Deaflympics 2007: Thursday: 2/8/07

 Today I am working at the Deaflympic Store doing who knows what. They need more volunteers and I don't have hockey until 7pm so I offer my help. When I get there I am assigned to deal with the orders. The 'store' looks like a mini Gap with tables of clothes and misc. crap. Very soon after taking over the orders, I become the 'hearing person who talks/explains to the hearing customers' even the ones who don't speak any english. It's not so bad though and actually kind of fun though really busy. The place has two settings, busy or dead and it's more busy. At some point a super hot Italian guy comes in with who I hope is his sister. He wants to order some stuff and he speaks a tiny bit of English while I speak no Italian. It takes a while but we get everything figured out and he plans to come back the next day to check on the order. Oh man I hope so. There aren't really any breaks, lunch or otherwise so I eat when it's slow and runs to the bathroom right before I'm about to wet my pants. Ah memories.... Eventually I sneak out at 6pm and go home for an hour. I want to be at the Ice Center by 7pm to watch the Medal Ceremony and then help out with hockey. I have just enough time to eat something quickly and check my mail, so it's not too bad.

 

At the Ice Center I'm told that a lot of the other volunteers have quit due to illness. Yeah right, they just didn't like their jobs. Well, that's what I thought until I got the flu that was going around.... I am assigned to sit in the Penalty Box for Sweden (vs Canada) for the night's game. Holy crap, I get to sit next to hot hockey players? Hell yeah! I sit in the box getting mentally ready as the teams practice on the ice. One of the Swedish players hits a puck right at me but it bounces off the plexiglass. I flinch and jump several feet into the air and he apologizes. Wow, how embarrassing! Ok there's a few downsides I hadn't thought of: the guys are pissed to be in there and throwing tantrums, throwing their sticks and hitting the walls. Also they are spitting all over the floor, gross. One player even tried to get the ref wet but got me instead. It's also unbelievably cold. All as romantic as I'd imagined it to be. I also get to give the ref a new puck when he needs one and the first and only time I throw it over the puck over the plexiglass, but instead it goes straight up in the air and then tries to go straight back down. I attempt a spike over the glass but it bounces off and goes in another direction. Dammit that's embarrassing! I toss him another one.

Some of these players are so mad that I'm afraid I'm going to get hit! Not as if they would punch me but their stick might bounce off the plexiglass and hit me. The rest of the game quickly goes from 'wow hot players' to 'not the face!' I sorta feel like I should tell them to knock it off but I'm pretty sure they'd get a few hits in before someone pulled them off me. It's better to keep quiet. The players are sitting next to me, angry and disgusting and then it hits me, I'm sitting in the penalty box for the Deaflympics, how cool is that? I get a dopey grin which I have to quickly hide from the players. Also I start out thinking 'hockey is a rough game' then towards the end 'Sweden needs to get it's shit together and stop throwing tantrums' what the hell? All in all it was a bad first date but an awesome experience. Canada beats Sweden so bad that they actually flip the screen for 'attempted shots'. Over 100 and the game is still on.... The Swedish goalie is awesome though because for all of those attempts, Canada only made 9 goals which is pretty amazing.

 

I have a hard time sleeping at night thinking about the penalty box and am I going to leave it friday night with a broken nose or what....