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"Trippe! Perry! McGinness!" The coach calls out our names. He doesn't move or take his eyes off the action on the ice. Everyone knows what to do. Players shift up and down the bench, allowing me and my two linemates to move next to the coach. "You're on," he says, indicating we will go on the ice as soon as he can flag the other players off. With that, we are ready--mouthguards back in, gloves on, helmets snapped back in place. Ready? Fuck, with his next words, we would jump out of a plane or off a cliff if there were one nearby.

The momentum on the ice shifts. The other team starts to change up, leaving our defensemen free to begin carrying the puck up ice. My linemates stand on the bench, and I join them. This is a new tactic we have come up with on our own, and so far the coach hasn't nixed it. Rather than climb over the dasher onto the ice, we have taken to leaping from the bench, over the dasher, and onto the ice. Done right, this has a spectacular effect. Rather than awkwardly clambering over the boards, this allows us to hit the ice in stride, landing and streaking forward like invading marauders.

And we do. One by one our teammates crash into the boards and clamber off. And each incoming projectile is met with an outgoing one, my two linemates first and then finally me. In my mind's eye, my linemates--shorter, more solidly built than me--are incredibly graceful and land perfectly. I on the other hand, am all limbs, 6'2 and 155 pounds, and my body seems to require a dozen or more in-flight corrections between the moment I push off the bench and the moment first one skate edge and then the other catches the ice.

But I make it in stride--a rush in and of itself but then I hear my coach's voice, "Get 'em, Spider!" This is my teammates' nickname for me, and somehow I know all at once that this is the first time he has used it to address me and his decision to do this is purposeful. It's momentous.

I reach the opposing blueline just in time to see one of my linemates take out a defender with a shuddering check. What happened next was nothing short of pure hockey perfection. The puck slides out to me, on a line, flat as a pancake on the ice, and directly to my stick side.

Thank God I didn't have time to think and undo the moment.

Instead I did what I have done thousand of times on rinks, on frozen ponds and puddles, on frozen swimming pools and tennis courts, in driveways and on streets. I raised my stick and fired a slapshot in stride.

The puck was in the net before I finished my follow-through, and I saw the red goal light go on at the same instant someone leveled me with a stick check to the head. But the check didn't matter. Flat on my back on the ice, I was gone, screaming at the top of my lungs, an incomprehensible stream of syllables through my mouthguard that were met again and again as my teammates reached me, pulled me to my feet, and cuffed my head, punched me, pushed me, and jostled me as we skated back to the bench.

I'm back on the bench, facemask tilted up, downing water again in the same great gulps. Part of me is reliving the previous moment, part of me is basking in my teammates compliments and affection, part of me watching the new action break on the ice. "Spider," I hear again and again. "Way to go, Spider!" "Way to go!"