Tuesday Night Lights Its 10:50 P.M. on an unusually balmy night here. I got a slow start getting warmed up and in my gear. Everything seems to be going in slow motion. The pregame start horn literally went off just as I grabbed my helmet and left the locker room. The Locker room.The locker room is one of the most interesting places you'd probably never want to visit. The chatter is unusual mix to say the least. Usually at any given point, someone is talking about booze, a stripper, their child's day-care or kindergarten class. Rarely, but sometimes their child's kindergarten teacher who is an alcoholic who strips to support her habit. Were far enough in the south that football is still king of dialogue, and hockey season isn't in full swing yet, so it takes a backseat to pigskin and strippers. I'm in the crease now trying to stretch out as best I can in the waining moments before the puck is dropped. The ice is still wet from the zam cleaning the game before. A couple of guys skate over whack my pads for good luck. At-least I think its good luck, it could just be subtle threats. Tonight we are playing a sponsor-less team who has yet to win a game in two seasons. I am kindred to them in that these are the people I started playing with a little over a year ago when my hockey adventure began. Its hard to get motivated to play a team that has no chance of beating you. Thoughts of my first elusive shut-out creep into my head. Shut-outs. I will never get a shut-out. Never. I usually need to give up at-least one really bonehead stupid goal, sometimes two to wake up and get focused. Especially against inferior opponents. Inferior, that term is so funny to me. I am mutt. Half baseball player, half football player in goalie gear. All I'm doing is fielding grounders and directing traffic.Tonight we have 3 fans in the stands. Probably some players wife. A stripper who is unknowingly dating the same man. Quietly sneaking drinks with 3rd lady, who teaches Sunday School at the first Baptist Church of Smallville. I can smell the fame and fortune. I have made it to the big time. I am on top of the heap. Literally. To solidify my greatness I make a brilliant kick-save on a 26 Kilometer Per hour shot. I assign kilometer values to the shots I face, because Kilometers produce higher numbers than Miles per hour. 26, 35, even the occasional 72 kilometer per hour shot sounds much better than, "a sliding piece of rubber that I can identify individual deficiencies in as it eases slowly in my direction. So one of these rockets goes flying by me into the back of the net. Well, I don't think it had enough momentum to make it all the way into the back; but it did cross the line. My defenseman asks "did I screen you?" He did. But does it really matter? At the rate this thing was moving I didn't need gear, let alone even skates to stop this thing. So, what the hell, I said, "oh yeah. Never saw it".Truth be told, I saw it; and the damn thing was going so slow I was almost hypnotized by it. I think as it floated by I had 17 separate thoughts consisting of strippers, booze, my little girls kindergarten teacher, who has a tattoo, and could have been a stripper. I also speculated some of the recent ideological shifts on global warming, as compared to latent trends indicated in ice-flow residuals recently observed. Then just as the puck eased across the line, I wondered, "If I pour salt on this thing, will it melt and die in the freakish way many a slug met its demise not unlike an ant having its tan improved at the hands of child's magnifying glass. GOOOOOAAAAAAAL