There was a little over five minutes left in the game. We were up 5-2. Just a mere 10 minutes ago we were down 2-1 heading into the final 15 minutes of the season. Jake looked over at me and asked, “So, do you want to go in or not?” He had told me before the game started that if we were up by a few goals late in the period he would put me in. Despite that, I looked dumbfounded at him. I didn’t say a word for quite a few seconds.
“That’s up to you,” I mustered.
“No, It’s up to you,” He retorted back.
I sighed and began thinking. Do I let Fletcher stay in and seem like the real team player? Do I go in for the final thirty seconds and be the one mobbed? Do I skate on the ice one final time during a game? Fletcher had played his ass off in this game. It had to be his best game all season. Do I take that away from him? I looked up at the clock again and it said 2:35 left. I looked back over at Jake and he looked back at me.
“Decided yet?”
I didn’t know what to say. He just smiled back at me like he was enjoying this. Suddenly the whistle blew. Jake yelled over to me to go ahead and get in there. Without saying anything I grabbed my head-band, put it on, grabbed my mouth-piece, grabbed my gloves and stick, and headed out onto the ice. I was so caught up in the moment that I hadn’t realized he had also called time-out. I got into the crease, turned around, and everyone was at the bench. I felt kind of silly, but I scuffed the crease a little bit more and headed back to the bench.
“Here it is,” Jake said to me when I got back to the bench.
I could only smile back. I headed back to my net and the puck quickly came into my end after the face-off. The puck was knocked back out of my zone, but it quickly came back in on the stick of Andrew Zaremba. He fired a shot that just missed my glove and sailed into the corner. Carroll quickly regained control of the puck and fired another one at me. This time I deflected it away with my blocker. The puck came back outside the zone and Carroll was whistled for the offside. The crowd was up for grabs. There were probably 900 or more people in attendance. Considering the arena only holds a handful over 1,000, it was very much a capacity crowd. A good 500 or so were Snider fans. They were in a frenzy during the stoppage of play. I turned around and the clock behind me read 1:07 left in the game. For some reason it had felt like I was in that net for at least 10 minutes. I got settled back in and got ready for the face off. Carroll won the face-off back and controlled the puck in our zone. Another shot was ripped my way and again I made a blocker save, this time through traffic. The puck sailed into the protective netting behind the net and play stopped. I turned back around and the clock had about 20 seconds left. I knew it would soon be over as my team mates began banging their sticks on the boards as time was nearly gone. Carroll once again won the face-off. The puck bounced around in front and eventually landed on Kevin Hay’s stick to the left of me. He ripped a shot just as scrambled to cover the position.
“PING”
The puck glanced off the post and sailed into the corner. I gave out a sign of relief. The worst thing I could have done in the two minutes I was out there was give up a goal. Thankfully that never happened. The puck went racing out of the zone and into neutral ice. I glanced back really quickly to see the clock down to about 10 seconds. I could hear the crowd chanting the countdown. Both teams fought for the puck at neutral ice, but the puck never came back down to me. I really wasn’t thinking about anything when the buzzer went off. I didn’t show as much emotion as my team mates did. They just came at me and group hugged me with my stick in the air. Eventually the pile fell on top of me and everyone jumped on top. It then hit me that we had indeed won. We had accomplished our first goal of winning the city title. Maybe we didn’t win state, but we won something and that was all that mattered. For a school that hadn’t won the regular season title in 12 years it was definitely a sigh of relief to win both the regular season championship and the playoff championship. I looked back up into the eyes of our captain, Micah Breininger who was directly on top of me. He just looked back and smiled as he expressed the emotion we all felt. Finally he yelled for the guys to get up and get off of me. It took a good ten seconds but I hoped back up like nobody’s business and skated behind the rest of our guys to go shake the Carroll player’s hands. I walked up and shook each of their hands and giving most a pat on the back. The feeling was mutual that we all wished them good luck at state against Penn Gold. After skating through the line I went over and shook linesman Turpichinoff’s and referee Wilkins’s hand. I then headed back over to where our team was congregating. The trophy finally came out and Micah went up to accept it. He held it high, but never kissed it like I figured he would. He skated it around and eventually handed it off to Bieker. We followed him around the ice as he then handed it off to another player. After it passed through a few people we gathered again at center ice and held it high as we all grabbed hold of it and chanted, “One, two, three, PANTHERS!” We posed for picture after picture. Eventually I and the rest of the seniors posed for some pictures as well with the cup. I finally got the cup individually and skated over to Linda so she could take my picture. I then skated over to where Ashley, Derrick, Hannah, and Andrew were and held it up to them as I skated past them. I handed the trophy off and posed for a few more pictures. Rose told me that I should go get Ashley and bring her on the ice so I did. I had to help her get out on it a little bit but she held her balance pretty well. I had some pictures taken with her and then continued skating around the rink aimlessly. A bunch of fans had come onto the ice and were messing around, using some of our discarded equipment and shooting a puck around. Emotionally I was quite amused and thrilled. I didn’t have much purpose being on the ice except for the celebration, as most everyone else. I began to think about when the Komets won the cup in 2003 and that this must be what it’s like, only on a much larger scale. I went over to the net and grabbed the water bottle that was still on top of it. I handed it to Randy and told him to go shower coach. He smiled and skated over there. Unfortunately he was posing for a picture and noticed the water bottle in Randy’s hand.
“You better not!” Gary yelled.
“But coach?” Randy yelled back.
“And you better not next year either if you come back,” Gary said.
Randy just smiled and began drinking from it.
While I was over there I decided to grab all of the sticks and take them next to the locker room. I felt kind of like the equipment manager holding all of those sticks but I wasn’t really concerned about that at this point. A few minutes later the zamboni driver whom we all call “Joe Dirt” (for his striking resemblance to the character from the movie) pressured us to get off of the ice.
I finally headed off and walked to the locker room.
“We’re going to out to eat afterwards if you want to come,” I said to Derrick and Andrew.”
“Oh yeah?” Derrick said. Where at?”
“Smokey Bones.”
“Out there at Jefferson Pointe, right?”
“Yeah.”
“We’ll see.”
“Ok,” I said. “It’s going to be Linda, Ashley, and me if you want to come.”
“Ok,” Derrick said.
I continued walking towards the locker room but stopped just short of the door. I turned around to see the lights beginning to shut down. It would be the last time I ever touched the ice playing for Snider or any high school team for that matter. My time was done. Some things I had wanted to accomplish went unfulfilled, but that didn’t matter. I had accomplished one of the most important things of all: not giving up. Maybe when I left the rink that night in the darkness of the arena I didn’t truly realize the legacy I had left behind. Many would never see it. But people who believed in me since day one would see it. They know where I came from. They know what I went through. They know how much it took to get to this point today. I was and never will be the best. Hardly even close for that matter. But at the end of the night that didn’t mean much to me. I did what I intended to do four years ago: play high school hockey.
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Tim #53 | 
