Balls Out

First of all, if you’re a lady and find this blog entry offensive or sexist, then I would like to apologize for your sensitivity. I cannot apologize for my opinions about the differences in our sexes. Man and woman, we are each a distinct sex as the way God intended it. And I am always thankful for the distinction and the joy that the differences make. For I am heterosexual as opposed to what any of the other tendencies might be being called these days. (Brings back memories of the Dodge Caliber commercial “Silly Little Fairy”. The flying redhead in the green fairy costume is HOT! But the limp wristed dog walker is schnot.)

Being a fictional character, I, Jasper Wheats, firmly believe that the North Woods makes a man a man. Why shit, I go to play hockey and I walk with wood. What more can I say?

Yo! Dudes and dudettes I can say a lot.

This morning as I read through my local little paper (Fairfield’s Daily Republic) I come across a sports article from one of the great North Woods states, Maine. Now the local rag doesn’t usually have much ink being spent on hockey and today was no exception. The article was in reference to one of the other lesser winter sports called basketball. It’s not really a winter sport but the media giants that rule TV decided that they needed to put a sport on the screen between football season and baseball season where the viewing audience could see the instrument used for scoring. Fucking blind son-of-a -bitches. You know, if you play our sport and the camera angle is from high enough up to see what’s really going on, then you don’t need to see the puck to know where it is. ‘Nof said about that shit ESPN and your dis’n of our great sport. Come on you other networks – pick up the slack (thank you Versus and your East Coast coverage of games that are over before I get home from work).

Basketball and manhood – that’s what the article was about. Seems as though during half-time of a basketball game for Leavitt Area High School the coach asked his players to do something that later got him fired. He apparently asked them to check out their package with the insinuation that the Big Boys were going to win the game that night. The strategy worked because they went on to win the game. Probably the unfortunate part of this motivational move was that he asked the guys to reach into their shorts to check out the tools. Sad – that doesn’t sound so bad when you look at gangsta wanna-be’s grabbing their units as their walking down the middle of a public street - or are they just trying to keep their pants from falling off. Crap even highly paid popular music types grab their sexy parts when performing now days.

Did this coach deserve to be fired for this? SHIT NO!

Damn it – it was in the locker room. There’s some sanctity here. It’s like lawyer/client privilege what goes on in the locker room between a coach and his players. Hell it doesn’t even have to be locker room chatter – bench behavior should be protected too. You know the article said that one player didn’t respond to the coach’s spirit. Pity that poor guy later in life when he looks back at his insubordination. CHOKE! The little pecker-head was probably ashamed of his size. Dude – Size Don’t Matter – its all how you use it.

I don’t know how the school’s administration got wind of this or who filed the initial complaint. But I’m going to guess that it was some relocated city scum from San Francisco or other priss ass – kiss ass community. Down East’rs just aren’t brought up that way to raise an issue over manhood and winning.

This same sort of parental/administration interference was revealed to me many years ago when I was coaching youth hockey. I was a Bantam AA coach and was assisting with the Midget A team also. Sam was the coach of the Midget A team and had a fine playing and coaching reputation. He even ran an equipment repair business repalming gloves, fixing goalie gear and adding extra stitching to stiffen-up skate boots. Good guy. Always loud and really made the guys skate.

Well we had one smart ass on the team and during the course of a game, Sam had to grab a near-by player’s stick and use it to smack the smart ass on his helmet to get his attention. No anger just motivational nudging. The kid’s dad took offence to the Sam’s behavior and within the week I was coaching two teams.

I coached most of those guys the next season on the Midget A team again. I even had a couple of young ladies on the team that year. I’ll tell you – you’ve never seen such a tight team as the time some opposing goon tried to take out one of those ladies. But I had one young man that got into trouble with the law because of his messed up folks. He truly loved the game. We had a monthly rotating practice schedule that had us out at 6:00 AM Sunday mornings for a while. One of my goalies worked for the rink and could get us in (read: knew how to break in) and turn lights on if the morning staff didn’t show up. But this other kid that got in trouble had parents that wanted him to play (so he wouldn’t be in their way) but regularly wouldn’t get him to the rink. These early Sundays were the worst and he couldn’t get a hold of anyone to give him a ride one morning. So he took his parent’s car. Apparently he had done this before and this time the parents, upon waking, called the cops. Shit sometimes happens when you really pursue what you want.

