehow our team was down 6-2. I don’t know how this happened. Maybe I missed the beginning of the game. I think I remember visiting my third grade classroom though I don’t know why I would do that and miss being a great hockey player. Anyway, I showed up and the team was down and all our players were in the penalty box except me and two others. It looked like we might lose another one because one of my teammates (let’s call him Gus) was poking the ref in the forehead with his index finger.

“Gus,” I said. He didn’t hear me so I began skating backwards in a figure eight, but somehow this ended up transporting me back to my third grade class. It is very tough to remain a great hockey player. Luckily, I knew the way back to the rink in time for the next face-off.

Gus said, “If you get the puck, pass it to me.” I just nodded. I think he forgot I was a great hockey player and that he was only good at poking the ref in the head with his index finger. Anyway, the puck came to me on the faceoff, but my helmet slipped and I couldn’t see so I had to shoot blindly and I ended up shooting on my own goal. Unfortunately, our goalie was in the penalty box too. We were now down 7-2.

“It’s okay,” I said, “I’m a great hockey player.”

Neither Gus nor my other free teammate (we’ll call him Alex) believed me. The rest of my teammates in the penalty box told me not to shoot on my own goal again. Gus said I should have passed to him.

At this point most of the crowd was booing. We were playing at home. They all shouted that I should go back to third grade. I don’t think they believed I was a great hockey player. I began skating backwards in a figure eight to try and win them over, but this only sent me back to third grade again. They cheered. Someone threw a boot on the ice.

My third grade teacher (we’ll call her Alice) said we were having a math test. I told her great hockey players don’t need math tests. She said she would call my parents and wouldn’t let me move on to fourth grade if I didn’t take the test. I tried to sit down, but the desk was too small and I fell over. The other kids in the class laughed. I warned them that I was a great hockey player. They laughed harder. When Alice gave me the test, I crumpled it up and tossed it towards the trashcan. It fell in with a swish. My skills weren’t limited to just hockey. Thankfully, I had learned of a shortcut back to the rink or I would have never made it back before the end of the game.

At the rink, the score was 11-2 and Gus had just been put in the penalty box. I skated over to Alex to talk about our strategy to get back in this game. I reminded him that I was a great hockey player and there was nothing to worry about.

“What do you think happened to Thad?” he asked.

“Thad who?” I said.

“You know Thad.”

“Thad from my high school?”

“Yeah, what happened to him?”

“I don’t know. What does it matter? You didn’t even know him. Remember we didn’t meet each other until college?”

“Oh. So I don’t know Thad.”

“No.”

There wasn’t time to discuss Thad from high school. I left Alex to think over these things and I returned to what I do best, being a great hockey player. I grabbed the puck and skated through every single player. At the net I slammed it home and all my teammates in the penalty box jumped in the air and threw off their gloves. Everybody finally knew I was great hockey player.

Unfortunately, the scorekeeper was the father of a kid on the other team and he changed the score to 45-1 and called the paper to say his son had scored 43 of the goals.