Do you Believe in Basements?….Yes!

No skates.  No Ice.  Just tennis shoes and clubs.

The Winter Olympics isn’t just about figure skating around a rink.  With remorse, I was forced by my sisters to watch ice skating.  Although knowing zero about figure skating or hockey, I preferred ice cream and ice hockey.

After witnessing the “Miracle on Ice”, in 1980, my brothers and friends became interested in the sport.  None of us had skates, but my father accumulated a load of golf clubs from many of the doctors working with him.  They provided the clubs as a form of tithing or charity.  After the 1980 Winter Olympics, we used the clubs as hockey sticks and the used golf balls as pucks.

While still wearing a leg brace at the time, I was forced to be the goalie.  Coincidentally, Jim Craig, the USA goalie, was my favorite player on the USA team.  I used a worn downed catcher’s mitt to defend our goal.  The mitt should have surrounded my face.  I took more golf balls off me from the basement floor than Frazier took hits from Ali.  Someone taking a putter and hitting a golfball into your forehead is just flat out embarrassing.  Can you at least pull out a three wood or even an eight iron.

Staggering back, it was glorious.  It may have been dangerous, but it sure was fun.

No brain, no pain. No goals.  Just use your head.

Perhaps, we’ll see another miracle this year.