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Tuesday, December 31, 2002

This hockey team has lost 12 games in a row, and its season's only half complete. It has lost by wide margins and by a hair's breadth. It has lost twice in the final two seconds. It has lost and lost and lost and lost, but nobody really loses here.

The coach is worried about his job. He needn't fret. He can coach this team as long as he wants. Kevin Constantine, the longtime NHL coach who oversees the Island Sports Center, met him for the first time Monday. Constantine's impression: "He has an upbeat attitude."

Players are taking themselves out of games because they cannot stop vomiting, though they still try to play. Players are getting treated by an emergency medical technician on the bench one minute, back on the ice the next. Players are playing harder than before, better than before, no matter the length of a losing streak with no end in sight.

Players are comporting themselves so well, we all should take notes. One opponent this past weekend spat at a few members of the losing side, "Nice game, [witch]." Another muttered a profanity under his breath at each and every member of the losing side. Sore winners? Or merely athletes without manners? This bothered and frustrated and even maddened the hockey team, but it went out the next day and played with class, played within the rules, played with panache against the very same team. It still lost, 3-0, but it seemed to remarkably outplay that almost-chippy opponent.

This hockey team works long and hard. Saturday and Sunday morning practices come before the sun, though there never seems to be any of that shining on this team. Suffice to say, those practices come before even the overnight snow and the freezing rain.

The coach and his three assistants have tried players at different positions, sometimes even from period to period, sometimes moving a body from defense to winger on successive shifts. They have played four goaltenders and squeezed amazing performances from each. They have drilled and drilled and drilled. They all have shaken their heads too often, out of frustration, out of empathy, out of disbelief. This team has done everything a winner needs to do, except win. Even once. Just once. Nobody asks for much.

These players wouldn't recognize Lady Luck or Lucky the leprechaun if either skated across their paths. They know only misfortune, pucks that bounce the other way and mistakes that almost always wind up in their own net. Nevertheless, they have yet to cave, yet to search for excuses, yet to complain. No curse words or cursing the hockey gods. No thrown sticks or fits.

Their loyal fans continue to fill their stands. They scream themselves hoarse. At the end of each game, they too have shaken their heads too often, out of a hockey bag full of emotions. They only want an end to the losing that pains the players, they only want something positive for their team. Just tell them where to sign for it, and they'd do it, forget the cost.

They'll go on wearing their team merchandise, making their banners, screaming and urging and begging. If that first victory comes -- heck, if a tie would ever arrive -- they will probably throw a mini-Mardi Gras. Never would a moment of tangible success, or the equivalent of kissing your little sister, be so savored.

True, their team hasn't been good enough to win yet. It has been close. And it appears to creep ever closer. An opponent that rolled by 8-1 one week had to perspire greatly to eke out a 2-1 victory this past weekend. The losing side keeps knocking on that door, but no one answers. They'll just keep right on knocking.

Underneath it all, though, this hockey team is already a winner, even at 0-12.

Its spirit, its tenacity, its sportsmanship could serve as a lesson to everyone in sports, everyone behind the benches or along the sidelines, everyone in the stands. Players don't have to lower themselves to the level of bickering and arguing and posturing and trash talking and intimidating. Coaches don't have to berate and skirt the rules and condone the worst of what we see in too many rotten episodes on television. Fans don't have to swear at the players and cheer mishaps and expect constant perfection from their players and their coaches.

Sports, at its most purest, remains simply a game. It is supposed to be challenging and fun and frustrating and dramatic and difficult. It is a mirror of life, and how many of us could really use Lady Luck to skate across our paths once in a while?

Strive for improvement, not perfection. Aim for enjoyment and camaraderie and the understanding of the right ways to perform. Revel in the act of competing and progressing, however small the strides.

At game's end, there can be nothing better than the unabashed delight of having played hard, having played near the best of your abilities, having teammates with whom to share such moments ... along with some juice boxes and cookies.

Yeah, we in sports can still learn a lot from our children.