We were preparing to play the opening game of the "gentlemen's" hockey season. I had played for the league champions last year but that team had let winning a championship go to their heads. Not pleased with that attitude, I had decided to play for the league's fourth place team this year as they told me I would get more ice time and the team was being composed of down-to-earth comradely players.

In practice, everything looked good. We had two new defencemen and three rookie wingers that were scoring left and right in our scrub games. It looked like this fourth place team would be pushing for a first place finish this season.

We entered the dressing room and began the job, and it is a job for this sport, of donning our hockey equipment. One of the players suggested to me, before I put my skates on, that I should join him and a few of the players outside for a brief "team meeting." I was told at such meetings the players psyched themselves into a positive attitude and this had been a regular pre-game ritual for the team last year.

We were able to exit the dressing room to outdoors via a door in the dressing room itself. We gathered between a couple of large garbage bins and we were hidden from the public for the most part. Then a player brought out a joint! This was the ritual the team had prior to games. No wonder they had finished in fourth place.

I told the players I had never smoked marijuana in my life and I wasn't about to start. One of the players, actually a good friend of mine, assured me that it heightened their playing ability and helps the team in that respect. Based on this, I joined in for my first toke ever in my life. But it didn't stop with just one joint as, in addition, two other players lit up joints at the same time and started passing these around. They told me one would not go around far with the eight players gathered between the bins.

Boy, I really felt enthused. I knew now what the players meant and I was ready to play the best game of my life. I played like never before and visibly stood out. I put all my effort into the game. However, by the end of the game we had lost our first league game of the new season. By a score of 19-2! I was the goaltender.