Handicap

Hockey was never like baseball.

Sucking at baseball, you'll remember, is how I met Evan.

We were remedial training partners. It was love at first awkward looking throw and bumbling catch.

I never sucked at Hockey.

I was never the best, but I was never the worst either.

I could never really stop with my left foot, even after 6 years of playing, but I never let that keep me down.

I was always on the best team (though never the superstar), and one year (the one I wasn't on the best team) I was even on the league leaderboards for total points.

Wednesday night, however, was a paradigm shift.

I arrived at the rink with my friend Jack to play ALTS, or alternative ice hockey, which is basically just non-contact stick and puck.

The first sign of potential disaster was at the skate rental. I give the man my number, I tell him my European shoe size, and he brings me out hockey skates. No. He brings me out figure skates. You know, the ones that have the jagged edge on the front just waiting to dig into the ice and send you flying onto your elbows and knees; the ones that are made out of a sort of primitive plastic and have no give in the ankles; the ones that are only sharp enough to cut via proxy - as in they are so dull they make you fall over and cut yourself on the ice. Those ones. They only had those ones.

As I laced up, the air up superiority with which I entered the rink was quickly fading.

It was completely gone by the time I hit the ice. Because I literally hit the ice with my elbows.

Step on, fall down. Not quite how I pictured it.

If there was one theme to the night, that would probably be it.

We were the third set of teams to play. During the first two sets, no one fell. I pop on the ice and fall probably 6 or 7 times in a three minute period. Halfway through the night, this random person is like 'alright, this round, you need to make it your goal not to fall down.' Even when I got semi-comfortable with the God-forsaken skates, I would forget myself for one second, one freaking second, and my skate-on-your-toes hockey instincts would come back then bam. Let's just say my elbows weren't very happy with me.

I wanted to scream, 'But I didn't use to suck!'

But there was really no point. My bleeding fingers, verging-on-hematoma elbows and knees, and completely wet pants and gloves begged to differ.