I grab a ball from the grass and begin to skate around the street and shoot at the empty net. The music is still playing until we all have made our entrances. We all begin to stretch and warm up, mocking the professionals we see on television in every way we can remember. As the song comes to an end, we all realize that it is time to begin. We lineup at the blue line which Eric drew on the street with chalk, and my brother Devin puts the National Anthem on the stereo. We take our helmets off and face the flag that hangs from Dave’s house.

At this point in the day it was time for a lunch break. Mike and I returned to my house to retrieve our sandwiches that my mom had made and put in the fridge before she went to work that morning. We also grabbed a Gatorade each to quench our thirst. We took our sandwiched down in front of Dave’s house because we would all eat our lunch together. As I sit down, Devin, the statistician for our games, comes over to me and says, “You only have on goal in the first three games.” I get frustrated, but I know that it is my little brother so I just reply “I’ll do better next game.”

Our parents couldn’t complain either. This is exactly what boys in seventh and eighth grade should be doing during the summer. Going outside, getting exercise, and being social with the kids on the block. They actually encouraged it. Our situation made it so easy as well. I lived in a big grey house right in the middle of the block. Two doors down from me one way lived Keith, and two doors down the other way was Eric. Dave and Andrew were brothers who were three doors down from mine and were next door neighbors with Eric. Mike didn’t live on our block, but lived close enough to come to my house every single day.

It all seemed so familiar. We each wore the same jerseys and helmets everyday, and the way in which we began would always be the same. One might ask if we would ever get sick of doing the same thing every day. Each one of us would reply “No” to that question. We may have played hockey every day, but each game was more fun than the last.

As soon as the song is over there is a brief period of skating around the street once again as Andrew and Mike retrieve our makeshift goalie from the shed. Nobody ever wanted to play goalie, so there came a time when we were too good to shoot the ball into a garbage can that we needed to create a device that would make scoring more of a challenge and therefore more rewarding. Dave and I put our heads together and were able to invent a perfect solution.

Without hesitation we lined back up to being the second game. Our team was mad that we didn’t play well in the first, and we got confident that we would win the next one. Things started out better as I won the face-off, but would suddenly become sour. Eric was really on fire that day, and I couldn’t keep up with him. Six goals later we were down 3-0 in the series. It looked bleak for our team, and we all had the same thought in our minds. It was so rare for a team in the NHL to come back and win a best of seven series when losing 3-0.

And I did. The next g

Some topics in this essay:
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