Old time Hockey eh?

The details of the story elude me. Often losing the details of a story can ruin it, can turn it into ‘we did stuff’. I hope that I have recalled enough of the story so that this is not the case here.

As I remember it, it was Stacy, Nick and myself at the Admirals game. I no longer recall who they were playing. What I do remember was that the Admirals weren’t winning. They were playing hard but couldn’t get things together. Their opponents were managing to fight off their intense attack and, despite not having the advantage on the time of possession, were winning.

We sat on the end of the ice that held the goal the Admirals were attacking two periods out of the three. We were tucked in the centre of the section known for cheering and leading the rest of the crowd in the cheers. Even in this area, Nick was the loudest of them all. Whether he was just wound up or sensed that the team needed all the help they could get, he was in fine form with his cheers, jeers and yelling. While he might have been rude, he was never vulgar, being aware of the families around him.

At one point, staggered by the ‘rage’ one gets during a sporting event, he demanded I get him a name. It didn’t matter which of the opponent’s team I found for him, he just needed someone other than the goalie to work on. I found ‘Smithikov’ (whomever, this being another detail that eludes me) for him. “Smithikov!” he announced, “you suck!”

About halfway through the game, Nick suddenly became aware of his volume as well as the presence of other people around him. As he was already standing in order to deliver his verbal assaults, he spun and began to apologize to those around us for his volume. As a group those around us not only politely dismissed his apology but he was encouraged to keep up the good work. So he did.

Despite Nick’s efforts as well as our efforts to assist him, the Admirals lost a close game. As the teams began to exit the ice, Nick turned to me with a playful gleam in his eye. He had been riding the goalie all night and had managed to get under his skin a bit. Should he run down to the glass and continue to sass him as the man left the ice? I said yes, he had to do so. Nick did, getting the goalie’s attention and repeating the comparison between a vacuum and the goalie. As he left the ice, the goalie acknowledged him, shrugging his shoulders and gesturing towards the scoreboard as if to note ‘who won?’ The man’s coach enthusiastically waved him in to the locker room, encouraging him to ignore us.

We laughed at the reaction. It was awesome. It was all ‘heat of the battle’ fun. If we’d have seen the goalie in the hallway afterwards, we’d have congratulated him on the game and told him he still sucked. All good fun, a great moment in sport from our opinion.

Around about a year ago, give or take a few days, Nick died. Cancer had riddled his young body and he had taken all that he could take. Hockey, like a lot of things, is not the same without him.