I Wanna Make Friends With The Badger

Well, I'm a little late, but our ice hockey team played game two on Tuesday night. This time, we had our regular goaltender, The Badger, in net. Although I was a little wary of my friend's skills - it's been a long time since he played goaltender on a regular basis - he did start for three years at LaSalle University.

Luckily for all of us, The Badger didn't disappoint.

I moved up to forward after playing defense in our first game. That wasn't much of a shock, since that team skated around me like I was an orange traffic cone. When this squad, The FUBAR Boys, hit the ice, I smirked a little: they only had three subs on the bench.

Of course, I soon found out that they didn't need them - this team was really fast. In the first period, they must have had ten rushes toward our zone, skating past our defense with relative ease. The Badger was up to the task, however, and made some critical glove saves when needed. This irritated our opponents, since his glove is from his college days, and looks like something Jacques Plante would be sporting.

The lightning glove appeared again and again, as Badger saved our collective asses in the second and third period. In between saves, he was shouting at us about coverage, shouting at the refs for calls (or lack thereof), and clearing the crease by any means necessary - including the occasional stick swipe. We ended regulation tied 7-7, and for the second straight game, we entered the shootout.

FUBAR's first skater came toward Badger, deked him out of position, and scored. Damn. Our first player took his shot and was stoned outright. Suddenly, I got very gassy on the bench. FUBAR's second skater moved in, and as Badger tried to poke check him with his stick, it dropped onto the ice. Stunned, the player shot wide. Our player went in and scored. The round was tied. Our final shooter bested FUBAR's goalie to take the lead, and if Badger stopped the final opponent, we would win the game.

The FUBAR winger flew toward our net with aplomb, deked to one side, and shot toward Badger's 5-hole. Badger stoned him with a nice butterfly split. Game over. We won the game by a score of 8-7, and remain undefeated with a record of 2-0.

After the game, we headed to the bar, and while heaping praise on Badger for his performance, we finally came up with a team name. From here on out, we're Blue Balls. Classy!