I went and saw my favorite hockey club, the Flames, practice the other day after my little brother's hockey practice was over. The skating was fantastic, the shooting and passing and nifty little tricks were mesmerizing. But the men... hot damn.
I'm not usually the kind of girl who likes to oggle good looking men every time I see one, but standing six feet away from them as they were playing and laughing and moving... wow. I mean, wow.
After the practice was over a crowd of little boys, probably ages 7-12, clustered in the lobby outside the change rooms waiting for their heroes to come out and sign their jerseys or their own hockey sticks. The interesting thing was that behind the huge cluster of short people in red was the cluster of the dads who wanted an autograph too. Of course, behind these full grown boys stood me. Because my brother had to leave for a party right after his practice, I was told to stay behind and get some autographs for him.
I thought this would be easy.
Just a bunch of little kids.
Maybe one of those beautiful men would notice me and...
Anyway!
Let me just say that these little boys knew how to work this system (whatever this system was). The 'cute face' was applied along with the 'stuttering shy kid' bit and more often than not there was the awed silence that came with tilting their necks back so far that their little hats kept falling off. How could I possibly compete with this?? I thought maybe I had a bit of a chance early on because of my uniqueness factor (being the only woman there who wasn't a hockey mom) and that probably would have worked if it wasn't for the obsessed hockey dads who liked to push in front and compete with each other after their weasely little spawn had finished with the poor hockey star and he was trying to escape.
All in all I ended up only getting three signatures for my brother and only one of them was of a player I really admired (the other two are fairly new to the team and the only reason I got them was because I don't think the midgets recognized them). The truly unfortunate part about this wasn't the lack of autographs or marriage proposals, it was that all the other adults there, including the players, thought I was 14 years old. When one hockey mom saw me get pushed back by a throng of crazed little boys and their equally crazed (but way more annoying) dads, she said to me in the kindest voice, "hey sweetie, who are you lookin' for? Awwww well you know, my husband could get in there for you and get a couple nice signatures if you want? It would be OK, I'm sure he would love to!" and so on.
It was then that I decided to leave. Hanging around was pointless when the only thing I was getting was bruised toes and drowning ego.
Have to say though, man they were somethin' else to watch up close!
