Grant’s hockey team had an end of season exhibition game – versus the parents. This sat very easy with me, because Bob is the coach, and he plays hockey himself, and this works perfectly.

Grant and Bob had other ideas.

I can ice skate. That’s about all I can say.

Grant desperately wanted me to play. He told me one night as I was putting him to bed, “mom, it’s not that I think you’re bad at everything, it’s that I know you’re bad at hockey. And I want to win.” I’m sure Grant thought he eventually talked me into it, but the truth is that as soon as I knew he wanted me to do it, I was going to do it. Even though it was pretty daunting!

As I got used to the idea, I guess I assumed the “parents” team would be moms? Why did I assume this. Why. It was mostly dads, most of whom play in the bar league with Bob, and were competitive.

Bob suited me up in his damp, smelly gear, and I got children’s gloves and child’s stick (name of Haley, which was written in marker on the stick, along with tape that had skulls on it, so rock on Haley), his co-coach’s helmet (too big), and his co-coach’s wife’s skates, and the advice to not let a puck “hit me in the nuts,” and I was on the ice. I wobbled around, and Grant showed me how they do warm ups (just skate around a lot mom and find a puck and shoot at the goal).

Bob told me that he could see how anxious I was and told me I could back out, but Grant was glowing and so proud. So I stayed and tried. As I got a little warmer, I did manage to steal the puck from a little kid during one of my shifts, and I didn’t fall over once. This is an unequivocal victory for me personally, although the kids won the game.

I noticed these hyper competitive dads “accidentally” passing the puck to kids instead of parents, and hesitating just a second before shooting on goal so the goalie was ready. It was a tight game, and we lost 5-4. The kids have never been so united as a team, cheering in unison, hitting the boards with their sticks when teammates scored, and booing the parents loudly. The parents followed suit and let the kids guide the energy of the game. I got out on the ice on the same shift as Grant several times, and while I tried to run into him a few times, he can skate circles around me.

We had one mom on the team who was really good, me and another mom were kind of in the middle, and one mom who had maybe only skated once before. And then like 10 dads.

Anyway! It was a fun but really hard 30 minutes, and I’m glad I did it. I need to know if they’re going to do this next year, though, so I can sneak in some practice.