That's One...

Anyone who has ever played some kind of sport knows that joining a new team can sometimes be a bit of a crap shoot. Even when you've bee playing together for a while there is a chance that you can win each time you play. Granted the odds are sometimes longer than others, but there's still a chance.

Take me and my 2 summer hockey teams, for example. I came in to two teams of individual sign-ups and to say that we've struggled would be an understatement. My Tuesday league is more of a challenge than my Sunday league, but its seemed impossible to produce any meaningful points on the board, let alone win a game. At this point, a tie would be a serious achievement worth celebrating.

As the goalie, I tend to put a lot of the blame on my shoulders. I'm by no means a star, but on a more competetive team I can hold my own. We are definitelY outclassed by our opponents and there seems precious little we can do about it. It certainly doesn't do much for anyone's psyche when you go into the game worrying more about how to limit the carnage than just getting out and playing the game.

Having said all that, we've pretty much resigned ourselves (on both teams) to winless seasons. We're not bothered by it because we're really just out to have fun, get some exercise and all that stuff. Some guys take it *way* too seriously. I mean, NHL's Central Scouting is not checking out beer league games for undiscovered talent, right? We're not playing for money, right?

So, last night we donned the gear and headed onto the ice against a team that has, charitably, wiped the ice with us. We don't have any defence that can keep up with them and I'm certainly not a worthy challenge in goal. One again, "limit the carnage" was the battle cry of the evening.

When it was all said and done nobody was more surprised than us. We won. We got the lead and never looked back. They definitely made it interesting for us and they never gave up, but we played a solid team game and they had to work for the goals they got.

Happy? Damn right we were.

Confidence? Yeah, I can see a glimmer coming back.

Fun? Damn right.

Who knew that a lone win would make such a difference?