By Eugene G. Bernardo II, M.P.A. ’95Photo(s) by Nora Lewis
I am 37 years old. Thirty-seven years old, yet I still carry hockey around in my head for the entire day I am scheduled to play. I catalog my equipment, wonder if I have enough tape, if my skates need sharpening, if there are any goals remaining in my stick. I romanticize about slipping the puck through the defenseman’s skates and receiving it on the other side, free and clear, skating in all alone on the goalie.
And yet, what is this game? What is it that makes serious and ambitious men rearrange schedules and ink into their appointment books every Sunday night from October to March as sacrosanct? What hold does hockey have on us?
We are a ragtag group. Our games are played late at night in an arena that is absolutely empty. Bodies are of all ages and conditions, hairlines and waistlines contracting and expanding in all the wrong directions, abilities across the entire visible spectrum, fading fast. But, strangely, it doesn’t matter. Just close your eyes and listen to the banter on the bench, the laughter on the ice.
Sunday night hockey is only a little bit about hockey. It’s play we seek. I love the physicality—feeling powerful, even graceful, when I skate. I relish my ability to feel my own crisp breeze and to crunch loud, biting ridges into the ice as I move.
I love the self-discovery. Life away from the ice is complicated, its outcomes smudged and opaque, its motivations rationalized and finessed. On the ice, you see yourself and others in rudimentary form—whether good or bad. Do you try hard? Are you fair? Are you selfish? Are you willing to take risks? Do you care too much or too little? Are you a team player?
I love the feeling of “team,” our bench yapping at their bench, their bench yapping at ours; moaning the bad calls; cheering the good pass, the great save. Sweaty, tired, middle-aged faces come alive, snapping with energy.
This emphasis on laughs in the dressing room and fun on the ice is what I expected, but there has also been an astonishing dividend that I had not expected. Sunday night hockey has formed fast friendships among us, team bonds to treasure.
And for this I must thank our University for constructing our new ice arena.
A lawyer in Providence, Eugene Bernardo lives in South Kingstown.
