Meandering toward the net.....

I'm looking over some of the knick-knacks I keep on the hutch in the corner of my office; it used to be a closet, but a very creative fellow tuned it into an oak hutch that matches the book cases that surround three quarters of the room in the basement. The shelves will probably, one day soon, be overcome with books; but for now, it is peopled.....

By Bender Bending Rodriguez from Futurama: "bite my shiny metal ass!"
By Popeye and Olive Oyl: "I yam what I yam and that's all dat I yam!"
By Mr. Bill: "Oh Nooooooooo!"
By the B9 Robot: "Danger, Will Robinson!"
By Darth Tater, the Mr. Potatohead that's moved to the Dark Side.
And by a Dalek that screams, "Exterminate The Doctor!"

There are other things, as well: A hunk of the Berlin Wall that was given to me by Sabrina when we journeyed to visit her Mother in that wondrous city; A mini-sandbag filled with sand used during the Mississippi River Flood of 1993; and a mini-replica of the Stanley Cup.

That's one of my favorites, really. Shiny and silver and symbolic of the most difficult championship to win in the history of sports.

I could talk about my favorite moment in the Stanley Cup Finals: Detroit versus Pittsburgh, 2008. The 2009 version of the same two teams was also great, but I like 2008 because Detroit actually won it......

Detroit beat the crap out of them at home for the first two games.....outscoring them 7-0. But Pittsburgh fought back, winning game three. Detroit won game four, but didn't seem to play with the fire of the first two games....and an amazing game five that went into triple overtime....

Game six was the decider, and Pittsburgh came out with 1:30 left, pulled their goalie and put the pressure on; with just 3 seconds to go, Crosby let loose with a shot that caromed off the goal post, and slowly, achingly slowly moved parallel to the goal crease as time expired.

I love a good series.

But what I love best.....is the sound of the skate on the ice. Skating alone on a freshly Zamboni-ed, rink......just a few security lights to provide illumination...and slowly, moving clockwise around the ice, behind the nets, back and forth.

Skritch.....skritch....skrtich.

The sound of the wooden stick against the vulcanized rubber puck.

Tock....tock tock......

Moving toward the goal; skating through the imaginary defense toward the formidable imaginary goalie....move right, move left....

Skate right, but hold the puck off to the left, the shift. Move left, puck right....

Skate backwards toward the net; Backhand to the top shelf just off the glove side.

Red light.

Nothing like it.

In my imagination, I'm smooth as fresh ice.