So this hockey tournament thing started when our local league commissioner tossed me the organizing job outta nowhere. “Hey you know computers and stuff right?” he goes. Man I wasn’t ready for this chaos.
The Research Nightmare Begins
First thing Monday morning I cracked open my creaky laptop, fired up Google, and typed in “eak hockey 2023”. WHAM – instant headache. Official league sites, third-party ticket sellers, some blog from 2018… total garbage pile. My coffee went cold while I clicked through fifteen different pages screaming “REGISTER HERE!” only to hit dead ends. Found one page listing October dates, another saying December. Got so frustrated I almost chucked my mug across the room.
Finally stumbled into the official association’s dusty old webpage buried under five layers of menus. Took three tries to find the damn tournament section. And wouldn’t you know it? They’d dumped a PDF from like 1998 on there. Scanned copy! Could barely read the dates. Teams section just said “TBA”. Perfect.
Playing Phone Tag Hell
Grabbed my phone and started dialing the number on the PDF. Rang twenty times, nobody picked. Tried again after lunch – busy signal. Next day? Straight to voicemail. Left four messages that week. Radio silence.
Then Steve from accounting goes, “Oh yeah, Donna handles that stuff now, she works Tuesdays and Thursdays.” Great. Tracked Donna down like some hockey detective.
- First call Tuesday 10 AM: “She’s in a meeting.”
- Callback 11:30 AM: “Just stepped out for lunch.”
- 2 PM: “In another meeting, hon.”
Thursday I camped by my phone. Finally got her at 3 PM sharp. “Dates are set but I can’t email the sheet, printer’s down at the rink,” she says. I drove thirty minutes just to grab a coffee-stained paper schedule from her. Real pro operation they’re running.
Making Sense of This Disaster
Settled at my kitchen table with Donna’s paperwork and the ancient PDF. Cross-referenced teams like some over-caffeinated spy. Teams list had penciled-in additions and scratch-outs everywhere. Took two highlighters and three false starts just to build a clear roster table. Found out location got moved from the usual rink to Pineville Arena. Surprise!
Spent the whole weekend typing this junk up, cursing every time I found another inconsistency. Made five different versions before I got something usable. Why? Because I sent draft one to the commissioner who replied “Bob’s Pizza Parlor Knights changed names last month.” Naturally. Final version burned into my brain now:
Dates: Nov 10-12, 2023
Location: Pineville Arena (back parking lot ONLY)
Teams: Raging Moose, Ice Vipers, Steel City Snipers… plus seven other teams with terrible names
Threw It Online Before I Lost My Mind
Opened WordPress Monday feeling like I survived a war. Copied all my hard-won details into a post. Triple-checked dates. Proofread the team names twice. Scheduled it. Then spent ten minutes staring at the ceiling wondering why community hockey causes this much pain.
Shared the post link in our league group chat. Immediately got a text from Dave: “Pineville? Seriously? That ice is garbage!” Too late man. It’s done. Finally published that fire dumpster of a tournament guide.
Moral of the story? Local sports organization needs to enter this damn century. Next time they ask, I’m telling them my laptop caught fire.
