a moment of Reflection . . .

Sitting atop of mount Calvarious listening to the chantings of Coolio and Lady Gaga (a little old school with the new) I am reminded of how things meta morph and every dog has its moments of zen. Going into this year I knew that I would be making adjustments in leaving the board of directors for the homeowners association. A daunting task that I was looking forward to. Last week I was finally voted out and achieved the separation I was wanting. This freedom has given me some extra time to myself (and taken some worries away from me).

The second change that I planned to make this year was to reduce the amount of teams I am playing with at the rink. Three games in one night takes a beating on you. This coupled with the changes that were occurring with my teams gave me some concerns. Unfortunately the Komets took a big change late last year and went from a team focused on fun, learning, and gamesmanship to one focused on winning. Don't get me wrong winning is great but it does not help when you want to learn and become a more complete player. For me this development meant that I needed to leave my comfortable position as a winger and play as a center men. For those of you not familiar with hockey this is a position that requires you to be both on offense and defense at anytime. It's a lot of work and always requires you to be thinking ahead of the play. This season it has made me the best player that I have ever been. For me to make this change I left the Komet's and became a full time player of the Grave Diggers. The perennial "bad news bears" of the hockey rink (just remember this team was once called the Leftovers for good reason).

I knew going full time on my part time team would require me to be a more vocal member in the locker room, on the bench, and off the ice. I was concerned that this would be quite a formidable duty. To make matters worse the coordinator for the team was going to be away on business for most of the season and unable to participate in much of our games. This put added pressure on my friend Mel to step-up and fill this coordinators role. This now made me feel even more vested to perform at a higher level than ever. In the past I have always led by example and by the assertiveness in my actions. I knew that this alone would not be enough. I can stand here today and say that I have been able to transform into a vocal leader. I have even played better on the ice like a little kid skating with no worries in the world (even with two sore groins reminding me that they do not care for what I am doing). I have shared glorious moments with my teammates watching them score goals, make slick plays, or just simply skate with the puck.

Going into the season I expected to learn the nuances of a new position. Instead I have learned about how I can lead others in more ways than I am aware of. Knowing that I would be with team underdog I fully expected to see a mediocre season. Call it special leadership from Mel, mystical play, perfect timing, growth of teammates, or my efforts (I feel it is all of the above) the Grave Diggers have finished the season in 2nd place with a 6-2 record. It has been almost a week since the regular season has ended and I still cannot grasp the concept of how this team has turned around in such a short period of time. When I look at this team and its motley crewof players the most discernible fact is that they have HEART! They play with passion. Not the passion for the game but the passion of little kids out on the pond having a good time. Win or lose we have walked away all season saying "wow that was fun"!

This Saturday at 7:15pm we will be playing the first round of the playoffs. Winning this game would put us in position for the championship keg game. When I look at all of the teams out there I can't think of a more deserving lovable group than the Grave Diggers. If you have some free time and want to see the Rodney Dangerfield of hockey teams then come watch us play. Just remember it takes a special team to draft a player like Becky to play for them next season.

On this note Becky has already chosen number 29 to wear. She is doing this as she anticipates to be the Steve Ott agitator on the team. When I took her to the Stars game she became quite interested in Ott's move called clipping. It causes a penalty but definitely is a cheap way for a smaller player to make a giant impact on a bigger player. Watch for your self and then pray. Pray for Becky, pray for the other player, and most of all pray for all of the humanity that could come from this if she ever pulled something like this off (yes I actually envision that this would cause the world to turn upside down and for cats and dogs to start loving each other). I hope everyone is doing well, until next time . . .