Dedication, motivation – that’s what I’m talking about. Coaches should be immune from punishment for their behavior – no matter what it is if the team or the player becomes inspired enough to improve – to play at their best – and to win.

Years after coaching youth hockey some of those guys later played on the same senior team (the Orange County Outlaws) with me. At some point in time I quit playing a checking game and moved on to a more relaxed yet still enjoyable version. The Outlaws started drifting apart because a lot of the original players had done like me and moved to non-checking. Both of my younger brothers, Jingles and Bronzie, were still playing so I decided to run the team and renting the ice for practice, etc.

We joined the West Coast Hockey League (WCHL) which was a shared gate semi-pro organization (what a laugh that was – only Vegas drew any substantial crowd). We were pretty good though and held our own. After a couple of years we were asked to join another league that had its hub draw at Anchorage – it later became the league that the Long Beach Ice Dogs joined and we now see that they’re in the ECHL. Unfortunately we didn’t move on but that’s another story yet to be told.

We were in the semi-finals playing back-to-back games in Fresno against the Aces. Our first game which we had won had been on Saturday night. The usual partying and heavy drinking followed for a late night with an early Sunday morning game the next day. The guys showed up hung over - I mean badly hung over and were playing worse then flat. I don’t know how bad we were losing but it didn’t help my confidence from the get-go when our starting goalie showed me that he couldn’t hold his hands steady. I’m not sure which intermission it was when we were back in the locker room when I let the guys have it. Jamie Todd, our captain, happened to be video taping it so I got to see myself in action later. The video tape could have been used at one of those boot camp leadership seminars. I held nothing back and let the guys know that regardless of their hangovers and shit ass playing I hadn’t driven all the way up to fucking Fresno to watch them lose a game. You know there’s a phrase “Balls to the Wall” that’s used as similar to “Pedal to the Metal”. It makes “Skate Hard” sound so trivial. Well all of that, as my memory works, wasn’t enough. For at least ten of those fifteen minutes I just screamed at them. There were no niceties, like, “You made a good check at the blue line” or “Sweet breakout pass”. No “Nice shot”, “Good goal”, or “Great save”. I just whipped them like the delinquents they were.

It was my success. It was their success - as we pulled that one out by a winning our semi-final round.

I’m not sure if I used this one or not because I don’t have a copy of the video to review right now, but it was always one of my favorites. “Balls out!”

Think about that.

What does “Balls out!” mean?

I’ll explain to you like I had to explain to the team.

When you play highly competitive hockey you have to play fearless. What can cause fear? Fear of the dark? Nah. Fear of losing face? Yeah, sometimes. Fear of losing? Sure, but that’s just a lack of confidence. Fear of pain? Usually not.

Fear is a weakness when you’re on the ice. I’ve had that fear and I know that it’s a weakness. I’ve taken a slap shot in the balls while making a backwards sliding block. Those little jewels got squished against the inside of my cup with so much pain that I had to crawl to the bench from the far side boards. Pain, embarrassment, weakness. What is weakness? Fear.

If you have a weakness you’ve got to overcome in. A man’s balls are his weakness in more ways then one. Boys, if you’re going to let your balls hinder your play then leave them at home in jar.

That’s what “Balls out!” means.

If I yell to the guys to skate balls out is it so much different then this Maine basketball coach asking his guys to measure up? Its motivation, its inspiration – it’s a request for dedication to your sport, your team, and yourself to be the best that you can be. It damn sure isn’t something to get fired over.

Jasper Wheats here. Skate hard boys cuz walking with wood feels so good.