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The Sweet Smell of the Victory Cigar

Friday, February 17th, 2012

This past Wednesday night, my son’s high school hockey team, the Falcons of Jefferson Township, New Jersey, played a first round, single elimination game against local Mountain Lakes, who beat us convincingly, 6 – 0, to end the regular season of play, only a week ago. As I got ready to leave for the game, I cracked open the humidor and picked out a victory cigar, like I do for every game, but to tell you the truth, I 404624_309432459093108_100000790698422_777527_1074692889_ncouldn’t remember the last time I had lit up one of those kind of smokes. We were a “far below” average team this season and none of us parents expected anything more than a decent effort and an end to a very long season. But for some unknown reason that no one can explain, our boys apparently felt a bit different about things that night.

The game was for lack of a better term, completely insane, a roller coaster shooting match that saw the opposing Lakers take a 7 -6 lead with about a minute and thirty-five seconds to go in the game – just another heartbreak for the boys, and us parents, in a hard fought battle… or, was it? With 45 seconds left on the clock, the face off was deep in the other team’s end of the ice, and the coach pulled our goalie to give us an extra attacker. Now my son Tommy is a starting defenseman, and for good reason, as his 5’–10” inch, 195 lb frame works well for clearing forwards from in front of the home team’s cage. The kid had logged 23 minutes of ice time in this 45 minute game on the blue line, but this time, for this face off, coach moved him up on the wing with one intention only: get that big-ass burly Polish body straight to the net and in front of the Mt. Lakes goaltender.

The parents and student fans were stressed out, pacing around their seats, as my heart was pounding with no nails left to bite on either of my hands. We won the draw as the puck was sent to the left corner. A battle for the puck broke out between a scrum of several players, but somehow our forward ended up with possession. Standing at the blue line, my son’s buddy and defensive partner, Ryan was calling for the puck as Tommy was battling for position in front of the cage. As the seconds were ticking away, Ryan took the pass, walked in a few steps and unleashed a low wrist shot through a twisting maze of legs and torsos. Now hockey is a strange game of bounces and oftentimes that three-inch in diameter by one-inch thick hunk of vulcanized rubber can find it’s way through a stockpile of bodies – and this time was one of those times. As my boy was perched in front of the goaltender’s crease, somehow, some way, that black little biscuit found the blade of his stick, then like out of some scripted B movie, it found the back of the net and my boy had tied the game. The kids went crazy, the fans went nuts, and with 35 seconds left on the clock the thought of overtime had our emotions doing the lambada again. But as they say in those crazy As Seen on TV product commercials… “But WAIT, there’s more!”

Picture 2With just 25 seconds left in regulation time, the center ice face off went straight to Tommy, now back in his regular defensive position. He crossed the red line and cranked a slapshot that deflected off an opposing players skates and directly onto the stick of our leading scorer, Wade (once again, think predictably scripted, impossibly heroic B movie.) Well, like nothing I’ve ever seen, Wade just unleashed a one-timer blast that rocketed past the goalie to give us the lead only ten seconds after my son had scored. Everyone in Jefferson blue, from the ice on up went completely out of their minds as I was being fitted for a new straight jacket at that very moment. So as the story goes, (I swear, I didn’t find this tale somewhere and changed the names to make it sound good) we held them off for the final 25 seconds, giving Jefferson an upset victory that everyone will remember and cherish for a very long time.

As Tommy hopped onto the team bus with the boys acting as if they had won Lord Stanley’s Cup, I got into my car and then remembered something… only a few hours earlier I had placed that victory Picture 8cigar in the glove compartment, you know, just in case something ridiculously impossible like this might actually happen. It was one of my all-time faves, a La Gloria Cubana Serie R maduro, a luscious premium stick that was about to be my best buddy in the world for the 40-minute ride home. Guys, if you’re going to celebrate, you had better do it in style, and man oh man, was I ever styling!

The following morning I told my kid I’d let him sleep a little extra, we’d get some breakfast sandwiches, and I’d drive him to school in a hero’s fashion. When he got in the car, he turned to me with a scrunched up nose and said, “Man, dad, this car completely stinks!” I laughed, knowing that it did indeed reek like a Honduran factory, then turned my head to him and said, “Son, THAT right there is the smell of sweet victory.”

Stay Smoky My friends,

TZ.Sig.2

JR Cigars Blog with the Zman

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