It’s around 6 in the afternoon,
I’ve got my bag and stick in hand.
As I open the door to the rink, I’m blasted by the brisk frigid air
I can smell the blood, sweat, and tears as I take a second to look at the freshly cleaned perfectly flat ice.
As I enter the locker room I am greeted by the boys, my team.
We put fresh tapes on our sticks, sharpen our skates, and take a few minutes to talk.
But after that, all is quiet except for the sound of Velcro, snaps, and the sound of skates being tied, followed by the coach’s inspirational speech that makes the hair on your neck stand up then…
BUZZZ! The buzzer sounds and its game time, the clock reads 5:00 for warm-up,
We hit the ice sprinting and grab a puck,
Throwing cross-ice passes, working on skating maneuvers and stretching until the goalie is ready.
We line up in a half circle in front of him and then SLAP, SLAP, SLAP, slap shots ring off of the post and thump off of the goalies pads.
The buzzer sounds again and both teams report to their respective benches except for the starting line, the ref signals that everybody is ready and this means, WAR!
It’s 90 minutes if the sounds of scraping skates in constant motion, bone crunching hits, and slamming bodies on the glass, the referee’s whistles and of course the goal horn.
Every once in a while you get to see the gloves drop to the ice and the helmets come off, and the two opposing players duke it out.
This is war, better known as Ice Hockey