Brawl in McCall

Every year the league Eric co-directs holds a hockey tournament in McCall, ID, a small resort town about two hours north of here. Eric was tasked with doing league director stuff and I got asked to be scorekeeper. We stayed in a rental house with the main league director, three refs and one of the players. I, as usual, was the only girl.

Here are a few of the things I learned during my weekend adventure at the Brawl in McCall:

1. In order to become "one of the guys" when you are the only wife in a house full of guys who really don't want there to be any wives/girlfriends/whatevers -- you have to blend. My chosen method of blending is to be as loud and obnoxious as they are and to drink as much, if not more, beer than they do. The lesson? When one consumes a half rack of Miller Light and only sleeps for two hours it results in waking up still drunk.

2. When you wake up still drunk from the night before the best cure is to begin drinking again sometime around 10:30 a.m. Since I was the scorekeeper this resulted in lots of entertaining commentary and beer thievery by players in the penalty box. The lesson? When surrounded by hockey players, keep one eye on your beer at all times.

3. A wild coyote will chase a drunk hockey player down a dark, snowy street until the hockey player yells obscenities at it.

4. When you are dead ass tired on the second night of a three night tournament and at 3:30 a.m. the rest of your housemates are still partying, and you have to get up in 2 1/2 hours -- do not, I REPEAT, DO NOT open your bedroom door to yell at them. I now have, forever seared into my brain, the sight of our league director in his underwear.

5. When you are yelling at your housemates at 3:30 in the morning because they are still partying, the most effective choice of words is as follows, "It is 3:30 in the morning. I have to get up at 6:00. SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Then slam the door.

6. When you yell "shut the fuck up" at your drunk housemates at 3:30 in the morning they will, in fact, repeat said phrase to you at every possible opportunity for every imaginable reason for the remainder of the weekend.

7. A Laborador Retriever can run faster than a Honda Accord on a snow packed street.

8. At 7:00 in the morning, on too little sleep, with a hang-over, the funniest thing you could possibly ever hear is, "Dude! You just got passed by a dog!"

9. When you are staying in a house filled with guys and you are standing in front of a window naked after a shower, it is important to always, ALWAYS, be sure the blinds on the window are not completely see-through.

10. An all-wheel drive Volvo will slide down a steep driveway, hit the side of a house and get stuck. Four drunk hockey players are not capable of pushing a stuck Volvo out of an ice rut. Four drunk hockey players will try, repeatedly, to push a stuck Volvo out of an ice rut.

And lastly,

11. Keeping score for 22 hockey games in 2 1/2 days in a freezing cold ice rink with too little sleep and too much beer results in a sinus infection.