Friday, March 2, Suns 8-7
6:00—We're coming to you live from beautiful Coalville, Utah. That's right, the internationally renowned tourist destination Coalville! This place should win some kind of award for being the most appropriately named town on earth.
6:30—Dressing as a defenseman for the first time this season, Coach "Reg Dunlop" Fester has been at the hotel since noon preparing himself mentally while warming up on an exercise bike. Now he won't be able to use the old coaches' favorite, "I can't get on the ice and do it for you."
8:00—After a convenient 20-minute trip from the hotel, the team takes stock in the Park City visitors' locker room. Having gotten used to our considerable depth over the course of the winter, I'm somewhat shocked by this sudden sparseness. Between Swain's shoulder and a number of guys with work conflicts, our ranks are more depleted than a professional cycling team in the midst of a doping scandal. The silver lining is the presence of Mat "Gersh" Gershater and Paul "Check out my ponytail" Cox, both who have been MIA, choosing to hang out with little skier punks rather than their hockey punk teammates.
9:00—If warm-ups were any indication, I'm in for a long night. The 9 p.m. start, coupled with a nagging head cold and Park City's Olympic-sized ice sheet leaves me sucking wind like I just got dropped off at Everest base camp.
9:04—Things are starting well for Jamie "Shorty" Ellison as well, the padding disgorging itself from his pants, forcing him to go reclaim them from the ref.
9:16—Like I remembered from our series in December, the Silver Kings are somewhat lacking in the skill department. However, they're apparently trying to make up for this by displaying their talent for being the greatest collection of goons ever assembled.
9:38—An ugly first period sees us tied 2-2. Does anyone know the legal limit for blood/Red Bull content in Utah?
10:22—Apparently the Utah players have taken exception to my vocal objections to their constant probing of my groinal region with their sticks. Perhaps they would prefer it if I went a more polite route: "Pardon me kind sirs, but would it bother you terribly to remove your instruments of sport from betwixt my legs?"
10:35—Getting a little nervous as Park City takes a two-goal lead. Still, with the way the season has gone so far we have little doubt that someone will step up and pull us back. Perhaps if we spot teams a three-goal advantage before the game we will play a solid 60 minutes.
10:40—With his son Jake in absentia, Vilnis "Hey Vilni!" Nikolaisons assumes the responsibility of continuing our intermission tradition, doing a kind of call and response with himself. "Go Suns...Say it louder...GO SUNS!" His dry, Eastern European humor never ceases to leave me laughing. Or in tonight's case, wheezing.
11:02—Fester makes a valiant attempt to stop a rushing Silver Kings forward by doing an inimitable Super Man dive at his feet. While it doesn't quite stop the opposition, it does give our players on the ice enough time to get back and break up the play and those on the bench something to chuckle about.
11:08—Chris "Kristops" Warrington floats a perfect breakaway pass through the neutral zone, but I can't get out of second gear and end up being hauled down by a defenseman who skates like he has a piano strapped to his back. A grand piano at that. As the ref signals for a penalty shot, our captain asks me if I want to take the shot or go with a power play instead. Thanks for the vote of confidence buds. Naturally, I take a lame duck shot that hits their flopping goalie in his left leg pad. Guess I won't be involved in the shootout if it comes down to that.
11:20—A moment our entire team has been waiting for: Billy "The Kid" Tryder's 100th goal as a Sun and it couldn't have come at a better time. We're relieved as it gives us the lead late in the third period. He's even more relieved as we will now stop hassling him about it.
11:29—Dammit! They tie it up with slightly over two minutes to play. I'm running on the fumes of fumes once again and am not looking forward to playing a four-on-four overtime on a rink that's seemingly twice as large as our home arena.
11:32—You have got to be kidding me—there's no way I can accurately describe what just transpired. With 30 seconds left, an aggressive Ryan "I can't believe I have to play both games this weekend" Thomson comes out to play a rolling puck at the top of the circles, only he mishandles it and accidentally puts it directly onto the stick of a rushing Utah forward. As the forward skates wide, Ryan dives futilely in his direction, leaving the opposition an open lane to skate the puck straight into the net. Only he doesn't do that, opting instead to fire a shot high and wide instead of handing us our first loss.
11:32:10—After collecting the errant shot, Kristops skates up ice and feeds Ryan "Oglethorpe" Enrico for the game-winning goal with 20 seconds remaining. Suns win in dramatic fashion. Yawn. Tell me something new. Get some original material. Etc.
