Dubious Quality

To tell you everything, though, I need to start two weeks ago, with a hockey story. 

Eli 21.9 played intramural hockey this spring with a bunch of great guys who were not great hockey players. This was totally okay, of course, and Eli really enjoyed playing with them. His save percentage for the season was over .970, and they won plenty of low-scoring, tight games. 

In the playoffs, they won both the quarters and semis 1-0. Average shots against: 38. In one-hour, run clock games. Eli said it was chaos, and also the best he'd ever felt in net.

In the league finals, they got outshot 40-5 and lost 3-2 in overtime. The overtime goal was brutal, a back-door pass and a quick shot before he could cover. 

Still, though, a very fun season.

It was time for him to replace some of his gear, and I jokingly said maybe his bag wouldn't reek like the dead (and not the recent dead, either), and he laughed and said he still had one more game. Apparently, there was a tournament for the winners of intramural hockey at Michigan, Michigan St., Illinois, and Indiana. The team that beat them passed on playing, so Eli's team was invited. "It's going to be ugly," he said, because they were getting outshot 5-1 against regular teams, let alone teams that won their leagues. 

Still, though, it was another chance to play hockey. He said it sounded super-casual, so he was looking forward to it. 

After the game on Saturday, he called. "Dad, I'm about to tell you the wildest hockey story ever," he said. 

He did, and this is what he told me. 

The game started at 4, so he pulled up to the rink at 3:40 (intramurals, right?), shouldered his bag, and started walking in when he saw a charter bus pull up. 

He waited, curious, and adults wearing green and white (Michigan St.'s colors) started streaming off the bus. Lots of them. 

"That's when I realized not everyone was playing it casual," he said. 

He walked in and saw the Michigan St. team on the ice. His team has ten skaters and himself (two lines). Michigan St. had twenty skaters and two goalies, a full four-line team, and he could quickly tell they were very, very good. Someone at the rink told him that since Indiana and Illinois didn't show up, this game was for the championship. 

"What championship?" he asked. 

Apparently, they were playing for the Midwestern Intramural Hockey Championship, with a sponsor (LUG) and championship rings and everything. And one team--not his team--was taking it very seriously.

He walked into the locker room at 3:45 and he was the only one there. At 3:50, a couple of guys trickle din. 

They go out for warm-ups and only have four skaters and himself. One more showed up right at puck drop, and that's how they started the game. 

In the first twenty seconds, Michigan St. got a 2-on-0 breakaway and scored. The crowd went wild. The Michigan St. players celebrated. 

Excessively, he thought. All right, then.

During the period, the rest of his team wound up coming in, so they have ten skaters. Eli stood on his head, and at the end of the first period, after being outshot 15-0, it was still 1-0. 

Eli said at this point he realized that if they could just kick something in, they had a chance, because he felt totally locked in. 

In the second period, about five minutes in, his team got their first shot. And scored. 1-1.

He said the crowd suddenly got very, very quiet. 

Five minutes later, they got a second shot, and a guy who hadn't scored all season sniped one into the corner and it was suddenly 2-1. 

Then, and Eli said this was the greatest thing, his team started playing hard. Not intramural hard, but genuinely hard, and even with only two lines, they played that way for the rest of the period. Outshot 25-8 in total, but ahead 2-1.

In the third period, Michigan St. was skating circles around them because Eli's team was exhausted from only having two lines. They were shooting everything at him, but couldn't score. 

With five minutes left, Eli's team took their first penalty of the game, giving Michigan St. a power play. They threw everything they had at him, and kept the puck in the zone for over a minute and a half. At the end of that sequence, Michigan St. set up a back-door pass, the exact pass that beat him a few days ago, but this time he got over and made the glove save. The shooter skated to the glass and smashed his stick so hard the shaft and the blade shattered. They had to stop the game to clear the debris away. 

Ten seconds later, his team finally cleared the puck, and the Michigan St. captain skated down the ice yelling "FU*K!" at the top of his lungs.

I don't think I need to mention that Eli was really, really enjoying this. There's nothing better for a goalie than infuriating an entire team. That's candy.

With fifteen seconds, left, a Michigan St. was behind the goal in Eli's end and their player flipped the puck over the goal. It hit Eli's back, then bounced to the ice and started tumbling toward the goal line. Eli managed to turn around and dive on it with his glove when it was still an inch away, and seemingly every Michigan St. player jabbed at it, but to no avail. 

Five seconds later, the game was over. Outshot 40-10. Final score: 2-1. 

I asked him how the Michigan St. players were in the handshake line, and he laughed and said "Pissed."

When I was down there last weekend, I got a picture of the ring:

Utterly, absolutely ridiculous, just like the game. And fun. Oh, and because they won, they qualified for the national intramural championship tournament. 

As discretion is the better part of valor, they declined.