Ice Hockey Perspectives

Guest Column

By GEORGE KALMAR Special to the Palisadian-Post Whenever I score my arms shoot up in the air, I let out a primal scream and I almost jump out of my skin. It’s a moment of pure triumph I wish I could experience more often. See, when it comes to ice hockey, the fastest and meanest team sport of all, you play for the love of the game. I’m not lying when I say everyone in the Melnick League loves the game. We’re all different ages’some 18, some 25, some 35, some 45 and even some 55. We’re short and tall, fat and thin, single and married, with kids and without. We’re Thursday night gladiators fighting for survival on an ice rink out in Panorama City. We don’t have much in common except a passion for flying like the wind on a cold glossy surface, the need to maintain balance and a desire to connect with our fellow men’head on at 30 miles an hour. Unless you’re talking about Timo on the first-place Suomi team. ‘Suomi’ is the Finnish word for Finland, though not all of the players on the squad are from that Scandinavian country. Timo, a 6-6, 280-pound defenseman, is partly the reason why my stats were dropping below the interest rate. He was a menace! But wait, there were more of them. The left defenseman was a little bulldog named Elke with arms like tree trunks and a mean look of a Nordic ogre. Then there was their forward Anti, weaving through traffic with the arrogance of an immortal. Anti was another reason why our team, the Young Wolves, usually wound up looking like the ‘Old Dogs’ when we played Suomi. Their goalie sat on the ice like a stuffed dumpling, protecting the net as if it were the Holy Grail. It used to give me pleasure just to shoot at him, never mind that the puck never went in. To me and my teammates on the Young Wolves, there was no doubt Suomi, aside from being a bunch of stuck up Eurocentric giants, were slimy, cheating vermin trying to keep us away from our rightful glory. For four years I struggled to get my stats up in the Melnick league. For four years I battled to reach my dream of earning one of those cheap plastic trophies with a faceless guy taking a slap shot on the marble base. But Suomi hung like an albatross around my neck. Then one Thursday night Lord Stanley played a trick on me. Big Dan Melnick himself burst into the dressing room one and declared in his marshal tone: ‘I’m gonna switch some guys around. George, you’re going to the Suomi.’ His words hit me like a slap shot on the mask. ‘I can’t play for Suomi!’ I blurted out. My fellow Wolves stared up in surprise. It was a look of goodbye, pity, envy and hatred all in one. But I had no choice. A hockey league is like an army’you can’t disobey orders. I was now officially one of ‘them.’ One of those guys I had learned to hate. Big Dan threw a Suomi jersey in my lap, I put it on and made my way in shameful silence to the bench. The whistle blew and I was about to face off against my old team. To my right was Anti. Behind me was Timo. It wasn’t until the puck dropped that I realized I was on the best team in the league. What inspired me most was the skill of my new teammates. Timo was amazing and watching him made me want to visit Finland. Elke the bulldog threw me a friendly smile after my impossible pass landed square in the middle of his blade. I was struck by the speed and agility of this gentle little man, a beam of light showing the way. Stevie resembled an amorphous gatekeeper drifting from one side of his celestial domain to the other. With him behind you there was no need to fear defeat. Then there was Anti the ice god. He absorbed a nasty hit from one of the Young Wolves, got up still controlling the puck and passed to me. I passed back to him in the slot, he outskated two defenders and deked the fumbling goalie to score. Sheer Suomi genius. We haven’t lost a championship in years. As I look at the five gilded plastic trophies in my bedroom, I imagine one of those immortal skating heroes is me’Suomi’s left wing. Occasionally my days on the Young Wolves flash through my mind. We still play the poor suckers every once in awhile. Guess by now they’ve thought up some nasty prejudiced name for me too. Losers! Editor’s note: George Kalmar has been a Palisadian for 14 years. His passions (besides hockey) are sculpting and writing. He lives in the upper Bienvenida area with his wife Julie, daughter Gabrielle and son Jonah.