We Dropped the Gloves

Around about the time us Slivervillians were teaching the Dope City Punks how to fucking party we were still playing ball hockey. We used to play the Chicken Dog's neighbourhood team who hailed from around the tennis courts in the shadow of the old water tower. They were not a bad team, they had lots of size, did not drink enough beer or smoke enough dope, so we took them out most every time we were challenged to a game. Chicken Dog and his buddy Swanny started up the Sliverville Ball Hockey Association soon after. My team were too plastered to ever consider playing in an organized league. Not unlike the Canuck teams of the 1970s.

The other team we used to play now and then was Jimi's older brother's team. Jimi's brother was six years older than us. His name was Rich but everybody knew him as Mort, as in the mortician, his chosen career. Mort spent some time running with the Coffin Cheaters when he was a little younger and it was some of those guys and some others Mort had met in Dope City over the years who thought they could get the better of us. They never did.

Our team never had much scoring punch. Most of our punch was in the cooler by the bench. We counted on the guys from our neighbourhood who were not too impaired to do most of the scoring. The rest of the team was in charge of body checking. My job was to stop the ball from getting in our net. I was small and quick and I did not wear a mask unless I took one in the face hard enough for me to cover up the rest of a game.

The last time Mort's team tried to best us one of his guys ran me into the boards. Naturally I elbowed him in the ribs. Then he ran me again. So I elbowed him even harder and we dropped the gloves. So much for the friendly game of hockey. He was much bigger than me but I was training in a martial art at the time so I caught him in the head with a couple lefts before he figured the best place for my sweater was over my head. When I looked to our bench after I got my sweater straightened out everybody looked real happy. I have never had to hit anybody in anger since. We beat them by a goal or two and our team retired as the best god damn ball hockey team in the history of Sliverville. We were like that basketball player who was better than Michael Jackson but too wasted to play in the NBA.

The next sport we tried our hand at was slo-pitch. There's a game you can play and get as swacked as you like.