With NHL and NBA playoffs in full swing there are pressure-packed games going on every night, but last week I discovered pressure I’d never imagined before tucked away in an old Vancouver elementary school gym.
I’m no elite athlete but I have competed in some high-pressure situations myself: high school basketball in front of packed gymnasiums, sprint finals at the Alberta Summer Games, rooftop beer pong. If you’re losing very badly at rooftop beer pong, every game could be sudden death.
But nothing has hit me quite like what I experienced during the lowliest of sporting competitions, the co-ed, recreational floor hockey game. What was the difference? The difference was the presence of just two extra spectators. Two tiny spectators, with wide eyes and un-filtered mouths.
I’ve played all kinds of sports with my two sons, aged four and two, and they’ve been impressed by my prowess as I’ve dominated them at mini-stick carpet hockey and backyard baseball. But before last week they’d never seen me match up in a real game against other adult humans. When I found out that my sons were coming to my floor hockey game last week I was instantly thrilled and terrified. Thrillified? Here’s why.
My floor hockey team has had a pretty good run recently — we’ve won oversized championship T-shirts in each of the past two seasons, thankyouverymuch — but in this latest season, which began a few weeks ago, we’ve been bumped up to the top tier. This is the big show. It’s basically one step down from the NHL playoffs — in other words, Canucks level. In other other words, it’s 30 steps above the Toronto Maple Leafs.
I’m kidding, of course. If anyone who had even played WHL hockey stepped into our gym he could probably beat our team single-handedly as long as he was given a goaltender at or above the level of a moderately co-ordinated dachshund.
As far as co-ed, recreational floor hockey is concerned, however, this is the big leagues, and we’ve been on the wrong side of a few big league beat-downs recently. There are good players in the league and many of them are closer in age to my kids than they are to me.
As game time approached last week my nervousness grew. What if we stunk? What if I stunk? Would my kids forever see me as a terrible athlete who couldn’t even score against a team called Soft Dumps in the Corner?
I kept envisioning the car ride home full of questions from my four-year-old.
“Daddy, why did the other men score so many goals? Daddy, why did you fall down so much? Daddy, why did you spend the first five minutes in the bathroom?”
All of those would have been plausible questions following a couple of recent games. I pictured myself asking my two-year-old what he thought of his old man’s game.
“Not . . . goooooood!”
One 50-minute game, a lifetime of lost respect. Terrifying.
Then the game started, and I scored on the very first shift. Phew. I scored again a couple of minutes later. Double phew — one goal for each of my boys.
By half time we’d built up a good lead and my sons were suitably impressed. My older boy informed me that if I scored just twice more I’d have one goal for each member of the family, mama and daddy included.
I chose not to inform my boys that we were playing against a severely undermanned team that had very few substitutes, and those who were there had all run out of gas after about 10 minutes. I didn’t tell my boys that our opponent’s goalie, who they seemingly borrowed from the 1950s, was making things slightly easier for us with his unique, ‘for heaven’s sake, don’t make me move’ goaltending style. There was no need to trouble my sons with such technicalities.
Anywho, I scored three more times in the second half — I swear I’m not making this up — in what turned out to be my highest scoring game in a long, long, long time.
“Daddy you played a great game,” my older son said. A teammate asked my younger son who he thought the best player was. His response: “Meeeeeeee!” Maybe he misunderstood the question.
Anyway, I spent the ride home getting grilled by my sons about exactly how I scored each goal. They were like a couple of budding young backseat sports reporter — it made me think that they could have a future in that profession. You know, if newspapers still exist in 20 years.
It was wonderful, but now I’m presented with another problem. Before the game was over my teammates were already calling my kids our good-luck charms and telling me I needed to bring them every week. Or at least for championship games, which are often held at 9 p.m. (“C’mon kids, out of bed, we need you — there’s an oversized T-shirt on the line”).
The joy of having them at the game, however, is already being pushed out by an even stronger feeling that they can never, ever see me play again. Why? Because the chances are miniscule that I’ll ever match that performance again.
If I never bring them back, they’ll forever believe that I’m the greatest recreational floor hockey player in the history of humankind.
To me, that would be worth more than all of the oversized T-shirts in the world.
Andy Prest can be reached via email at [email protected].
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