Things didn’t start out too well for us. To begin with, we weren’t sure if we would even have a goalie for this game. Big John decided to bring his son’s goalie gear “just in case,” and it turned out he would be using them himself. John has played goalie, but only a few times.

Also, when I arrived at the locker room, 15 minutes before game time, there were only three other people getting ready. Since it takes 6 players to start the game, we wondered if we would even get to play.

Eventually, a few more people showed up, but we only had 8 total- 7 skaters plus Big John in goal. This meant we didn’t even have enough players for a full line change.

We played and substituted as well as we could, given the circumstances, but at times we all ended up playing positions different than our usual ones. During the first period, I got a bit confused and actually played the puck outside of the attacking zone, rather than shooting towards the goal- the defenseman thanked me for making his job easier.

The result of the game was, not surprisingly, pretty sad. We gave up 40 shots on goal, and lost 0-8.