This Is How Much My Teammates Rule

The combined practice/scrimmage on Saturday night went very well. We had a mixture of people from different groups there but everyone seemed to mesh pretty well and have a good time. It was a success and sounds like it might be a monthly event. We'll see- people tend to say that and then when it's time to schedule another one, no one's interested. But... I played for a solid hour and a half and was only a little bit sore by the end. I'm at the point where I'm just a fraction of a second too slow sometimes. I did have a few really good saves that made me feel like my old self again though. All I need to do now is just keep playing, and it'll come back . Tomorrow morning I'll be heading to open hockey, which will really give me a workout. Tournament in 11 days. I'm going to be ready, no problem.

All of that was great. But two of my Hawks teammates really made the night memorable. I was finishing up getting changed when there was a knock on our locker room door, and someone calling me to come outside. I went out to see #28 and "Shanny" standing there with a large tube. They said they had something for me, and it was a little while in the making, but they hoped I liked it. I was totally surprised and had no idea what to expect. I opened the tube and pulled out a poster, which when I unrolled it, revealed Jim Craig standing on the ice, wrapped in the flag, looking up. On the left hand side was scrawled in black marker "To Maalivahti- Stop Pucks!!!" and then his signature and "1980".

I was floored. I was so surprised and, yes, touched, that my brain completely stopped working. I was a little confused about where/how they'd gotten it, so I asked if they'd gone up to.... and completely forgot "Lake Placid". As in, it was totally erased from my mind. Couldn't come up with it to save my life. I felt pretty stupid and they rescued me from my stammering by explaining. (I actually had to ask them again later, because I was so stunned I didn't really remember everything they said).

Evidently, last year a relative of #28 purchased the house Jim Craig used to live in, and found a box of these posters in the basement. Enter Shanny, who has a friend who knows the guy who manages Jim's speaking engagements (he's a motivational speaker now). Shanny mentioned #28's relative's discovery, and the manager said if Shanny sent him some posters, he would have Jim sign them. Shanny mentioned that I was a goalie, hence the ultra-personalized note/signature.

How. Awesome. Is that.

I took it right to a local shop and left it to be matted and framed (red and blue mats of course). It's going to hang right over my desk at work. There's a perfect empty wall for it and everything.

I'm really lucky. I'm on two teams that are both really close and have great camraderie. I think The Mayor summed it up best. In a recent game, when coming off a bungled shift she took a lot of good natured ribbing for, she took it in stride, laughing, then paused and said "I love us!" I do love us. "We" are awesome. Both teams of us. I'm the luckiest goalie in all of beer league-dom.