We Lack a Word

HOCKEY

January, late Friday afternoon, when most are preparing mentally for the weekend and their various modes of adventure and escape. When some are thinking of the jobs they have to accomplish on a day that is too warm to work and too beautiful to enjoy. January, and there is no snow.

In the middle of winter children are playing marbles in driveways of finely ground stone. Hopscotch with its nine white squares is hurriedly etched on the half wet pavement of fenced-in schoolyards. Small streams of water are dammed as they run up against the foot high boards containing the hockey rink. The rink that only yesterday rang with screams and skates in the cool sunlight. Late at night on banks of snow with only small lamps to light the tired runways, a group of boys are quietly removing their boots. The yard is vacant and the janitor is out for the evening. Besides, we're allowed to play here anyway, cause I know his daughter. She's in my class.

They slide on to the black ice that glistens and flashes in the cold. Breath streams are heard panting and huffing, sounds naturally mixed in time and tempo with the glinting of skates and the whack of the puck against the boards.

It's Sunday afternoon. We've just finished lunch and are heading for the rink. Barry says it might not be very good because it's getting pretty warm. No one is wearing a coat and Glen and I are walking down the slushy sidewalk, sweating heavily under our winter jackets. We tiptoe lightly and slide and scrape the sand. The skate blade catches and jumps through the sandy ice. We arrived at the rink and there was a game in progress. I guess we got there too late.

The other boys were playing broomball in the schoolyard. Some had their bicycles and were racing through puddles. I guessed it must be going on to 1:30 or 2:00 P.M. Glen thought it was later. I had to agree. I guess we came too late to play hockey. Perhaps six months too late. Perhaps twenty years.