We are the champions

Winning.

The sweet taste of victory.

The delicious, delightful, intoxicatingly wonderful aroma that wafts only in the rarefied air that champions breathe.

Last night, our rag-tag bunch of middle-aged puck pushers did the unthinkable by claiming a summer hockey championship that nobody would have expected at season’s start.

From puck drop to final buzzer, it was a dominant performance from what turned out to be a dominant squad.

And best of all?

We prevailed over a pack of precocious young punks. A tempestuous team of little twerps that never for a second saw our grizzled graybeards coming.  

We schooled them. Taught them a lesson.

We passed the puck. They didn’t.

We buried our chances. They didn’t.

We stayed out of the penalty box. They didn’t.

We kept our mouths shut. They didn’t.

We won the cup. They didn’t.

It was beautiful. And it was earned.

For eight years, we have toiled away in anonymity, unable to even come close to clinching a cup.

Eight years.

Summer hockey, seven seasons. Winter hockey, eight.

That’s fifteen combined seasons in which we have been unable to reap the rewards of victory, fighting to the finals twice prior, falling short on both occasions.

But not last night.

Last night, we put it all together.

We played like pros.

We prevailed.

We earned the right to linger on the ice longer than our opponents, and to pose for the pictures that will preserve our win forever in photograph.

Last night, we won the cup.

And today, we are the champions.