Saturday, March 3, Suns 8-6
2:00—If we lose Ryan "Doogle" McDonald to Park City next year I know who to blame: the Brazilian waitress at the sports bar on Main St. I've never seen anyone so happy to receive a refill of water.
7:00—We have been totally spoiled at home. Park City's rink is maybe half full, but after the crowds we've had at the Sun Valley Skating Center it's seemingly empty. In addition, the size of their barn doesn't help matters—this place has all the intimacy and warmth of an airplane hangar.
7:01—Hey, I manage to start a period without getting scored on!
7:35—Doogle shows me how a breakaway is supposed to be done, giving us a two-goal lead at the end of the first.
7:40—Favorite moment of the weekend: Villi calls back to Hailey so that his son Jake can be involved. Over speakerphone we hear the war cry and respond in kind. One more reason to love playing for this team.
8:06—Trevor "Tito" Thomas gets ejected from the game for butt-ending a Silver King. Despite his friendly demeanor, refs can't resist assessing Tito match penalties. Maybe he pays them off beforehand to get to the beer sooner.
8:35—In a tight game, we lose Villi to a 10-minute penalty. They're not making it easy for us to escape from here with our streak in tact.
9:01—20 miles, 20 smiles. (Non-hockey aficionados read: 20 minutes left in the game, lots of fun to be had).
9:12—With a man advantage, Kristops finds me sneaking out of the corner and delivers a crisp pass to the back door for an easy tip-in. Can't tell you how good it feels after yesterday's shank.
9:13—With Tito off the ice, I'm attempting to skate backwards, now part of the defensive corps. First shift on the ice, a Silver King goes around me as if I were a traffic pylon. Doing a blind spin-o-rama I knock the puck off his stick, my luck disguised as skill. Great when that happens.
9:31—Billy the Kid buys us some insurance with his 101st of his career. Apparently he was waiting until the end of the season to go on a tear.
10:00—Another squeaker, but as always, the beers taste better after a win. Even watered-down Utah beers.
Redemption at the rink: One player's postscript on a great Suns season
A little under six years ago I sat in a locker room and wept like Matt Damon at the end of "Good Will Hunting." Unfortunately, I didn't have the comfort of Robin Williams hugging me and repeating, "It's not your fault, Jon."
It may be difficult to believe, especially for you lady readers out there, but this overt display of sensitivity was not the result of being surrounded by sweaty hockey equipment.
Rather, my final college season had come to a disappointing end only minutes before—a playoff loss to our most bitter rival.
It wasn't this one game that left me bereft of my emotional defenses, however.
It was the sudden realization that the driving force in my life for twenty-odd years had just swerved into a bridge abutment.
Hockey had long since ceased being merely a sport.
Summers spent on the ice while the other kids in my class lounged on a beach in Cape Cod. Traveling to upstate New York, Rhode Island, Canada for tournaments. Playing three games in a single day.
This was my identity, not some extracurricular activity. I was a hockey player before all else, and a damn fine mediocre one at that.
Thus, when I went to take my jersey off after the final buzzer, I found myself unable to move. My usual frustration from losing had given way to a novel and crystalline truth:
I had been relegated to the occasional pick up game where participants worried more about what kind of beer was in the cooler than if anyone brought a puck.
While everyone else made their way to the showers, I sat motionless, a towel draped over my bowed head to hide the waterworks.
Three months later I entered the world of high finance, trading my skates for wingtips and long hours in the rink for longer hours in a cubicle. To say I was unhappy would be like saying Gandhi had an appetite.
Luckily my career advanced rapidly, and within three years I went from investment banking analyst to bicycle messenger.
But something was lacking besides a discernable plan for the future. I missed our team singing along to 'The Gambler" in a bus strewn with pizza boxes and pre-season games of shinny hockey and all the other inimitable experiences that made me fall in love with the sport in the first place.
Skip forward to the final game of our fantastic Sun Valley Suns season of 2006-07.
Once again, I sat in a locker room with a towel over my head. Only on this night it's a smile I'm unable to suppress.
Sure we ended up losing and in doing so blemished an otherwise perfect record. But as I looked around, I realized that my teammates, much like myself, were less disappointed than I anticipated.
As John "Cubby" Burke said, we were the greatest Suns team he's ever seen. And for all the players, whether from Europe, Canada, the East Coast or West, we know that we are fortunate to play in a place where this accolade actually means something.
Joining the Suns has reaffirmed what I've always known to be true, even if I tried to forget it for a while.
Over 700 fans came to the rink to watch and cheer for our team. Not because we're teachers or fathers or friends, but because we're hockey players.
Then again, maybe they just wanted to see a fight.
