Rainy Saturday

A quiet hockey rink at Brunswick

I had some time in the car today, and I decided to turn the radio dial.

The AM dial is so fun at night. It's amazing the far off places you can hear. I realize that's not so exciting in the internet/satellite radio era, but it's still fun to me.

I stumbled onto a minor league hockey game and decided to listen for a stretch. Now, what have I told you about not listening to other broadcasters? It's dangerous, man. Just dangerous.

And, most of all, it's ponderous.

This was no different. There were limited details given, and there were long stretches of silence as the game went along. I rarely heard the score, and it took some time before I even figured out what game I was listening to.

As I said, the game was somewhere else (the radio station was from Canada). That's about all I'm going to give.

It's possible that the play-by-play person was having a bad night, so I'll be kind.

But ugh.

I had a game of my own today and it was fun.

While the hockey rink at Brunswick was dark (the Bruins played Hill* in Pottstown, PA) so it was a basketball day for me. I also called the Bruins in hoops on Friday.

* I called Brunswick/Hill when they played in Pottstown two years ago from the Local Live Stamford studio. While I always want to be on-site, it was still pretty cool to try it that way. Plus, I had formed a little something with Hill dating back to my days on HAN when I called Hill/Wick as well. All for another time, I guess.

Brunswick would be without some big firepower, so the odds seemed long against a talented team from Salisbury.

"We go to battle with what we have," Bruins coach Steve Juricek said to me and, as you can probably guess, his team did just fine.

Down fifteen late in the first half, Brunswick went on a 12-2 run to trail by five at the break. The lead went back to 11 with 9:45 to go. Then the began chipping away. Dan Arnold tied the game at 54 with just over three to play.

But Logan Galletta -- a freshman -- hit a three-pointer to give Wick their first lead with 75 seconds remaining. The Bruins held on from there for a 59-58 win.

It was exhilarating. The teams left, the benches were being broken down, and I sat against a wall, just finishing up the upload of the audio portion of the call. But, more than that, I was soaking in a good game.

You see, the best games leave you worn out. I used to get in trouble for hanging out with friends after games, not to gossip or grumble, but to find the energy to drive. Today felt like that.

I was missing AJ and Shawn to commiserate with.

Coach Juricek stopped over to say goodbye. The best coaches love to talk the game.

They also have a word of encouragement for what you do.

After he left, I summoned the energy to drive to Poughkeepsie.

Another night in the books.

** Last thing: My mom, Sean, and I were supposed to be in Virginia today. We were looking forward to celebrating Lilah's (daughter on Jon and Rebecca and sister of Rose) bat mitzvah today. We were all pretty excited, but it was no to be. As I alluded to last night, mom had a health hiccup and it was best that we stayed in New York. So I picked up the two basketball games to get some work (I lost a hockey game on Monday). It was really important to see all of them, as Jon and I keep reminding ourselves that life is too short and we haven't seen them in so long. We were really bummed to not go to Virginia but we'll hope to do it again in the future (well, the visit, but I'm pretty sure the bat mitzvah was a one-time affair).