Diaries From Whistler – By Steve Meadows

After 4 years of less than successful results on the ice, I've come to accept that the whole point of participating in this tournament isn't about winning trophies. As Brent says, the Whistler tourney is about team bonding. Any success on the ice would be a welcome surprise but at this point it would be just that...a surprise. All I'm hoping for is to keep the score to single digits after absolutely stinking the joint out at last year's tournament. I'm optimistic that with the line-up we're taking up this year, we have a chance to at least finally win our second ever game in Whistler.

Day 1 - Thursday
I decide at the last minute to go up a day early and hang out with Brent and Rick. I arrive at around 5 PM to find things are pretty much as anticipated. Brent is passed out having not slept for 4 days or some damned thing. Rick was lounging on the bed watching hockey and slamming Don Cherry. In the bathroom there was a bathtub full of corn on the cob. Hey! I feel right at home! We go out for a bite to eat at Earls, where a fetching brunette waitress with three stars tattooed on her chest serves up some way too expensive food and alcohol while Brent and Rick eye up all the s**ts and hoes (their words not mine) in the place. I face the wall and think of a way to hide the MasterCard bill from my penny-pinching wife. After that, it’s on to Buffalo Bills for a nice quiet evening of debauchery. It's a younger crowd than I'm used to seeing at Bill's. No one even has a cane. There's lots of bald guys that can't dance on the dance floor so again, I feel right at home. I amuse myself by watching a group of people set fire to their fingers after dipping them in their shooters. I wonder how I would explain this to my kids. "No, really kids. Fire is BAD." Brent and Rick fail to pick up any of the drunken eye candy so we decide to go back to the hotel for a dip in the hot tub. I'm told that later that evening that Brent and Rick went back to Bill's and actually busted a move with a couple of hot chicks but this may have been a ploy to re-establish their relevance as swinging singles. Unimpressed, I make up some semblance of a bed on the floor and try in vain to sleep. Big revelation of the day from Brent: “If you don’t feel pain, it doesn’t hurt”.

Day 2 - Friday
As we are about to check out of the hotel Brent somehow loses his car keys and absolute panic ensues. Turns out he dropped them in the elevator and they ended up at the front desk. Crisis averted, we make our way to our new digs. Upon our arrival we discover that housekeeping has forgotten about us. We begin stripping the sheets and loading towels into the washer. Now I REALLY feel at home. Sometime during dinner, housekeeping finally shows their faces and hastily goes about their work while we prepare for out first game of the tournament. By now, all the Ironmen have arrived on the scene except Dave Toyoda who is staying elsewhere. Its kind of cool to have the whole team staying under one roof even though it's clear to me that there won't be much sleeping going on tonight.

At Meadow Park arena for our first game, things go pretty much according to the Ironmen blueprint. We are down 4 - zip midway through the first period against the Stick Fix Preds, a team of cocky, hung-over, young punks when we finally start pulling it together and come storming back to take a 5-4 lead. I must say I'm impressed with our determination and togetherness on the ice. I feel like we're playing some of the best hockey we've ever played at Whistler. The forwards are creating chances and the defense has adjusted well to keep some of their hot-dogging showboats at bay. I don't cross the opponents blue line the entire game as they try to position 2 or more seagulls behind me for the home run bomb. Dave is playing solid in the net now and is stopping everything in close after a couple of long shots got by him earlier. Then disaster strikes as Todd Fraser picks up an accidental 5-minute high sticking penalty with just over 6 minutes left on the clock and the score tied at 5. We put forth at pretty solid PK but are unable to whether the storm as the Preds finally pop in the winning goal followed by an empty netter with time running out. It's a damn shame we didn't hang on because we deserved a better fate. I take solace in the fact that we aren't blown out and that our effort was definitely where it needs to be.

Back at the kingpin lodge for the evening, most of the guys throw a few bucks away at Texas hold 'em while Brent, Rick, Dan and myself engage in a makeshift NHL 2005 tournament. I lose game after game but gradually start winning as my alcohol consumption increases (hmmmmm.... perhaps a couple of cocktails before our game tomorrow????). Neil, Paul, Chris and Kern have an early tee-off time in the AM, which I’m certain they will miss and Todd is still, busy downing vodka and Red Bulls. Stinking drunk, he pours himself into bed at around 4:30 while Brent, Rick and I release some of the booze from our pores in the hot tub before finally calling it a night at around 5 AM.

