:: Throwing hands ::
In my adult life, I've been in two fights - both, incidentally, at hockey rinks. The first, some of you may recall, came about 5-6 years ago, when a handful of us were watching Chris, Gorski, and... other people (sorry, can't remember if anyone else was on that team. Lambie maybe? I dunno...)
Anyways... that altercation came about when - after a bit of a brouhaha on the ice - I cheered when Gorksi, who was in net, hit an Aldergrove guy with his stick. An Aldergrove dad, sitting a few rows behind us, did not like it, and we started yelling at each other. Then he called me fat, yelled at my mom, and that's when I punched him. Pat broke things up about five seconds after that.
Fight #2 came Friday night, when I went to the rink to watch the Mooseknuckles game. After the game, a bunch of us - all the players, plus Chris, Me, Sean, Amanda and Jenna - were sitting in the dressing room, having some beers. I was sitting next to the goalie, Danny.
Right from the start, he was being weird about me being in his space - I'm not sure if he noticed how small the dressing room was, but there's really not a lot of places for that many people to sit, and I'm also not sure why he thought he deserved eight feet of bench, but that's really not important. What matters is that he was being weird about it.
Eventually, we started jostling for space - trying to knock each other off the bench, etc... it was all just goofing around. We were laughing (at least I was).. no big deal. But then he decided to put me in a headlock and quite literally, try to choke me out.
Whether he knew it or not, this is when it went beyond just a couple guys screwing around. I honestly could not breathe - my face went red, and I didn't enough have enough oxygen to say, "OK, joke's over. Stop." I mean, this Danny kid was a strong guy, and I really had no way of getting him off me.
So I elbowed him in the junk (which missed and got him in the thigh), and then when he finally let me up, I threw a beer at him and punched him twice in the face, before he came back at me and Bucholtz - wearing his delightfully tacky Cowichan sweater - broke it up.
I never got hit, and then I left the room, followed by Sean and Chris. A few seconds later, the goalie tried to come after me again in the lobby, but Chris stopped us from having round 2 (And almost started trading punches with him, himself, he said.)
After the situation defused, Chris (who, not surprisingly, was pretty jacked up about the whole ordeal) and Sean both said I did the right thing. Jones did too. Jeremy said "Well, he owes you a punch" which is, of course, bullshit (No offence Jer - so you can't be mad). And it's only bullshit because fights are inherently not fair - somebody has to start it, somebody has to throw the first punch, and unless it's one of those schoolyard, "Meet me at the swings at recess" fights where both parties know it's about to happen, a fight is usually going to be a surprise to somebody. If he owes me a punch, I owe him a 15-second choke hold, because I didn't see that coming either.
And sure, I know that it was unlikely I was going to get the worst of it - I was in a room with 10 of my friends, you think they were gonna stand around while I got pummeled? No, of course not. But regardless, that's the situation we were in.
Besides, I think everybody knows I'm not a violent, angry, fight-starting person. But when you can't breath, you panic. And I definitely did - and when I could breath again, I just sort of snapped. I mean, you gotta stick up for yourself, and that's what happened. I didn't even consciously decide to do it - I mean, it wasn't until afterward that I even knew I hit him twice. I thought it was just once.
It was all a blur. And though I feel bad for making the dressing room an awkward place - and for making Dan suffer through the world's most awkward drive home (He gave Danny, the goalie, a ride), I don't really apologize for much else.
But I'll tell you what - for a guy who never really got hit, fuck was I ever sore on Saturday morning. Back, shoulder, neck - from the choke - it all fucking felt like I'd been in a car accident. I'm definitely too old for that shit.
Therefore, I think it's in everybody's best interest if I retire. With a perfect 2-0 record and without ever having taken a punch*.
*Whether this is because a) I'm one helluva crafty scrapper, or b) because I'm lucky or c) because my friends break things up quick, is really here nor there.)
(The line of the night goes to Lambie, who apparently said after I left the dressing room, "Leave it to Nick to insult the guy with a joke about the Internet." As me and Danny yelled at each other on the way out, I called him a "fucking Craigslist hack" because he's not a very good goalie, and because Jer found him for the team via the online classifieds.)
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