Pick-up hockey rule #241: Don't show up the goalie

This is one of my favorite memories of my goaltending infancy, but only because of the way it turned out in the end. It could have very easily fallen under the "some guys are just assholes" file of life-lessons.

It was a late spring evening, and the gang started showing up at the rink, getting ready in the parking lot and bleachers as we waited for the kids' leagues and lessons to finish up for the evening. On one rink, a game was going on. On the other, there was a lesson which was only using half the rink. On the other half, two guys we'd never seen before skated around, passing to each other and shooting at the empty net. When it became obvious to them that some kind of a game was going to be taking place, one of them came over to ask if they could join us.

As a group, our skills have come a very long way in one year, but at the time, we were at a bit of a lower level. Hence, whenever anyone asked if they could join us, we always asked for a self-assessment of their abilities. This usually consisted of us asking "How good are you?" and trusting the answer they gave. Perhaps sensing our reticence, the older guy replied "not that good"... with an obvious accent, which at the time I thought might be Russian. Our first mistake was believing them. Our second was not splitting them up and putting them on different teams. They were on the team I was facing, and they owned the rink. They also owned me, considering it was my third time EVER playing an actual game. But the rest of the guys weren't too thrilled with them either. They found each other effortlessly, and blew past the rest of us with even more ease. To make matters worse, they were yapping back and forth in their own language, which completely kept us from picking up on what they were planning on doing. The older one, who seemed to be the one who spoke the most/best English, was wearing a St. Louis Blues jersey, which earned him the nickname "Al MacInnis" from one of the guys.

He wasn't the only one grumbling about their selfish style of play. Time and again, they'd swoop in, play patty-cake with the puck right in front of me or even be so brash as to just stand there waiting for me to move, and just tap it past me with a smirk. I was starting to feel humiliated, but suddenly I noticed they'd backed off. MacInnis was even staying back in the other zone playing defense, and his buddy wasn't toying with me as much. It turns out my friend had told the younger one rather sternly "Don't show up the goalie", after one especially shameless move on their part. The younger one repeated it (or something) to MacInnis and they laid off.

I went home feeling kind of deflated that night. I knew it was more of a reflection on them than on me that they'd take advantage of me like that, but I was glad things had calmed down eventually. Unfortunately, I was less than thrilled when I pulled into the parking lot two days later and saw them getting their skates and sticks out of their car. "Didn't they get enough of us the other night?" I wondered. But it was like they were two entirely different people. Maybe they had the wrong idea about us the other night, or maybe they were suffering from "show-off-itis", which every guy is afflicted with the first time he plays with us. Regardless, I decided to take the high road and introduce myself. Al MacInnis was in fact not Al at all, but Mike*, and the younger one was his nephew Frank*. And they weren't Russian, but Slovakian. And that evening's game was totally different. We split them up, and Mike was on my team. He stayed back on defense, and tapped my pads with his stick in support after a goal, and was quick to praise a good save. Frank didn't run all over the place with the puck either.

From those inauspicious beginnings, Mike has become one of the most (if not the most) esteemed members of our group. He's gruff, he works hard and expects the same of everyone else, but all you need do is ask and he'll show you how to improve your skills, and perhaps most valuable is how he's raised the skill of the group just by being there and challenging us. We never got much of a chance to get to know Frank, since he moved a few weeks after that first night. For a time we had several guys by the name of Mike, and it's a testament to what he brings to the group that most people differentiate him from the other Mikes by referring to him as "Coach Mike". No one else would get away with screaming from the bench...



"SKATE! SKATE! MOVE YOUR LEGS!"



"COME ON, SUB! WE DON'T WANT TO SIT HERE FOR A HALF HOUR!"



"WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU, STAY WITH HIM! STAY WITH HIM!!!"

*Not their real names. (Obviously. How many Slovaks do you know named Mike or Frank?)