RIO
04-20-2003, 11:15 PM
This didn't make the sports page, but at leastthe editor liked it. I wrote it when Irbe was still vying for #1.... maybe you guys would like to read it, since I can't use it.....
The Warrior Class
Scars. Bruises. Contention. Sudden-death matches played against the inevitable and merciless passing of time. Combat is the employer. Entertainment, the goal. Honor, the prize.Though two combatants enter the arena, only one can hope to emerge as the winner. There is no second best. What one may win today means little tomorrow to the business machine. If he struggles and fails, falters, gives way, a hero may meet with the thumbs-down, a boot planted on his chest in ignominious defeat, all within sight of yesterday's wilting laurels.The quest for glory is insatiable, the adrenaline-crowd driving the contest to further heights of achievement and difficulty until only one champion is left standing in the carnage.
To take the blows, to step in the path of injury and possible danger, to bleed without complaint, to achieve the glow of immortality with one single stroke of the blade - this is the ultimate dream of....
...the hockey player.
Like a cat next to a fishbowl, I float on the outside of the glass, watching the men rush by. Their eyes are riveted to the net, to the puck, to the stern-faced coach planted at mid-ice, shouting through the swirling haze of uniforms like a captain whipping his crew into action before an approaching storm. There's a seriousness about this game, a constant reminder that to rest, to slack off meant the exiling nowhere of obscurity. Not one man can afford to get distracted or to neglect his function, and the intensity of the activity attests to the dedication of the skaters to the task at hand. I notice, however, that even as these healthy robust bodies push themselves, more than a few glances manage to stray to the admiring girls lingering smilingly just beyond the barrier of the boards...
It's been said many a time that even the ugliest hockey player could be covered in beauty through victory, and so win the blind adoration of a gorgeous woman. This was also similarly remarked upon by the foremost writers of another era long ago when felons and captives, back-broken, hacked, and toothless, tested by the rigors of war, were wanted by women more than any radiant Adonis.
Here, my stream of consciousness takes a jump, leading my mind into the ancient world, quickly paralleling this modern scene to one of the more brutal pastimes ever to compel a conquering super-power to frenzied madness.
The gladiatorial fights.
Though hockey players aren't the condemned thugs populating the sanguiney arenas of the ancient Italians, they still possess the same desperation and primal urge that can only be compared to the hunter-killer instinct of the Doomed, those men sentenced to die night after night for the amusement of the crowd and for the thrill it sends through the players themselves when they cheat disaster with ease, or narrowly, by the skin of their teeth.
A life or death matter.
The cold is beginning to sink into my flesh as I cast around the rink for stand-outs. My gaze falls on the axis of the maelstrom. The coach is a tense figure, gray around his tight, quietly seething eyes that seem to bore holes into the unpuckworthy. He has a responsibility that visibly beleaguers his frame, showing in the barely perceptible rounding of his shoulders, and the thumping club-bluntness of his voice as it rolls like distant thunder through this fishbowl canyon. Things have not been going well. Sleep runs screaming from the inscrutible gum-snapping man in the black tracksuit because the warrior class has been experiencing a baffling no-no: Failure. So the coach yells. He cajoles. He points and pleads. Mostly he swears, peppering his charges' ears with motivational, eyebrow-flaming invective.The red wind kicks up harder in response, obeying his command as he provokes them to faster, higher, farther...
My attention shifts.
At either end of the ice, masked men, stantioned before twine-netted no-fly zones, sandwich the rush of armored humanity. These two appear to be the most conflicted people on the ice. On the left, a tall, dark man with a voice so deep it sounds unreal, crouches in his net, his impassive face trained forward to calmly meet the hail of incoming pucks. It's nearly impossible to see through him. He's as opaque and rigidly contained as he is handsome and statuesque. He seems to move without effort, shooting out a substantial arm or forbidding leg, sometimes successfully repelling, sometimes not. Though he has a crisp natural flow about him, it gets interrupted by a demon intangible, a tormenting inner dialogue reminding him that the angry fall-out of unrectified injustices is lurking barely beneath the surface, still hot and waiting to re-ignite. Yet he plays with a cool, collected ire. The ice under his feet wouldn't melt in his mouth as he hunches under his pads.
