Is It Okay To Ditch Your Beer League Team If You Have A Game Scheduled On Thanksgiving Eve?
Now the easy answer here is no. One should never bail on your beer league team because everybody knows how hard it is to get numbers to the games as is. You might start off the season with a roster of 20 guys and then they start dropping like flies as the weeks go by. Before you know it you have to play the entire 1st period shorthanded because Carl forgot the game was tonight instead of tomorrow and you only have 4 guys plus another team’s goalie ready by puck drop. So as long as you’re not dead and you’re physically capable of being there, you should always show up to games.
With that being said, this situation isn’t that cut and dry. Here’s the thing. I feel like a lot of people are going to start shitting on Thanksgiving Eve and try to lump it in with New Years Eve as “amateur hour” just to seem cool. While New Years Eve is actually a terrible time, I’m a big proponent of Thanksgiving Eve festivities. Thanksgiving Eve is basically stalking your Facebook timeline come to real life. It’s all the people you never see anymore together in one bar and you immediately start comparing the way that your life since high school has gone compared to others. It’s a huge measuring stick night. Some people are doing way better than you and you start feeling down on yourself. You start thinking you’re going to make some serious changes in your life. Then right after that, you see someone who has gone full send off the rails. We’re talking massive amounts of weight gain, probably has a couple of kids but not custody, and is still currently on that gap year that has expanded to 7 gap years. All of a sudden you feel like a king and that you’ve got life all figured out. You black out and then you never see those people again until next year. It’s a great time so I can totally understand why somebody wouldn’t want to miss it for a beer league game that doesn’t start until after 10.
But like I said above, unless your legs are physically removed from your body then you better get your ass to the rink because your team needs you. Which is why there is really only one viable option here for anybody who is in this predicament. Depending on how far the rink is from the bar you’re going to on Wednesday night, the move has to be to just leave your car at the rink and then Uber from there. While this is a pain in the ass, it’s the only way to get both events in on the night. Go to your game, gas as many beers as you possibly can during the game, hop in the shower, gas a few more in the locker room with the boys while you wait for the Uber and then head to the bar to bask in all of your Beer League Hero glory. Is Greg over there telling everybody about his big promotion? Fuck Greg, you almost scored 2 goals tonight in your team’s 4-3 win. Is that bitch Jessica still yabbering on about all the great places she’s traveled to? Tell Jessica to jump off a cliff because you won the faceoff in your own zone with under 30 seconds left to secure the win for your team. You’re a Beer League Hero and there’s not a single person that you’ll see out who can come even close to you. You can figure out how you’re going to go get your car the next morning. I know it’s going to smell like garbage if you leave your bag in there over night but I promise you, it’ll all be worth it.