What a day for hockey. The air was cold, it was dark outside and you could see the people gathering for the event. The moment I walked in the room I got the chill that I get every time I cross the threshold from the Case Center lobby to the Walter Brown rink. This wasn’t your usual sports event, however. There weren’t thousands of people, but rather three participants and occasionally a spectator. The frigid air was not from being in a room with ice but only because we had left the window open in the common room.
We had gathered there in front of the television, which was connected to a large, grey box. The box ran two wires to two hunks of plastic that were nestled in our hands. This was the closest any of us will ever come to being in front of thousands of people and playing at the level of all our heroes.
Tonight was the NHL 2K2 Hockey Tournament in our apartment.
We only have two controllers for three players, so we have devised a round robin tournament. One of my roommates, Khurram, loves Philadelphia (even though he’s from Binghamton) so he likes to be the Flyers. The other roommate who participates, Toby, is one of those obnoxious people from Westchester who thinks he is from the city, so he chooses the Rangers. Because I’m from Baltimore and I don’t have a hockey team in town, I have adopted the San Jose Sharks. This choice is made simply because they have roughly the same rating in the game as the Flyers and Rangers.
It is a dual elimination tournament and we have divided ourselves into seeds. Khurram is the owner of the Dreamcast. This means that is he is far better than the rest of us and he gets the first seed. Because Toby has never beaten me, I get the number two seed. This means I must watch and wait to play the loser of Khurram and Toby.
I mean, the loser of the Flyers and the Rangers.
It was a well played game by both, but in the end the Flyers won, 4-1. (The game was much closer than the score indicated because Toby substituted Eric Lindros on every line at the end of the game.) Toby still hasn’t quite learned how to play defense at a top level, but I still was worried about facing him. He can use Mark Messier and Lindros well enough on offense that he is capable of scoring three goals, so I knew I had to play my best.
The Rangers played well, but my combo of Teemu Selanne, Owen Nolan and Marco Sturm (he finished with two goals) was too much. Evgeni Nabokov played great in goal, and Toby left the room frustrated and winless in the tournament. The best of three games was set up between Khurram and me for the championship.
Because he was the number one seed, Khurram got to be the home team. Home ice may seem to be irrelevant when it only changes the graphic at center ice, but the game would prove otherwise. Late in the second period of a scoreless game, John LeClair put the puck in the back of the net after a clear penalty on Jeremy Roenick near the blue line. I played the game under protest, but still lost, 1-0.
I came back, though, and didn’t allow another goal in the tournament. The Sharks were simply the better team on this night. Philadelphia, New York and San Jose might all have an overall rating of 82, but tonight was my night. The passing was too good. The holding down of the turbo button was too much for my opponents to overcome.
After the finals ended, I walked into my room covered with plastic tarps, and popped the champagne. It flowed like water, and I was the king of the world. After two weeks of practicing this new game, I had defeated the champion. It was the best feeling of my athletic life. Sure, there will be other tournaments, and I may never win again, but no one can ever say that I wasn’t a champion once.
I gave up on sports in high school. When I didn’t make the junior varsity basketball team my freshman year, I knew I was finished. I was never going to be Michael Jordan. Thirty thousand fans were never going to hold up signs that read, ‘Nobody beats Dietz.’ I have learned to live with this and move on to other things. Video games, however, have allowed me to at least get a taste of what athletes go through in times of triumph. Because of this game, and for no other reason, I was able to hoist the Stanley Cup into the air (or at least an image of the Stanley Cup was lifted by images of players that I controlled).
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