On the right, a much smaller man is throwing himself from one pole to the other, blocking the pucks as if they were live bombs falling on his own private city. Amazingly cat-like reflexes are twisting him in ways many seasoned gymnasts would shudder at. Then, as if to trump these previous, wince-inducing maneuvers, he drops into an impressive split that presses every inch of him to the frozen surface below. In spite of his efforts, the last puck impossibly scoots by. He turns his head, glares at the galling chunk of rubber as if it has mangled and offended his personal dignity by daring to slip past him. Sitting upright, the fireball tosses his hands in the air in a gesture of extreme exasperation, then pulls his lid off, exposing a sharp, deeply irritated expression that could halt a charging rhino. The man's eyes are livid, his aspect intimidating. He looks dejected and inescapably tormented even when he's doing well. Cursing himself under his breath, he stares at the churned up ice beneath his padded knees as if he can't come to terms with imperfection.
In neutral territory swoop the snipers, the scorers, the men expected to fill the arena with the sound of their names being read over the loud-speaker... "He shoots... he scores!".... Pucks on stick, they dart in and out of traffic like swallows chasing bugs. The deafening clack of impact is repeated, time and time again as they fire with the rapidity of a Gatling gun. Cruising around them are the defensemen, the enforcers, the body shields. They move a little more slowly, but with a laughing-eyed finesse that tells me smashing people is the best job in the world. I suddenly envy them.
The practice is over and players are coming off the ice. Rows upon rows of bodies are lined up in the foyer, eager to meet tomorrow's victor. The watchful females on the wooden-slatted bleachers behind me begin to giggle and file out, eyes searching for a favorite as they crane their heads to see over the crowd.
As I wander into the sunshine, I find myself thinking that humans haven't changed a bit over the millennia. Case in point: Gladiators still get the girls.
The Warrior Class
Scars. Bruises. Contention. Sudden-death matches played against the inevitable and merciless passing of time. Combat is the employer. Entertainment, the goal. Honor, the prize.Though two combatants enter the arena, only one can hope to emerge as the winner. There is no second best. What one may win today means little tomorrow to the business machine. If he struggles and fails, falters, gives way, a hero may meet with the thumbs-down, a boot planted on his chest in ignominious defeat, all within sight of yesterday's wilting laurels.The quest for glory is insatiable, the adrenaline-crowd driving the contest to further heights of achievement and difficulty until only one champion is left standing in the carnage.
To take the blows, to step in the path of injury and possible danger, to bleed without complaint, to achieve the glow of immortality with one single stroke of the blade - this is the ultimate dream of....
...the hockey player.
Like a cat next to a fishbowl, I float on the outside of the glass, watching the men rush by. Their eyes are riveted to the net, to the puck, to the stern-faced coach planted at mid-ice, shouting through the swirling haze of uniforms like a captain whipping his crew into action before an approaching storm. There's a seriousness about this game, a constant reminder that to rest, to slack off meant the exiling nowhere of obscurity. Not one man can afford to get distracted or to neglect his function, and the intensity of the activity attests to the dedication of the skaters to the task at hand. I notice, however, that even as these healthy robust bodies push themselves, more than a few glances manage to stray to the admiring girls lingering smilingly just beyond the barrier of the boards...
It's been said many a time that even the ugliest hockey player could be covered in beauty through victory, and so win the blind adoration of a gorgeous woman. This was also similarly remarked upon by the foremost writers of another era long ago when felons and captives, back-broken, hacked, and toothless, tested by the rigors of war, were wanted by women more than any radiant Adonis.
Here, my stream of consciousness takes a jump, leading my mind into the ancient world, quickly paralleling this modern scene to one of the more brutal pastimes ever to compel a conquering super-power to frenzied madness.
