Hockey

Hockey was one of the first team sports I ever played.  It was played on a green hockey field which had subtle undulations.  But the fields were good.  Not as good as the Astro turf fields top players play on.  In one way I am not disappointed.  Boy does that stuff take the skin off if it is slid on.
I was centre half.  I needed to take penalties which meant hitting to someone who made a move that could be to our advantage.  Our team “Commercials” in Townsville had a five forwards and five backs formation.  Plus the goalie.
We were pretty good.  We won the premiership that year.  We were on fire in the finals.  We won 6-2.
At the presentation I won “best back.”  I was pretty excited.  I ran all the way home with my prize.  A biro.  I had to forward rivers, fight crocodiles, do battle with snakes and climb mountains to get home.  Well maybe not, but it was a couple of miles next to a road.
Dad used to drive me there.  Just as well he was there the next year really.  My mouth and the end of someone’s hockey stick tried to occupy the same place at the same time.  Did not work really.  Just as well the dentist was on call.
Someone examined my mouth and said this tooth may as well go (it was dangling).  I have learned since that was a mistake.  Get to the dentist within around half an hour and teeth can be save.  Another tooth had the end missing.
I got a plate with a false tooth.  Trouble was I loved to chew it.   I broke the tooth off.  I got a new one but I did not stop chewing it.  I broke the tooth off again and decided that was it.  No more false tooth for me.
That has led to an interesting phenomena.  The teeth beside where it had been decided to move across and occupy the spare real estate.  Now it is impossible to tell a tooth is even absent.
As for the tooth that was chipped it originally had a plate of gold.  Times changed and a false tooth was screwed into my mouth.  I still have the gold.  It was never enough to make me rich.  The amount is smaller than the smallest amounts I have ever seen on “Outback Gold Hunters” (or whatever it is called.
It was around then I gave away the hockey.  I had changed divisions and some of the guys had gotten so much bigger than me.
We did go to the hockey at the Commonwealth games.  Australia was not playing.  South Africa, Scotland, Ghana and someone else were.  We got flags for Ghana and South Africa.  I even had the nation of Ghana printed onto a white tee shirt.  I must admit I had to ensure Ghana was up the right way.  We went with friends and he is from Ghana (his wife is from Japan).  They are great people. 
I have some fond memories and not so fond memories of my hockey days.  The final win may have even made the Townsville Daily Bulletin.  I really do not know, and if it did it would have been in a corner of the paper along with all the other really smally written results in one of the pages towards the end.
But it was worth heaps to me.  Worth fording rivers and doing battle with crocodiles and snakes and climbing mountains.   Wait.  That never happened.  But the rest did.