Top oí the world Ma!

I'm standing a few feet from my desk, in sweaty t-shirt and shorts, playing immaculate air guitar ó Brian May's solo from "We Are The Champions", in fact. It's loud, it's proud, it's triumphant. My team played in the championship game for the summer ball hockey league tonightóAND WE WON!! And guess who tipped in the winning goal in the dying moments of the second, sudden-death overtime period? ME ME ME!!

What a great feeling! I don't think I've ever been part of a championship team before. The whole team played great all night. And I definitely had my best game of the season, after a few lacklustre efforts in the last couple of games. I think my re-energizing time in the sun yesterday must have helped, because I definitely had more energy and endurance tonight.

The way it's set up in the playoffs, a series consists of two games. Win both games, and you win the series, obviously. But if the teams split the games, the second game goes into sudden-death overtime. We made it to the final round, and in the first game (played a couple of weeks ago), we were up on the other team 2-0, and then our defensive play broke down and they came back and beat us 3-2. So we had to win this game tonight, and then win the overtime period.

During regulation time we were pretty dominant. We played smart, and we had more jump, even though they had more players. We really took it to them, winning 5-0. I had a couple of scoring chances, breakaways, but couldn't do anything with it once I got to net, other than let a weak shot go (my shot sucks), which their goalie easily turned aside (he played very well all night). But we kept the pressure on them, and later in the second period (there are two 25-minute periods) I gained possession at their blue line and raced in on the left side. Spotting one of my guys coming hard into the slot, I just swept it over to him and he blasted it past the goalie. Sweet!

We continued to play well in the overtime. A few close calls when they rang a couple of shots off the post (clink!), and some moments when they had us in disarray in our own zone, but we hung in there. Then, in the dying seconds of the second overtime (I kid you not), we had possession in their end, and the ball went back to one of our defensemen at the blue line. I headed for the front of the net, hoping just to screen the goalie, and when the shot came I was being covered by one of their guys, so I just put the blade of my stick on the "ice" (concrete, actually), like they always tell you to, not really trying to tip it, and as the ball went zooming by, I felt it just barely nick the tip of my blade. The ball changed direction, went up over the goalie's right shoulder and into the top corner of the net!

Arms flew in the air, cheers went up from our squad, and the season was ours. Nice way to end it, wouldn't you say? It's not the Stanley Cup, but I'll take my glory where I find it. Woo!

Now, if you'll pardon me, I have some more air guitar to play.