Not zero. Multiple zeroes. Shaped a bit like a puck, but mostly not a good hockey number. Unless you’re a goalie.

Last Thursday was my annual old-timer league Christmas tournament. Over 2 hours, the 4 teams in the league each player each other, a 3-game round robin of 15 minute games. 6 games in total.

The energy is quite a bit higher than our normal 2-game time slot, where you play one game over 50 minutes. No, in this festive soiree, when the puck drops on game 1, everyone is 12 again, and goes like hell. A couple of shifts in, sucking wind, when you glance up at the clock, you’re jarred by the realization there’s only 5 minutes remaining. First goal often wins.

In game 1, my white squad got scored on early, played about as effectively as wet paper towel tidies up a spill and lost 1-0. No worries, a 2-1 record an hour out and we could still be champs.

In game 2, we got scored on early, played about as well as a Zamboni with not enough water or a broken scraper cleans the ice, and lost 1-0. A 1-2 record rarely results in a championship.

We headed to the room for a 2-game break, ate a little farmer’s sausage that Kernel always brings, re-hydrated, and talked about how sweet it would be to play spoiler in our last game, if our opponent needed the win to be champions.

Game 3. Out we went. No early score against in this one. We had found our game. We were a defensive machine. Thwarting the gold side, who indeed needed the win to earn glory, we lamented our missed opportunities in games 1 and 2. We were feeling it. The tide had turned.

And we tied 0-0. But down went gold. And home we went, regaling ourselves with the sparkling .67 goals against per game number we put up across 3 games. Not zero, and not bad either.