The Cup

The Cup

         For Rob and me, playing hockey everyday at the roller rink in my neighborhood became an everyday ritual over the summer, and we enjoyed every minute of it.  This roller rink is where our hockey careers started.  If we were not at the roller rink, we would be at ice hockey practice for our high school team, or playing floor hockey at my house.  Rob and I were best friends and tough competitors, making each other better at anything we did.  There once was a very popular recreational league that many kids from the surrounding townships came to play in, but over the years it tended to slow down.  Many kids moved on to ice hockey or other recreational leagues that were closer to them. 

         The declining popularity of the league was heart wrenching for Rob and I, and even though we were sophomores in high school, we wished we could just play one more season of roller hockey.  We knew who the owner of the league was, and played with his son on the school’s ice hockey team, and asked him if there would be another season in the spring.  That is when he gave us the news that there would be another season that coming spring, and that there would be a lot of good players coming back for it.  The owner also told us that there was going to be a new championship cup, instead of individual trophies, and that the winners of the league would get their names inscribed on it just like the Stanley Cup of the NHL.  This was exciting to us, and we both went to our parents asking if we could join our old team in the roller hockey league.  With no hesitation from our parents, we were signed up and ready to re live our “glory days” on the roller rink again.

         The roller hockey format is four versus four, and our team had six skaters, which meant Rob and I were a pairing and were looking forward to a lot of playing time.  The league we were going to play in consisted of four teams including ours, and we played each team three times, and then two playoff games at the end of the regular season.  One of the other teams was not very good while the other two teams were actually decent and would give our team a good challenge.  With that in mind, Rob and I approached the season expecting to win no matter what.  We took care of business during the season, Rob and I led in every possible statistic that could be recorded, including penalty minutes!

         Our team won eight of nine games in the regular season, the one loss from a team that was better than we thought and we overlooked them.  That loss really sparked us to make sure we did not lose again, and we took that attitude right into the playoffs.  We were the first seed, so we got to play the worst team in the league.  We beat them with ease and began to get ready for the championship game.  The only bad thing that came to our minds was that our last season was coming to a close, and we did not want it to end because it just had been way to much fun for us, but we decided to work as hard was we could so after our last game we could walk away as champions. 

         The week before the championship game Rob and I went to the rink a couple extra times to work on a couple skills before the big game.  It turns out that the team we would be playing in the championship game is the only team that had beaten us in the regular season.  On the day of the game, the other team also had all their good players there and ready to go.  We were itching to get revenge for our loss they gave to us, so me and Rob talked before the game and we decided on wanting to set the tone of the game early and keep the pressure on.  When the first face off was dropped we were all business, and accomplished our early goal of setting the tone by me scoring the first three goals of the game!  We kept putting pressure on the other team, but they clawed their way back into the game to keep it close.  Our team held them off, and finally the last second ticked off the clock and our dream season was complete!  Rob and I hoisted the cup together, and forever have our names engraved in history as the first and last team to ever win the cup.