The gladiatorial fights.
Though hockey players aren't the condemned thugs populating the sanguiney arenas of the ancient Italians, they still possess the same desperation and primal urge that can only be compared to the hunter-killer instinct of the Doomed, those men sentenced to die night after night for the amusement of the crowd and for the thrill it sends through the players themselves when they cheat disaster with ease, or narrowly, by the skin of their teeth.
A life or death matter.
The cold is beginning to sink into my flesh as I cast around the rink for stand-outs. My gaze falls on the axis of the maelstrom. The coach is a tense figure, gray around his tight, quietly seething eyes that seem to bore holes into the unpuckworthy. He has a responsibility that visibly beleaguers his frame, showing in the barely perceptible rounding of his shoulders, and the thumping club-bluntness of his voice as it rolls like distant thunder through this fishbowl canyon. Things have not been going well. Sleep runs screaming from the inscrutible gum-snapping man in the black tracksuit because the warrior class has been experiencing a baffling no-no: Failure. So the coach yells. He cajoles. He points and pleads. Mostly he swears, peppering his charges' ears with motivational, eyebrow-flaming invective.The red wind kicks up harder in response, obeying his command as he provokes them to faster, higher, farther...
My attention shifts.
At either end of the ice, masked men, stantioned before twine-netted no-fly zones, sandwich the rush of armored humanity. These two appear to be the most conflicted people on the ice. On the left, a tall, dark man with a voice so deep it sounds unreal, crouches in his net, his impassive face trained forward to calmly meet the hail of incoming pucks. It's nearly impossible to see through him. He's as opaque and rigidly contained as he is handsome and statuesque. He seems to move without effort, shooting out a substantial arm or forbidding leg, sometimes successfully repelling, sometimes not. Though he has a crisp natural flow about him, it gets interrupted by a demon intangible, a tormenting inner dialogue reminding him that the angry fall-out of unrectified injustices is lurking barely beneath the surface, still hot and waiting to re-ignite. Yet he plays with a cool, collected ire. The ice under his feet wouldn't melt in his mouth as he hunches under his pads.
On the right, a much smaller man is throwing himself from one pole to the other, blocking the pucks as if they were live bombs falling on his own private city. Amazingly cat-like reflexes are twisting him in ways many seasoned gymnasts would shudder at. Then, as if to trump these previous, wince-inducing maneuvers, he drops into an impressive split that presses every inch of him to the frozen surface below. In spite of his efforts, the last puck impossibly scoots by. He turns his head, glares at the galling chunk of rubber as if it has mangled and offended his personal dignity by daring to slip past him. Sitting upright, the fireball tosses his hands in the air in a gesture of extreme exasperation, then pulls his lid off, exposing a sharp, deeply irritated expression that could halt a charging rhino. The man's eyes are livid, his aspect intimidating. He looks dejected and inescapably tormented even when he's doing well. Cursing himself under his breath, he stares at the churned up ice beneath his padded knees as if he can't come to terms with imperfection.
In neutral territory swoop the snipers, the scorers, the men expected to fill the arena with the sound of their names being read over the loud-speaker... "He shoots... he scores!".... Pucks on stick, they dart in and out of traffic like swallows chasing bugs. The deafening clack of impact is repeated, time and time again as they fire with the rapidity of a Gatling gun. Cruising around them are the defensemen, the enforcers, the body shields. They move a little more slowly, but with a laughing-eyed finesse that tells me smashing people is the best job in the world. I suddenly envy them.
The practice is over and players are coming off the ice. Rows upon rows of bodies are lined up in the foyer, eager to meet tomorrow's victor. The watchful females on the wooden-slatted bleachers behind me begin to giggle and file out, eyes searching for a favorite as they crane their heads to see over the crowd.
As I wander into the sunshine, I find myself thinking that humans haven't changed a bit over the millennia. Case in point: Gladiators still get the girls.