by Connor Jones
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I’m not sure there will ever be another Floor Hockey game like the one I’m about to go into detail about.
To be honest, the loss still stings. A close second, is probably losing in the NCAA National championship in 2013. The intensity was unrivaled, if it wasn’t thousands watching the final three game series it was the entire school.
The ‘Series’ happened around this time almost 20 years ago and we still aren’t over it.
Every now and then, when it’s cold and rainy, my left crooked middle finger aches where my teacher, friend, and former mentor tried to break it in order to win a loose ball battle.
Their story was that of a true underdog. Ours, might go down in sports history as one of the greatest collapses of all time.
Our team had future junior hockey stars, ECHL All-Stars, NCAA Hobey Baker finalists, and a couple future NHL players. They had three skinny PE teachers, a physics teacher, a math teacher, and a one-eyed goalie from Fruitvale.
Game 1, the nerves hit us and their goalie saw everything and shut us out. Game 2, we got our revenge and won by 10.
Game 3 … one of the most physical and intense games I’ve ever been a part of. The entire school was in those steep stands of the old J.L. Crowe gymnasium. It was loud, the tension was real.
This intramural game meant something. The first shift, my mom of all people goes in, hits my brother, her son, from behind into the cement wall and somehow bangs in a rebound goal.
Being 14 our emotions tended to get the best of us, so we didn’t love the no call and all of us freaked out on the ref (the principal) with some F bombs.
Kel shouts, “Are you kidding me? That’s a @#$%^&* penalty!”
The ref responds, “Clean play! And watch your language, Jones!”
To give them credit, they were well coached and all of them bought in to their system, which was a two-man, two-woman forecheck with two d-men waiting at center to vacuum up any wayward passes or turnovers. Any thing they got they fired back on net. Those long distance laser beam shots on net were almost impossible to stop if they got through.
The teachers were playing like the New Jersey Devils of the 1990s with a suffocating trap style of play.
The trap? Really? We were frustrated but we hung in there. Craig Cunningham scored his own wrap around goal late in the second period to tie the game at one. Sighs of relief went through the crowd and our anxiety lifted.
The third period, always a bit shorter as we only had a 35-minute lunch hour was going by fast. The clock on the wall was counting down, but the game also ended once the lunch bell went off.
So with about I think around a minute left, we were hemmed in from a furious forecheck after my P.E. teacher, Dara Waterstreet, slashed me in the hand. We were running around with zero composure and nobody sees Danielle Morissette come in from the slot to whack in a loose ball that gives the teachers the lead with only 15 seconds left.
And then holy smokes, the school bell starts dinging.
I take a last second slap shot that hits my math teacher, and dad in the stomach.
I hear a scream, “Who the heck plays a trap in floor hockey?”
They celebrate, and we are all somewhat close to tears when we rush to shake hands and then all have to hurry back to make our fourth period classes drenched in sweat.
Writing this gives me some relief, some closure, but every summer when I come to visit, somehow the Grade 9 floor hockey game gets brought up.
Was it cheating, great execution? Was it unfair, adults against 14 year olds? The questions are still unanswered.
So the lesson? The more prepared and mature team always wins … Most of the time.