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From Mensagenda - February 2001
Partly Cloudy
Karen Cyson
Ditched Equipment
Legend has it that, in Northern Minnesota, little boys can
skate before they can walk. No doubt runners are placed on the bottoms of their
leather lace-up booties.
Here in Central Minnesota, my son got a late start.
He didn't
hit the ice until he was 3 and wasn't in an organized league until the ripe old
age of 4.
They're cute at that age, scurrying around the rink like
lemmings chasing a puck. Many of them use their stick for support and, to keep
from exhausting themselves, games are played the width of the rink, rather than
the length. Every trine the coach blows his whistle, half of them fall down.
One thing the fans in the stands can count on, though, is the
"mom wave." Almost every time your player glides by you m the stands,
he'll turn, wave, and smile. This is the seedling stage of the "Hi, Mom" shouted into the network cameras by professional
athletes. It does, however, make the skater lose track of the play and the puck,
and leads to some interesting breakaways by hotshots whose mothers have gone
grocery shopping rather than attend the game.
Fast forward through Mites, Jr. Squirts, Squirts,
PeeWees,
and Bantams, and my son has now more than doubled in height and added 200
pounds. At age 16 he plays on a travel Junior Gold team, and lives and breathes
hockey. His philosophy is "There is hockey, and then there is everything
else." Thank goodness his devotion and his age (I am so glad he has his
license) get him to 6:00 A.M. practices, a feat that requires him, the
sleep-forever teenager, to get out of bed without complaining at 5:00 A.M. and
drive across town to the rink.
The biggest change, however, with the exception of his gear
bag, which has gone from the size of a grocery tote to the size of a bodybag for
an elephant, is the new rule about moms. I am not, never ever, to wave.
To wave at your
player is tantamount to giving him "the mom curse." It is total public
humiliation. Do not expect him to acknowledge you from the ice either.
The most
you'll get is a slight nod, and maybe a wink, as he skates back to the player
box after scoring.
I was quite surprised, then, when I received the call from
Super Son. Just an hour earlier that evening he had left the house to catch the
team bus to a game in Forest Lake. And now he was on the line, calling me from
the bus on his coach's cell phone. "Mom, I love you." Odd.
Well, not
odd that he loves me, but to call from a hockey bus? In front of the other guys?
"What's going on, Dan?" "Mom, I really, really love you."
"Dan, what have you done now?"
And now, as only a teenager can explain things, here is what
happened: "Well, Mom? You know how we leave St. Cloud? And stop in Clearwater to pick up Eric?
And the bags go in the bottom of the bus? Well, ah, we're in Albertville, Mom.
We stopped the bus when we noticed
the cargo door was flapping. And...well, here's the good news, Mom.
Only one guy's bag fell out after we loaded Eric's
stuff. The bad news is it was mine. So could you, like, get in your car and
drive to Clearwater and then drive, like, real slow for the next 20 miles and
find my bag and bring it to the game?"
Suddenly my brain formed a freeze frame around how I had
planned to spend the evening. A little kitchen clean-up followed by a long
bubble bath and leisurely finishing the novel for my book club meeting the next
week. And then, like one of those magic slates with the grey plastic film and
tiny black stylus, I erased that picture and replaced it with reality.
"Tell me again, Dan. Where exactly is your stuff?"
"Oh, we figure it's somewhere on I-94 between Clearwater and Albertville,
so could you just check that 20 miles?" Just check that 20 miles.
I love it. Drive 20 miles, in the dark, on the side of the freeway, in a
snowstorm, to find the hockey bag that had self-ejected from the belly of the
bus. What to do? I gave the standard Mom Response: "I'm leaving right now.
See you in Forest Lake."
And so I left on my mission. How hard could it be?
The bag
itself was larger than some New England states. Sure enough, six miles past
Clearwater, just east of the sign that reads "Lake Maria State Park, next
exit," I found the impact site. "The moon on the breast of the
newfallen snow gave the luster of mid-day to objects below." Thank you,
Mr. Moore. There, on the shoulder of the freeway, was the scattered debris that
had been Dan's equipment. I found: 1 elbow pad, 1 shin pad, 1/2 of his
shoulder pad, the cage from the front of his helmet, and one skate. All of this
gear was mangled. The bag, the breezers, the helmet, and the remainder of the
gear were gone.
Someone apparently had grabbed the bag and the gear that had
stayed in it. Their mistake. Not only was "one of everything" going to
do them no good, but, to be honest, stealing that bag of onesies was going to be
more punishment than they could have possibly expected.
Most hockey spectators aren't aware of this, but hockey
players stink. They don't have b.o. in the normal sense of the word.
They emit
an odor not found anywhere else on earth. It is the stench caused by 10-15 hours
per week of teenage testosterone-filled sweat being absorbed by unwashable foam
and felt padded equipment and allowed to ferment week after week in a closed
nylon bag. Soon after whoever picked up the bag and threw it in their nice warm
car, it began to thaw. A miasma arose from it that rivaled the piquancy of
polecat emissions, no doubt. I'm guessing that they made it as far as the ER at
the Monticello hospital before being overcome by the fumes. Serves 'em right.
Scully & Mulder would be hard pressed to identify the strange stench, much
less control the behavior of those poor, misguided souls who were exposed to it.
Meanwhile, I returned home with a motley pile of useless gear
thrown in the back of my vehicle. On the front seat I kept the one piece of
recovered equipment that was intact. Out of over $2,000 worth of gear, one item
remained unsmashed, unstolen, and useable. It was his "nut cup" (list
price $6.95).
The next morning was spent on the phone, cajoling the local
hockey shop to equip my child now and wait for the check from the bus company's
insurance adjuster, and making a special act of contrition to get the skate
company to express ship a pair of size 17 skates for the lad so he could hit the
ice for his next game which was the next night.
The first time he put on the new gear, he skated like the
Michelin Man. Now, a month later, he claims it's broken in and smells right,
too. I wouldn't know. I make him leave it in his truck. Friday we leave for a
tourney in Duluth. That means I'll spend three hours within five feet of his
bag, so if anyone sees a woman driving on I-35 with her head out the window,
wave to me.
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