My season totals had more zeros in them than a Star Trek convention.

During my sophomore year I had the great honor of playing on the McGill Varsity hockey team. Unfortunately the honor was all mine. Not since Tonya Harding has a bigger disgrace hit the ice.

Even now, years later, I can’t overstate just how terrible I was. I had the lateral movement of Bambi and the killer instincts of an Ice Capades penguin.

But as luck would have it, playing ability wasn’t of the utmost importance; drinking ability was.

In many ways it seemed like the team was just an excuse for 25 alcoholics to get some exercise. As our rightwinger Scotty was fond of saying, “We aren’t a hockey team with a drinking problem, we’re a drinking team with a hockey problem.”

Principal among those problems was me. I went the entire season without recording a single goal, assist or penalty minute. In fact, my season totals had more zeros in them than a Star Trek convention.

However, when it came to drinking I redeemed myself. My teammates were particularly impressed that on the road I’d often leave behind equipment in order to make room in my hockey bag for an extra six-pack. I clearly had my priorities in order.

Perhaps our most memorable road trip came that year at Christmas time when we made the trek to Toronto to play in a tournament against the country’s top teams.

The competition was far better than anything we had seen all season. It was as though some of these squads had actually been spending more time in the weight room than in the bar room.

I’d say it was a sobering experience were it not for the fact that we spent every spare moment drinking ourselves into oblivion. After all, our coaches had told us to stay hydrated.

On the last night of the tournament the coaches generously waived our curfews and allowed us to truly enjoy ourselves.

Frankly after losing all four of our games I don’t think they were too concerned about what happened to us, but we appreciated the gesture anyhow.

The only stipulation was we had to be at the airport at 6:00 a.m. to make our way home.

In our minds a 6:00 a.m. meeting time was merely an excuse to stay out all night, and we took every opportunity to do just that. So armed with equal parts drinking and bail money, we hit the town.

We may not have handled ourselves well on the ice that week, but we had no problem handling our alcohol, hoisting our school colors in one boat race and keg stand after another.

For the most part everyone made it through the evening in fine shape. Everyone, that is, except our goalie, Kurk. After drinking twice his weight in draft Kurk was incoherent, throwing up constantly and unable to stand on his own power.

That was at 3:00 a.m. After that things just got worse. By the time we got to the airport at 6:10 Kurk had gone from a happy drunk to a babbling and surly infant.

When the time came to get him through security, Skip and I propped him up and marched him to the front of the line. The security guard stopped us dead in our tracks the moment she spotted him.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” She asked with great cynicism, ready if need be to make a direct call to the Betty Ford clinic.

Knowing full well that Kurk wouldn’t be allowed on the plane in his current condition, Skipleapt into action. With my help he put Kurk into a nearby wheelchair and in a soft tone explained to the security guard,

“We’re a university hockey team and this is Kurk. He’s retarded but he’s kind of our team mascot, so we wanted to reward him by taking him on his first road trip. It’s been an exhausting week for him, so you’ll have to excuse us if he’s not making much sense.”

Not only did she buy it, she looked positively ashamed that she had rushed to judgment.

Patting Kurk on the head she gave us a big smile and waved us through. It was the first time in my life that I’ve ever seen someone piggyback another man through a metal detector.

For the remainder of his university career Kurk became known as “Corky,” the mentally handicapped character made famous in the ABC series Life Goes On.

As for myself, I never played another season with the team, unable to crack the line-up the following year.

It’s just as well; all that hockey was interfering with my drinking.