The alarm will go off even earlier than usual tomorrow, but somehow it won't be so tough to get up and get out of bed. You couldn't sleep any later if you tried. You'll be awake half the night and into the morning, staring at the ceiling and anxiously looking ahead to the big game.

The last hockey game of your life.

You will go to bed tonight with butterflies in your stomach, and they must have had babies while you slept because they will be doing a number on you in the morning. You look outside and see the rain, but you really don't mind. It should be fun. You try to eat some dinner, but then you hear your phone ring. it's time to meet the boys for the bus ride. Grab your bag. Time to go.

At home, they wish you luck for the last time. Your old man yells at you to kick some butt today. You knew that was coming. Your in the position he's always dreamed to be in and you can't and won't let him down.

When you get to the locker room, there is a different kind of tension in the air. The boom box is a little softer, the small talk a little quieter. You lace up the skates a little slower because you may never do it again. There were days when you th

ought you'd never miss this dirty, smelly, sweaty locker room, but this is definitely not one of those days. You'll do a lot of things in the next few years, go to college, get married, have kids, start a life, but you'll never do this again. You'll never snap up the helmet, look across the bench at your best friends, and just go out and play hard together. Now you know: You'll miss it a lot.

The game flies by as if someone has his hand on the fast-forward button. You take a couple of good hits and give a few back, but nothing hurts. Not on this day. the game goes back and forth and down to the wire, like they always do when it counts. Your team doesn't pull it out at the end, but as you skate off the ice, tears in your eyes, you don't remember anything. It's an exhilarating blur. You hug your teammates, you shake a lot of hands, and holding back the tears you pull of the pads and the jersey for the last time. You stay in the locker room longer then usual dreaming of what could have been. You head home a little sore, a little tired, a little older.

You'll look for your old number, and you'll feel pretty good if the kid can play at all.

Everything looks a little different, a little clearer and brighter, like the first time you walked into the arena. The ice is clearer, the uniforms are cleaner, the hair brighter from a fiasco with the hair dye. It's like you're watching a movie, and you're in it. It doesn't even feel like a hockey game until the first time you skate down and smash heads with a kid from a different town. It feels like you are standing in the center of the universe, with all eyes upon you, as if nothing more vital is happening anywhere in the world. What is

Some common words found in the essay are:
, Dan Marino, You'll You'll, you'll you'll, Bill Clinton, hockey game, born maybe, ice game, game life, hockey game life,
Approximate Word count = 1150
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)