Flashback Mondays, part 2

Saturday Afternooon Hockey:

Not quite Monday Night Football, I know. Sometime in the Fall of 2003, Greg had a brilliant idea. At some point in his past, he had gotten a Franklin street hockey set and used to play with Paul or Eugene every now and then. While we were at Monterey Highlands Elementary School playing basketball, two things became obvious: one--that the blacktop surface there was open and flat enough to play hockey on, and two--that we had the numbers to play three on three (which is pretty ideal for street hockey). So that Christmas, we all asked for hockey equipment from our families. When I say hockey equipment, I actually just mean hockey rollerblades (which are definitely different from regular rollerblades) and sticks--no protective gear whatsoever. From then on, we had the times of our lives every Saturday when everyone was home from their respective colleges and ready to have some fun.

It hurt. A lot. To start, none of us was in very good skating shape, so after a few hours our ankles and backs felt as though they had met Mike Tyson. On top of that, someone would always end up with a nice fat bruise on his shin since we didn't have shin guards, at least not at the start. Eventually, as each of us got jobs and as more Christmases came, we became fully protected (at least as protected as we could be). Simultaneously, our conditioning got better, though extended breaks from playing has set us back many times. Regardless, hockey lets us stay active and brings us together, and I'm pretty sure it'll continue to do so for the rest of our lives.