Monday Musings: Old habits break hard

It was one of those moments where the most innocent of actions ends up with unintended – and undesirable – consequences.

Just before the opening face off in our game against the Pirates last Friday, the players of the two teams were settling into our spots on the ice.  I lined up in my customary right wing spot.   All of a sudden, I felt something push into the back of my right knee, and my leg buckled and kicked out from under me.  I was sent up into the air and landed hard and flat on my back (good grief, something like this).  The momentum of my landing whipped the back of my head against the ice.

CRACK!

The back of my head, protected by my Mission Carbster helmet, struck the ice hard.  I was stunned for the next several moments, and looked up dizzily at the people gathered around me: a referee, one of the other team’s players who had lined up in front of me, and two of my own players – one of whom was the one who took me out.  After I recomposed myself, I skated to the bench and decided to get my bearings before I took a shift. After a quick bout of nausea (and embarrassment for the scene I just displayed at center ice before the game even started), by the middle of the first period I was feeling fine.  My head didn’t hurt at all – thanks to my Carbster.

Now, before we played on the same team here on the Hogs, I was used to Phillips15 knocking me down on a regular basis when I played against him.  I would park in front of his net and he would find any way to get me out of the way of his goalie.  I guess he had a little of that left in him!  It was him who had playfully attempted to knock me off balance before our game, though he obviously didn’t realize I would fall the way I did.  He was very apologetic for the rest of the night, and I certainly hold no ill will towards him at all.  Aside from some minor whiplash for next two days, I’ve been fine.

I can’t say the same about my Carbster, however.  When I got home, I took a close look at my helmet and discovered this on the back:

The old bucket had sustained fatal damage – the impact of my head to the ice was so hard that it cracked my helmet like an egg and exposed its inards.  As such, I had to retire this helmet, which has served me so well and certainly saved me from major injury.  After a short ceremony, I sadly sent my beloved Mission Carbster to Helmet Heaven.

It’s not all sad, because as they say, out of tragedy comes triumph.  After removing my face cage (a Jofa FM480) and any salvageable hardware (screws and snaps) from the old Carbster, I put them on a new helmet that has waited patiently for many months to take its rightful place on my melon:

Long live Mission Carbster, the Second!

Singh10.