Almost Awesome

So me and two of three roommates went to a Gwinnett Gladiators game last Friday night.  First of all, this was a great story, so I'm gonna tell it right, and that means to tell it from the beginning...

Rylan and Josh met up with me at the house because I was already in town from my Nov. teaching.  They got there in time for us to hop in the car and go get Josh his ever coveted Burger King.  We're arriving at the arena a little late, and the traffic is horrendous, so we decide to put some music on.  My iPod has about 2600 songs, and the first song that came on in Shuffle mode was the Battle Theme from Gladiator, which some of you may know is a song that the Gladiators use in pre-game.  At that moment, I knew we were fated to see a great game.  It only got better.

About fifteen minutes before face-off, we get in line to buy tickets.  When I say we got in line, we jumped to the back of a train of people about three-hundred strong.  I mean, there was no way we'd get tickets for at least a good twenty minutes if.  About that time, a fortuitous woman stepped out in line and said, "I've got three free tickets!  Three free tickets!  Good seats, but you gotta sit together, so you better like each other."  Obviously, we took'em. 

Not only were these seats free, but they were about fifteen rows from the glass.  And since she gave them to us right after we got in line, we made it in time to see face-off and some of the pre-game.  Well, South Carolina scores early on what looked like a questionable goal.  They were very good at putting bodies in Danny Taylor's way (he's our goalie, and he's usually very good) so that he couldn't see the puck coming.  Even still, he held them to only that one goal in the first, with Gwinnett being shut-out in the first period.  There was no scoring at all in the second, so we went in to the third down a goal.  Danny had done a great job to keep us in the game. 

So it was the third period.  Rylan, Josh, and myself had already done Krypton to three fingers, and we were ready to see it happen.  It looked like the game would end at 1-0, because that was the score with about 6 minutes to go.  At this time, we knock a beautiful slap shot goal in from somewhere near the blue line.  It doesn't make any sense, but the Arean at Gwinnett erupts (I was pretty much the first person to stand up as I saw the puck go in fast).  We're tied 1-1 with six to go in the third! 

About a minute and thirty seconds later, SC scores.  Yeah, it was depressing.  It just trickled right past Danny and under his feet. 

So here we go again.  With about a minute to go, Gwinnett pulls Danny in order to go up on the advantage.  It's a fight up on the SC goal for a half-minute, but we sneak one in there.  GOOOOAL!  It's a great game to this point.  Well, Danny comes back in to finish up the game tied 2-2.  So we go to OT.  No score in OT. 

Now is the shoot-out. 

They go first and Danny blocks it.  We go next and score.  For a best of five series, we lead 1-0.  Their next man goes, and he just flat out misses it.  We go and score.  2-0.  They go again to make it a game, and it gets blocked.  We go again, and they actually block it.  Not hard, it was a terrible shot.  So it still stands 2-0.  That goal WOULD have ended the game at 3-0 with only two shots remaining.  At this point, though, SC MUST score both remaining goals to tie and keep the shoot-out going.  The man goes in with the hopes of his team at the end of the stick...and he misses.  Game over, we win, and the remaining crowd is ecstatic!  That being said, so were we.  This was by far the best hockey game I've ever seen, and even better, it was an amazing experience that served to finish up yet another in the string of great Friday the 13ths I've had and was a precursor to the great weekend that was to come.  In case you haven't heard, Georgia beat Auburn the next day, 31-24. 

But something that stood out to me was a near-miss somewhere in the 2nd period.  I remember it was the 2nd period because Gwinnett missed the break-away goal right in front of us, and we were on the "Attack Once" side of the arena.  I don't remember who, but one of our guys gets away from the defense and starts the break-away attack.  He only has to beat the goalie.  He's coming in.  The goalie's coming out.  They almost meet at half-way between the goal and the center line, when the goalie falls down.  As he's going down, our guy shoots a beautiful arcing shot right over him.  It's looking good.  It's looking on-target.  It is almost awesome.  The shot goes over the goal by a matter of inches and misses altogether. 

I got to thinking about that, how it was "almost awesome."  There's something to that.  It wasn't awesome, and it wasn't terrible, but it still wasn't what it could've been.  That has often been one of my fears, to end up being only "almost" there, or "almost" who I needed to be.  I don't want to be only "almost."  I want to make it where God is calling me to be as who God is calling me to be.  I mean, how many times do we take that shot only to miss by a few short inches?  Or worse, get scared and never take the shot in the first place?  How often does that happen to you?  How often would you rather arrive?  Yeah.  Me too.

PS.  I'm STILL working on that prose.  This student teaching stuff has got me SO stinking busy, but Thanksgiving break should provide some well-needed time to get stuff done.  I'm really looking forward to it.  See y'all soon, I hope!