Hockey Double-Header

There are many great journeys through out history. Magellan's trek across the world, Moses crossing the desert, and what happend last week when Ray and I had a double-header in two different rinks.

Now most people are willing to travel at least 30 minutes to get to a rink. Hell, it sometimes feels that long just walking from the subway to the Chealsea Piers rink. But few people are usually up to the challenge of riding for 45 minutes right after a game straight to another game.

It was a lucky combination of things that even allowed this to happen. Think of it like the stars and moon aligning for one special night of hockey...yeah. For some odd reason our roller game at Hot Skates was early last Thursday, with a 7pm drop of the puck. That's the one and only time this season we have a game that early. If you think about it, that's early enough where it's actually difficult to get home on-time and then to the rink with your stuff.

It also just so happened to be the first game of the season for the Central Park ice league at Lasker rink. The drop of the puck for that game was scheduled for 9:30pm. That was perfect! There would be just enough time to make it from the end of one game to another. According to Google Maps it would only take about 40 minutes total.

Of course our first game was a tight match against a team we'll likely see in the playoffs. It ended up going into OT and we were running a bit behind getting out of there. Luckily by this time there was little traffic on the road. Due to the rush hour traffic we ran into on the way to Hot Skates for the first game, it was actually quicker for us to go from Hot Skates to Central Park than it was from Bayside to Hot Skates that night. I cannot emphasize accurately in words how much I hate rush hour.

We made it with more than enough time to Central Park. The only thing I get worried about is parking, but there was a spot right in front. I have to admit, I was a little gassed the second game. But that's a bad excuse, especially since I barely played the second part of our game at Hot Skates earlier. Long story short, we got railroaded on the ice that night, 14-4.

We finished our game around 10:30 and finally got back to Bayside at 11:30. That's about 6 hours total for our hockey marathon. Bear in mind we both had work the next day. The real downside of the trip was going from the high of the OT game we had at Hot Skates, to the first game of the season shellacking we received at Central Park.

On the trip back we went through the usual motions of dissecting our performance. And as bad a taste the second game left in out mouth, we did bring up the fact that the first game was great, and the second game was a new team. In fact, if you don't count the first period from the game at Central Park, then the final score would only have been 6-4.

Overall the entire trip was worth it. First of all we already paid for both leagues, so might as well get our money's worth. I also feel it's important to make it out for the first game of a new team to meet the rest of the guys. Either way, who the hell wouldn't want to play more hockey anyway?