Ice Castles or Cutting Edge: You Decide

Like many children growing up in New England, I played hockey. I actually wasn't half bad… it's just that here not half bad is not really that good compared to guys like Jeremy Roenick. As a senior in high school, a man approached me after one of my games and asked what I thought about figure skating.

"Toe pick."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

He had with him this gorgeous 13-year old Asian girl named Soo Kwon. In fact, she was my age, 17, but she just looked 13; and she was to be my partner if I gave figure skating a try. So I did.

I'm not sure if you know anything about figure skating, but those bastards keep long hours. We'd go at like 4am, then I'd go to school at 7, then get back over there at 4pm to skate until 10. We had Friday night through to Sunday morning off.

I only put up with the regimen out of my infatuation for Soo Kwon. I needed her. She would quietly rebuff my advances with a simple smile, or a "no, we gotta practice". She lived a very sheltered life, one completely different from mine as a working class boy in Brockton. I used to regale her with tales of all night parties, drunken debauchery, and trips to McDonald's. Finally she relented, and agreed to join me at this rager a kid was having while his parents were out of town.

It took only three sips off a Bull Ice 40 for her to profess her love to me, and suggest us running away together. When the cops showed, she tried to fight them, and they were pissed that we'd let a 13 year old drink. In fact, she'd just turned 18, and was legal have alcohol back then, but the damage had been done. When word got back to her coach, I was removed as her partner.

Two weeks later she appeared on my doorstep with a bag of her clothes. She was running away, and she wanted me to come with her. It was a no-go, as I only had a couple months before graduation; and she turned down my offer for her to crash at my mom's place, because it didn't have the amenities she was used to.

I'll pour out a little Cab Sav for you Soo Kwon… into the sink, because it's been opened for two days, and it's no good.

Mads: The Norwegian Hocky Myth

Norwegians are not any good at hockey. It is a myth that people from colder climates excel at sports involving ice or the like. We have some great skiers, but really what we do best is soccer.

Anyway, down here in Rio, word got out that I was Norwegian, and I was asked if I could coach the youth hockey team in their next game against Argentina. My initial reaction was a "no", but when I saw some of the mothers of some of the kids, I changed my tune. These women were hot trophy wives, which made sense, considering one would have to be fairly well off to be able to afford hockey equipment, and it was a custom that rich trophy wives slept with the coaches of their kids' sports teams.

I found my old speed skating skates from out of one of my travelling trunks, sent Abdul Karim out to find me a hockey stick, and I went to work. The only person I knew who knew anything about the sport was my Boston friend. He grew up in Northern New England, and one could probably make a team just out the best players from that region, and it would kill Norway (you got Jeremy Roenick and Tony Amonte to name two). He gave me some advice, but he spoke in a discourse that made little sense to me. I have no idea what a "blue line" is, or why I'd need a "strong shooter to anchor the point on the power play". I decided to wing it.

We had to forfeit after we fell behind 20 goals in the first period. One of the kids told me after that I should've called for a "line change", because the kids I started stayed on the ice for ten minutes, and apparently that's way too long.

Even worse, my coaching performance was so bad, none of the hot wives wanted to sleep with me. I had totally banked on that, and I spent the trip back from Buenos Aires with a bad case of blue balls.