Our wives certainly can be annoying at times can’t they?
They can drive men crazy with their “honey do” lists, they assume we have journeyman tickets in plumbing, carpentry and electrical, and they make us watch those gawdawful “hidden gem” movies.
However, they do have their moments of glory.
On Sunday I had my Black Diamond Hockey League championship game and en route I noticed my contacts were bugging me.
At the arena I took the contacts out, switched them around, turned them inside out, dropped them in the sink, whatever I could think of to try and fix them. Nothing worked.
Now, having cloudy contacts is not the best situation for a goaltender, but I headed out for warm-up praying they would clear up.
They did not as blurry pucks zipped by my head like a foggy hailstorm. Uh oh. I was in trouble.
Now, I had played an incredible amount of hockey over the past two weeks with playoffs in Black Diamond, Blackie and the renowned Blackie Bobcats 4-on-4 tournament.
Our Okotoks Outlaws stunned High River to win the Blackie league Wednesday and I managed a shoot-out win in the Bobcat tournament final on Saturday night.
It was the best week of hockey in my life and on Sunday I was going for the unprecedented triple crown in Black Diamond.
Now it looked like I was destined to end my dream season with a humiliating loss due to dirty contacts.
However, five minutes into Sunday’s game I realized I likely grabbed my wife’s contacts by mistake! Panicked, I stopped the game and pleaded with a friend to call my wife and tell her to bring my contacts to Black Diamond.
I would have nervously watched the clock waiting for my wife if I could see the clock.
Eight minutes into the second my princess in shining sweat pants came to my rescue.
They mercifully stopped the game as she helped me switch contacts. Indeed, I had accidently put in her contacts, but now thanks to my wife, I had an incredible sense of relief.
Unbelievably, our Okotoks Penguins were leading the tenacious Turner Valley Steelers 3-0.
Of course, they scored on their first shot when the game restarted and scored three more in the third to take a 4-3 lead.
How ironic would it be that I was unbeatable wearing my wife’s contacts, but was lit up with my own?
Thankfully, we scored with under a minute left and won the league title in a shoot-out.
I had my triple crown!
I ran home excited to tell my wife of our victory and thank her for playing an integral role in the win.
Her response? “You let in four goals after you changed your contacts?” Ah, they certainly know how to keep us off balance, but we love them don’t we? Thanks for everything sweetie — it was a great week and I could not have done it without you. And thanks to all my Outlaw, Penguin and Blackie mates, what a season.
