A kick-save x 2

The following is from an article in Social Justice Review, Vol 99, No 3-4, 2008. Notice the volume number; do the math; SJR was founded under Leo XIII!

A KICK, A SQUEEZE AND A HUG

DONALD DeMARCO, Ph.D.

It was Thursday night, January 5th, 2006. At OM Place in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada had just won the world junior hockey championship by a score of 5-0 over the Russian finalists. The hero of the night, and of the series, was 19-year-old Justin Pogge (rhymes with "stogie"). He had distinguished himself on this occasion by stopping 35 shots on net. It was his third shutout of the series, an accomplishment unique in tournament play, and it cast him in the spotlight as "man of the hour".

During the post-game celebration, he tipped his new World Junior Championship ball cap to a wildly exuberant crowd, a gesture that acknowledged the regular chanting of his name-"Pogge, Pogge, Pogge!"-that had resounded throughout the packed arena during that evening's game and during the entire series.

Goalies are supposed to make saves-pad saves, stick saves, skate saves, and kick saves. Justin Pogge's very first "kick save" was his most important, but it had taken place far from the hockey rink and the roaring crowd. It had saved not merely a goal, but two lives.

...Winding the clock back nineteen years, we find the twenty-two-year-old Annet Pogge attending her engagement party in her home town of Fort McMurray, Alberta. A hundred and twenty-six friends and relatives had come to the elaborate affair in order to offer her their best wishes. The hopes of the well-wishers may indeed have proved effective, though not for any forthcoming marriage. Something entirely different was about to take place, but it was certainly no less significant.

Annet had been expecting a baby for four months. When she informed her boyfriend of her condition, he walked out on her, leaving his now ex-fiancée with the humiliating task of explaining to the assembled guests why there would be no wedding. Her rejection, humiliation, and ruined hopes were too much for her to bear. She left the party that evening and walked to a bridge over a river that ran through the town. Here she could drown herself and her sorrows all at once.

"Just when I was thinking of doing it," she told the Toronto Globe & Mail, "when I was thinking of terminating everything, not just the pregnancy, but me, I felt a kick. It was light, but I felt it. It was the first real sign of life. I remember thinking, 'Oh, God. This is a sign. God wants me to live.' I couldn't end my life then - I couldn't."

The kick that signaled life defeated the pain that almost led to tragedy. The victory was one that Annet Pogge had to re-enact again and again before her son could begin executing his kick saves for great and enthusiastic audiences on a world stage. Annet experienced financial hardship and made many sacrifices in keeping her son and allowing him to stay in hockey. She told him the story of that nearly fatal moment on the bridge, long before she told anyone else. As she explained to the Edmonton Sun, she wanted him to know that he was born out of love and that it was his action, gentle and unconscious though it was, that saved her from ending both their lives.

...Two golden moments, one mirroring the other. The second, amidst fanfare and jubilation on a frozen surface of ice in Vancouver: "Canada smashes Russia, takes gold!" proclaimed one headline. The first, alone on a bridge overlooking a watery grave, except for a gentle kick that reminded her that her life should be lived and not thrown away. The more golden moment by far was the one in which a kick-save by an unborn child of four months kicked away despair and death.

The Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League have signed Justin Pogge. By all indications, he has a most promising career ahead of him as a professional goaltender. His story is an invaluable reminder to all of us, however, that hockey at its best is just a metaphor, though one whose significance we should trouble ourselves to understand. Keeping a puck from crossing the goal line pales in importance when compared to what it symbolizes: preventing discouragement from entering our hearts and threatening to destroy our lives and the lives of others who depend on us.

The task of the goalie is to make saves. The word "save" is etymologically related to "salvation". The best thing about sport is that it reminds us of a struggle that ultimately transcends it-between hope and despair, good and evil, life and death. We should be wise never to sever this link. The major difference between the symbolism of sports and life itself is that only in life can we all be winners.

"For of all sad words of tongue or pen", wrote John Greenleaf Whinier, "The saddest are these: 'It might have been!"' Canada's gold did come about, but it might not have been without the goalie who himself might not have been without his mother's love. This is a good story. But how many sad stories are there of things that "might have been" that cannot be told?

DR. DeMARCO, an Advisory Editor of Social Justice Review, teaches at Holy Apostles College and Seminary in Cromwell, Coon. Several of his recent books are available from the Central Bureau of the Central Verein, including Character is a Time of Crisis and Virtue’s Alphabet.