Day 3 - Saturday
As expected, the golfers have missed their tee-time as snooze-button-happy Neil fails to drag his ass out of the bed. I wake up to Neil's description of his mouth tasting like a bum. Fortunately, He manages to secure a later tee-off time and the tired foursome heads off to the golf course. Everyone else chills out waiting for our 4:00 tilt against the Vancouver Wolves except for Dan Riley, who has gone on a solitary excursion to Brandywine Falls to find himself.

The game starts out well and we pick up an early lead thanks to the talents of Chris Dawe who beats the goalie with a great shot. It's clear to me that the Wolves are a skilled team but no more so than the one we played yesterday. Unfortunately, the Wolves wake up and eventually go for the throat. The goaltending efforts of Dave Toyoda are not enough. I, along with the rest of the D men spend most of the game retrieving our jocks straps as the Wolves dipsy and doodle past us in a gear that we obviously don't have. As I get undressed after the game I quickly forget the score (8-1) but am very aware that it wasn't pretty. I also discover that I forgot my towel at the house. It takes 67 sheets of paper towel to dry off after a shower. I take my can of beer and throw it in my hockey bag and head back to the house where I find that my skate has punched a hole in the can and leaked beer over all my equipment. I cheer myself up by remembering that I haven't vomited yet this trip.

We lounge around the T.V. watching the Oilers take care of the Ducks (close-up of Brian Burke as he plans J.S. Guiguere's route to the airport). Dinnertime is going to be huge tonight. Steaks, salads, pork, corn on the cob, fries, and an excellent pasta dish whipped up by Todd Fraser. Dan and Jerry go off to the village to look for hemp-based products. Nice shirts guys. Later another poker game breaks out. It's been years since I've played but I throw 20 bucks in anyway and lose it almost instantly. Note to self: work on poker face! Todd ends up the big winner on the night although I suspect he might have put some secret ingredient in the pasta. Brent and Rick have made a B line for Buffalo Bills and everyone else follows after the poker game except for Paul Savage and me. I didn't have many drinks but I think I had one of everything. My gut feels like a toxic waste bin after drinking wine, beer, vodka, rum, Red Bull and something with milk in it earlier in the evening. I'm looking forward to unconsciousness and later, Rick's taunts of "CUPCAKE". Another note to self: no more mixing of alcohol!

2:50 AM - There's a hell of a racket in the bathroom next to my bed. Chris Dawe has bashed into the wall and smacked himself a good one. I strain to hear the familiar retching and dull tones of bile hitting toilet water that soon follows. I'm secretly wishing that, like me, he could have waited until the middle of a game to toss his cookies.

Day 4 - Sunday
The weekend has taken its toll on most of us. Those of us that don't look like shit smell like it as in Chris Dawe's case. Someone with an odor that offensive should carry a permit. Rick, however, claims that he feels fresher before the third game than for the other two games. I begin constructing my Rick Makarowski voodoo doll. As I sit in the dressing room strapping on my reeking, beer-soaked gear for the last time Danny Glover's famous line from Lethal Weapon pops into my head...."I'm too old for this shit". I squeeze on my slimy helmet and head out to slaughter. Everything is a bit of the blur on the ice. We are 3 goals down to some Whistler hotshot team before I realize that Jerry Franko is my defensive partner. Thankfully, Jerry is in no mood for long shifts in this game as he adopts the "dump and change" strategy. Dave Toyoda is absolutely standing on his freaking head in goal for us. It kills me that we can't score some goals for this guy up here. Later in the game I do score a goal. Sadly, I beat Dave with a deflection of a pass across the crease on a two-on-one. At this point even I'm too tired to blow a gasket anymore so I just lamely throw a water bottle against the wall in disgust at the bench. Brent has picked up his third minor penalty and is banished from the game as he tries to quell the frustration by getting physical. We score a late goal and can now boldly say that we owned them in the last 50 seconds. The game over, we collect our jock straps and leave the Meadow Park Arena behind for another year. I think our record is now a heady 1-14 in our 15 games in 5 years at Whistler. I guess Brent is right when he says the hockey is secondary at the Whistler Tournament as I'm already looking forward to next year.