AMHL Thursday: Lost in Space

“Peter Brady, what’s next…Lost in Space?” said Dave Losier, who was sitting next to me on the Avalanche bench before our game with the Panthers.

He had enjoyed last week’s story about my connection to classic television and wondered what I’d do for an encore.

Lost in Space: Its original run on the small screen was before my time—the last episode aired when I was five years old—but I recall Team USA’s struggle with the vast expanse of ice in the 1998 Winter Olympics. The details are embedded in Google’s memory banks, where the teams first game, against Sweden, prompted the Washington Post's Rachel Alexander to write a story referring to the title of the show from the ‘60s, and now almost nine years later on Rink Two at Concord Valley Sports Arena, where I had no idea I’d have my own spatial issues.

In the first period against the Panthers, the gap between me and oncoming defenders was wider than the Milky Way. Backed up too far to do any good and then guessing where a puck-carrying defender such as forward Mike “MMMBop” Hansen might go is like pressing the Hyperspace button while playing Space Invaders: It doesn’t matter where you land because you’re still (ahem)lost in space.

I redeemed myself in the third period. Enjoying a commodious lead, I ventured on an offensive mission. I charged up the right wing, one opponent in front of me. Still with the puck but running out of room before I hit the end boards, I heard a teammate yell for the puck. Rather than risk a no-look pass through perhaps a constellation of players, I continued orbiting the offensive zone. I entered into unfamiliar territory—behind the opponent’s net! With no teammate open (as far as I could tell), I continued my journey around "Dana Salvo’s World," where the AMHL all-time points leader spends 90% of his ice time. My oxygen tank nearly empty, I spotted Dave Krinsky at the right point, manning the outpost I had passed many moons ago. I slid the puck past a defender to the right point. Krinsky flung the puck toward the net, and then we watched a teammate score.

Too tired to expend any more energy, not even to celebrate the goal, I slowly skated back to home base, which was still light years away.

AMHL Thursday: Two Scoops

“Is that your Peter Brady shirt?” Dave Losier ribbed me on Thursday morning.

Which Peter Brady? You all know the kid who scooped ice cream at Haskell's Ice Cream Hut and scooped stories for his school's newspaper.

But what about the Peter Brady who played for the Boston Olympics? Or the Peter Brady who scored four goals for the University of Vermont? Or perhaps Losier meant the goalie whom the Vancouver Canucks drafted in 1997?

Losier, a smart cookie and real legal eagle, may have been referring to my performance as our team’s second goalie. Sure, Dan Barros is our man between the pipes. He made the sure-handed snares and smothered loose pucks when I wasn’t in front of him—like in the in the second period. I had dropped to my knees as a Caps’ player prepared to shoot from the top of the slot. The puck darted to my left, along the ice—so I kicked out my left skate to send it wide of the net. Barros grunted his approval of that one!

He wasn’t so happy when, later that period, I clunked him on the head as I dove to the ice to trap a loose puck.

“Ugh,” he groaned. But together we had made the save.

Then we went on to topple the Caps, 8–3.

I must have been so much in the netminder’s mind-set that, after a shower, I grabbed Barros’s towel instead of my own. I used his clean one—a plush light blue beauty—forcing him to use my frayed purple cloth (at least it was clean). Still, it was an awkward locker room moment that we won’t soon forget, especially because I’m writing about it.

Time to change. Dressed in Eddie Bauer Cargo pants and a DKNY plum-colored short-sleeve shirt—the kind Mike Brady’s second son might have worn way back in 1970-somethin’—I joined my teammates in the donut lounge, where Losier made fun of my stylin’ shirt or congratulated me for my shot-blocking ability. I’m not sure which.