2004-07-26 - 12:26 p.m.

Traded

Today's Entry is Dedicated to MeeshaPeesha because talking about hockey makes her horny. God knows, I like women horny! So, I'm doing my part, guys. Doing my part!

SOMEBODY thinks that a certain sector of the United States (read TEXAS) can play hockey better than Canadians. I can honestly laugh at you. Although, his reasoning for enjoying the sport is due to the violence of the game. If you want violence, Joe, I truely recommend you check out Lacrosse. Imagine a sport where it's legal to cross check. You not only have a stick but it's got a little net on it so you can pick up the very HARD rubber ball in which you get to fling full force at a tiny little net guarded by a goaltender. In reality your just playing chicken with the goaltender and see if he flinches.

But I digress I wanted to talk about hockey.

When I was growing up I was like any typical Canadian boy, I played organized hockey. I wasn't extremely talented and I had the offensive talent of a rock. (Thus the term "Stone hands" describes me quite well.) I give you this information to explain why it was I relagated to playing "House" League hockey and not the more Prestigous "Rep" Hoceky (read : Player's who actually have talent.) You then add in the fact I was the outcast socially growing up and you get the setup of my Hockey "Career"

Every year, after you have signed up to play, they hold a number of "Rep" team tryouts. This consisted most of practice drills and lots of skating which I would suck at. Even if you have no chance of making the Rep Squad you still had to go so the House League coaches could select their team.

It was one particular season, I was believe I was 14, I went to the tryouts probably thinking THEN that I actually had a chance to make the Rep Squad. (What a sad delusional child I was.) I did what they asked me to do and at the end of the all the practices once again found out I was going to be playing House League.

Now, I should stop here and mention that there were enough kids in our hockey league to make two House league teams. Which means each team has a coach. This particular year there was a parent who believed he knew how to coach and former organzied hockey player who hadn't made the "Big Show". To say one could assess talent over the other was an understatement. Which meant the two house league teams were so badly unbalanced it's not funny. Fortunately, they don't play each other except for "exhibition" (read : don't mean anything) games. Anyway, I ended up on the "No Talent" team.

I believe we played about two games and we lost handly in each game. Although, I was disappointed that we were losing it wasn't hard to tell from even our practices that our team was the "Bad News Bears" of the Hockey World.

Now, in the big leagues when your team is sucking they have a few options, they can fire the general manager or fire the coach to try and improve their team. Since there are no general managers in house league hockey and the coach is a volunteer, the chances of having the coach fired isn't going to happen. Which leaves really only one option, Making A Trade.

At this point I was pretty hockey stupid still. I watched Hockey and I was a huge fan our home "NHL" team. But I really didn't understand the business side of hockey. So, Although I knew Trades happened in the Big Leagues I didn't understand why they happened.

A couple days following our second humiliating loss I was at home minding my own business when the phone rang. It was the coach of my team. He began to tell me about how I may have noticed that our team hadn't won a game this season and our chances of winning a game this season wasn't looking all that good. He then explained he'd been talking to the coach of the other house team (who had won three in a row at that point) and that they had discussed a way to try and bring a better balance to the two hockey teams. He further explained that in attempt to reach this balance the two teams had decided to trade two players from their team for one player from our team, still completely oblivious to where this conversation was going, I listened on.

He then whacked me up side the head with the sentence "You'll need to return your uniform to me because next week you'll be playing for the (other team) Blackhawks." Not knowing what to say and I'm sure my coach felt awkward the conversation ended there.

To say I was stunned and devastated would have been an understatement. I'd just been traded. You have to remember I was a kid with extremely low self-esteeem and getting traded amounted to being unwanted. Actually, I think that's how it translated to all the other kids too. I'd been traded and now would be the laughing stock of the richly talented team I would be joining.

Looking back upon this now with a little big of age and wisdom on my side. I really took this the wrong way. The Ex-Player Coach wasn't just going to blindly handicap his winning team just for the sake of helping the other team do a little better. He still wanted to win (something I realized when I started playing for them.) The thing I failed to realize at the time was the fact he traded TWO of his players for just me. I might not have been as talented as my teammates were but I was still capable of playing with them. So even though I was greeted by my new teammates when I entered the dressing room with "Oh God, It's [Bingoguy]!" I wasn't going to drag them down into complete oblvion.

Of course, by the time a few days had past, I had changed from shocked and devastated to pissed off about being traded so my first game I went out and with a little extra effort "To Show them!" I actually stood out in a positive way from my teammates.

We ended up losing the last playoff game that would have clinched us the zone we played in and sent us on to play for the provincial title but it the farthest I'd ever gone with a hockey team before.

Which goes to show you sometimes things you wouldn't want to happen sometimes are the better for you then you actually realize. Of course, I think the downside was after that season I thought I could actually play.

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Someone Found me looking for : Gretchen Wilson Pitchers

Yep, Pitchers, like baseball, I'm not sure about that. Or maybe they were looking Juice Containers with Gretchen's PICTURE on them.

Ahh, Rednecks! Gotta Love'em!

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