Sorry to interrupt Achmed’s tale of discovery with all the possibly uninteresting observations that I am having about everything lately… I don’t know what has gotten into my head...
So, when I left you all sitting on the edge of your office chairs over a week ago, I had just gotten the news that I was going for a CT scan… I should probably fill you in a little on how Floyd and Greg have played such a major role in my life this past winter.
One cold Friday night in February, in a Mount Pearl hockey rink, where there is no hitting and no slap shots, a very gentlemanly game, there was a bit of a pile-up in front of the goalie in my end of the rink. I don’t know what caused it, but I do know there were a few lads on the ice, and one of them was on his knees directly behind me. The fact that someone fell down behind me was not the problem, the fact that Floyd is not a strong skater and lost his balance in front of me was! As Floyd caught his failing struggle with gravity, his fist or elbow caught my face, transferring all of his downward energy to me. This is where the guy on the ice behind me came into the picture… I am a little over 6 feet with my skates on, so that is about how far my head fell before everyone in the rink hears that plastic smack of a helmet hitting the ice. It is one of those sounds that almost makes you stomach sick, because you know damn well that sound always leads to something bad.
As I opened my eyes, there were a couple of guys looking down on me, someone said, “Are you ok?” As I stood up, the string of adjectives that came barrelling out of me about what I thought of Floyd and what I was going to do to him if he came near me again… it is not really for public consumption, in fact I am a little bit embarrassed about it now, but that night… let’s just say I followed through on the threat. Not 5 minutes later, Floyd was carrying the puck up the ice, along the boards, with his head down… directly towards me. Apparently in that instant, I did not care that it was a no-hitting game, and I must have had the look of an axe murderer in my eyes because just before I imprinted Floyd’s body on the boards I heard one of the guys say, “Uh oh… this doesn’t look good…”
Anyway, as I said in an earlier post, sorry Floyd!
So, that was Floyd’s part in the Achmed discovery, Greg’s was not nearly as exciting… which is probably lucky for him because he can’t be more than 120 lbs with his gear on, in fact, I am pretty sure that I can fit him and his gear in my equipment bag.
Floyd’s incident with his elbow to my face was an accident, and truthfully, I did feel kind of bad when I hit him a few minutes later, not bad enough to apologize, which I certainly should have, but bad enough so that the next time something like that happened, I would just let it go… accidents happen (although in fairness to me, that game that probably Floyd, and definately I will never forget, was pretty chippy and I felt like he was at me all night and I was pissed off).
I guess you could say that Floyd’s misfortune was Greg’s fortune, because 8 days later in Torbay, I got my bell rung again… in another accident that I didn’t see coming. In fact, there was an amateur photographer at the game that night and he caught the bang in the head on film… I’ll dig it up and post it!
So, when I left you all sitting on the edge of your office chairs over a week ago, I had just gotten the news that I was going for a CT scan… I should probably fill you in a little on how Floyd and Greg have played such a major role in my life this past winter.
One cold Friday night in February, in a Mount Pearl hockey rink, where there is no hitting and no slap shots, a very gentlemanly game, there was a bit of a pile-up in front of the goalie in my end of the rink. I don’t know what caused it, but I do know there were a few lads on the ice, and one of them was on his knees directly behind me. The fact that someone fell down behind me was not the problem, the fact that Floyd is not a strong skater and lost his balance in front of me was! As Floyd caught his failing struggle with gravity, his fist or elbow caught my face, transferring all of his downward energy to me. This is where the guy on the ice behind me came into the picture… I am a little over 6 feet with my skates on, so that is about how far my head fell before everyone in the rink hears that plastic smack of a helmet hitting the ice. It is one of those sounds that almost makes you stomach sick, because you know damn well that sound always leads to something bad.
As I opened my eyes, there were a couple of guys looking down on me, someone said, “Are you ok?” As I stood up, the string of adjectives that came barrelling out of me about what I thought of Floyd and what I was going to do to him if he came near me again… it is not really for public consumption, in fact I am a little bit embarrassed about it now, but that night… let’s just say I followed through on the threat. Not 5 minutes later, Floyd was carrying the puck up the ice, along the boards, with his head down… directly towards me. Apparently in that instant, I did not care that it was a no-hitting game, and I must have had the look of an axe murderer in my eyes because just before I imprinted Floyd’s body on the boards I heard one of the guys say, “Uh oh… this doesn’t look good…”
Anyway, as I said in an earlier post, sorry Floyd!
So, that was Floyd’s part in the Achmed discovery, Greg’s was not nearly as exciting… which is probably lucky for him because he can’t be more than 120 lbs with his gear on, in fact, I am pretty sure that I can fit him and his gear in my equipment bag.
Floyd’s incident with his elbow to my face was an accident, and truthfully, I did feel kind of bad when I hit him a few minutes later, not bad enough to apologize, which I certainly should have, but bad enough so that the next time something like that happened, I would just let it go… accidents happen (although in fairness to me, that game that probably Floyd, and definately I will never forget, was pretty chippy and I felt like he was at me all night and I was pissed off).
I guess you could say that Floyd’s misfortune was Greg’s fortune, because 8 days later in Torbay, I got my bell rung again… in another accident that I didn’t see coming. In fact, there was an amateur photographer at the game that night and he caught the bang in the head on film… I’ll dig it up and post it!
When Greg’s sliding carcass took me out at the ankles, I dropped like a bag of bricks (poor guy, he ended up under me) and the right side of my head took the brunt of the force… and it hurt. My ears were ringing, my head was pounding and things got blurry. Don’t get me wrong, I finished playing the game, but I was a hurting unit… I don’t think I even had a beer that night. By the time I woke up Sunday morning, I decided I need to see the doctor, because 2 massive slams to the head that were making me deaf, had to be bad for me. That is when I started down my road to the discovery of Achmed.
Interestingly enough, as I have explained this over and over to people, they all have said that getting knocked out was the best thing that ever happened to me. I think they are right… amazing what you can see with hindsight. Last week I had coffee with a friend of mine and she mentioned to me that I must have had angels watching over me to be knocked on my head twice in a week (interesting way for an angel to earn their wings!)
I guess it is a good thing that I went to the doctor after the second smack to the skull… the third bang may have been a truck knocking me over!
From Achmed and Me… Live Life!
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