The Game

Arriving at the rink an hour before the game was to get underway. An hour for me to get acclimated to my surroundings. Just one hour for me to get into the mind set of a champion. It was to be the final game of the season. It had been a long, grueling season. Our team was exhausted mentally and physically from the tolls of this demanding sport. Everyone had their own individual rituals in order to get into that zone. We all knew this time was coming. Now, we just had to take action.

                The rink was more bone chilling than normal, or so it seemed. Although we all looked forward to this one game, we were also uneasy. Uneasy about the fact that this was the last game for us as a team. Uneasy about whether the outcome of the game came out in our favor. None of us wanted to look back at what could have been. All we wanted was to win.

                Fifteen minutes until the games beginning. All of us were putting on the final touches to our equipment, awaiting the speech from our coach and his words of encouragement. Coach always delivered well, but this time, no one could listen. All we could think about was getting onto the ice and beginning our final assent to becoming champions. We could only focus on the time at hand.

                The time was near. We all made our way out of the locker room, down the hallway, and onto the newly cleaned ice. The crisp sound of blades cutting fresh ice filled the rink. The warm-ups seemed like forever long, while the feeling of butterflies drove everyone mad. Our opponents, the only people that stood in our way, entered the rink. I knew very little about each individual on the other team, yet I despised nobody else in the world more than those boys.

Only three minutes until the game started. Coach was calling for us to assemble around him. This was one last effort to unify our team and get our heads in the right place. I watched as the clock ticked down to zero. Coach quickly threw out the starting lineup, me being one of them. My sense of anxiety had reached its apex. The ref made his way to center ice, the puck was to drop any second now. At this moment, I and my team realized that this was the final task to becoming champions. Thus began the game.