On the Ice With Rich Kincaide

I've been reading. A lot. I don't know what's gotten into me, but I've polished off something like twenty books in the last couple of months and that's why I haven't been posting. It gets to be this time of night and I head upstairs and open whatever it is I'm reading at the time.

I've learned many things and will discuss some of them with you in more detail in the future. But, as an example of what I've learned, did you know Journal of the Plague Year is the name of an (apparently) famous book and not just the title of the David von Ebers outstanding blog? It's true. I learned that from a book called Wartime that I found out about from reading somebody else's blog post.

Right now I'm reading The Guns of August and I'm reading that because according to Theodore Sorenson -- the speech writer and aide to President Kennedy whose 1965 book Kennedy I'm still slogging through -- JFK told the top memebers of his staff to read it.

Kennedy must have been some kind of smart. This is quite a hard read but it's excellent. It's about World War I. The best part so far (and we are only at the start of the War, about 170 pages into a 550-page book) involves how Turkey would have been a nuetral country in the war had they simply not allowed a German warship to enter their waters once the war began, or had the British not failed in their efforts to sink the ship prior to its arrival in those Turkish waters. On the day the Royal Navy could have sunk the German ship, Britian's ultimatum to Germany -- get out of Belgium or we will go to war with you -- didn't expire until midnight and it was only 10p when the Brits could have attacked. By midnight the Germans had disappeared in the fog. The acceptance by the Turks of that German warship was viewed by the Allies as an Act of War, bringing the first World War to the Middle East. Absent Turkey's acceptance of the German ship, there's no Gallipoli (no Mel Gibson?), no British campaign in Palestine, and the whole history of the Middle East is changed.

As I said, interesting.

But as for the title of this post, we are pleased to report that we are back on the ice. (We would be more pleased if we weren't as sore as we find ourselves right now after having skated earlier today, but still...).

I'd been out of action since last spring. Around Thanksgiving my doctory said to me (and I quote), "You're too fucking fat."

I told him that meant I'd have to start playing hockey again and he told me I'd have a heart attack if I did. So, he invited me to join him on the ice on Tuesday mornings. At least that way he'd be able to perform CPR or call 911 or something. We'd be out there, just the two of us, and he'd do his best to kill me. He'd have a couple dozen pucks and would line them up and begin blazing away. We'd do it a couple of times and I'd have to go off for a rest. Then I'd come back on and he'd do it again. And then I'd rest again. And then we'd do it again. We'd get done and I'd be too tired to pull my jersey off for twenty minutes. And I'd think, "For a guy who thinks I'm going ot have a heart attack he sure is kicking my ass!"

After a month of this, I called some guys I used to play with and told them I was ready to attempt a comeback and they invited me out. I warned them that I might have to come off the ice a time or two to catch my breath but they said that was okay and so I showed up and hit the ice again. It was easy. I couldn't believe it. I was working much, much harder in my sessions with the doctor than I was in a 90-minute skate with these guys.

Today was my third time out in "competition", if that's what you can call a drop-in skate. I don't don't know what it is about me, but while I can't bring myself to ride a treadmill for 5 minutes, put me in a game where the final score doesn't mean a damn thing and I will give the last full measure of my devotion to keep the puck out of the net. I was better today than I was last week, and last week I was better than I'd been the week before.

I'm coming back. I still have a little way to go, though. I had a 3-1 lead last Friday and spent the last twenty minutes looking like the hockey version of a cat hacking up a hairball in a 5-4 loss. I thought I had the short side covered. I didn't. I thought the shooter was in so close he couldn't go high on me when I went down. He wasn't. I thought the 5-hole was closed. Nope.

But today, a reminder of why I play. I made a pretty good save going to my right but the rebound went to my left to the top of the crease, just out of my reach. The shooter had it on his forehand and he must have had 75% of a wide-open net wide at which to shoot. I knew he was going to score. He knew he was going to score. The whole rink knew he was going to score. But still, you never, ever, give up on a play. I twisted and lunged to my left and stuck my glove out as far as I could stick and, wouldn't you know, there was the sweet sensation of the puck hitting the webbing. A glove save and a beauty. The best save I've made in a year. Enough to bring me back.

So, we'll see you soon out there between the boards in front of the net and right here on the 'net.