The Crazy Lady and the Bench: How One Moment Changed My Entire Life

Some objects in our world simply are overlooked as you pass them by. That is the kind of thing that this object is. It sits outside the ice rink, Arrington Ice Arena, here on campus. It is often unused, empty, as nobody wants to be outside in the harsh weather of the months that hockey season occurs in. Its surface is cold in the winter, trapping the frigid temperatures in its core, but in the summer the heat is soaked in by the black coat of paint that covers it. It sits among the landscaping, surrounded by dirty woodchips in the winter and beautiful flowers in the spring and summer. This object is a bench. How can one object be so important to an individual? Well, simply put, that bench saw a moment that would later change my life.

I would like to say that I am far too young to experience one of these so called “life changing moments”, but that would be a lie. That moment happened on that bench. It was July 27th, 2011. One of my brothers was at hockey camp that week and my mom, youngest brother, and I were picking him up. When we walked up to the bench, we found a woman sitting there, bawling her eyes out. Concerned, my mom walked up to the woman and asked her what was wrong. The woman lamented on about how her baby boy, her only child was leaving for college this year. Mind you, this was the last week of July, two weeks away from move-in day, but this poor woman was incredibly upset. My mom tried her best to console her, telling the woman that we would watch out for her son, we were at the rink at least once a week and were making it a habit to come to the hockey games every once in a while. The woman was somewhat relieved after this, her mood becoming a bit brighter. She introduced herself as Theresa, her son Christopher was coming to college here at Adrian and was skating with some of the freshmen that wanted to play on the ACHA D3 teams. After a few more minutes, Christopher came out of the rink to find his mom. She introduced us to him, telling us he was a goaltender and he was hoping to play on the Gold team that fall. She again, continued on about how he was her baby boy and how sad she was that he would be leaving for college, embarrassing Christopher quite a bit in the process. When we walked away that night, I had no idea how that conversation with the crazy lady on the bench outside the rink would affect my life.

As hockey season approached, we found ourselves at Arrington Ice Arena more and more each week. A group of the ACHA D3 players began coaching my younger brother, Johnny, and he convinced my mother that we had to follow their season as well. As the season continued on, we continued to follow this Gold team, even travelling a few times to follow them on the road. Christopher was on this team, but he was injured, so we didn’t see Theresa that season. Throughout the season, my little brother Johnny had become their mascot, waiting at the door before and after each period of each game to give them high-fives. Senior night, they brought him into the locker room and they all signed his jersey, which he wore to every single game that season and the next, and one of them gave him a broken stick. It was only December, two and a half months into the season, yet, we knew that this team was special. That March, the team went to the ACHA Division 3 National Championships out in New Jersey, which, to mine and my brother’s dismay, was too far for my mother to drive us. So we watched online, streaming all of the games as we did our schoolwork every afternoon that week. They swept the pool play, getting them to the semi-final game. We watched with anticipation, Johnny clad in his autographed jersey and Adrian College Hockey hat as he sat on the couch. It was a blow-out game, our beloved Gold team beating Iowa State 7-1. The next day would be the National Title Game versus Davenport University. We may have been eight hours away, but we were just as excited as we would have been if we were in New Jersey as the final horn sounded. That next afternoon, we crowded around our TV to watch the big game. The final score was 4-2 in favor of the Bulldogs, as the final minute approached, ten year old Johnny ran off to get on his hockey gloves so that he could celebrate as if he were one of the players on the ice. That next night, we went to the rink where they were soon to be arriving. As the crowd of students awaited the bus’s arrival, I stood on the bench so I could see over the mass of people. The bus soon approached, lead by their police escort, Johnny walked up to the edge of the swarm of people and stood at the bus’s door when they parked and as the captains came out, they handed Johnny the trophy, which he almost dropped. Of course, they helped him out, posing for a picture, a picture that we still have to this day.

After what seemed like an eternity, “the boys” were back at it to defend their title, opening their season against the very team they beat to win the title. The day could not get there soon enough. But then something happened. We were at the rink for sticks and pucks and one of the students asked us if we had heard the news. The news was that Brett Berger, the coach of the Gold team, was leaving, taking a job in Pennsylvania as an assistant coach of a varsity team. I remember being so upset that I walked out of the rink and sat down on that bench. My mom came out after a few minutes and started talking to me, she had talked to Coach Berger while I was out on the bench. He said he’d be closer to his family, who lived in New Jersey, and he would get to be a part of an NCAA team, which is a big promotion. We were happy for him, but that didn’t mean that we wanted him to leave. Life continued on though, Coach Berger left the morning of the big game, creating a rather solemn mood that surrounded our house and the rink like a cloud on a foggy day. But come September 27th, we put aside our sorrow to cheer on the boys.

“Take your skirts off and play some hockey, boys!” Those words rang out throughout the arena with about ten minutes remaining in the game, the Gold squad was down 3-1. It looked like Davenport was going to get the best of the Bulldogs this time. When we heard the phrase ringing throughout the arena, and bursting our eardrums, we looked around to look for the source of the sound. Who could possibly yell that loud? Much to our surprise, it came from a lady sitting about one row up on the opposite side of the section, she looked like a very nice lady, probably one of the moms from the team. We had to go meet her, she was on our side after all and there weren’t a lot of fans there, let alone fans that were yelling creative phrases. That lady’s name was Theresa, the same lady we met out at the bench. Her son Christopher was going to be playing this year after being injured the year before. From that game on, in which the boys came back to win 4-3, my youngest brother and I sat with her, and still to this day we sit with her every game, sitting in the exact same seats each time.

It’s been four years now since we met Theresa, her husband Chris, and her son Christopher. Since then, the Gold squad has won three National Championships. Every year we have welcomed them home with signs and bells and clappers, and balloons. It’s not just a team, it’s a family. At every game we sit at the exact same seats in section C, row three. Jacob, my youngest brother sits in seat 2, Theresa in seat 3, and I in seat 4, she’s very superstitious. After a goal you will more than likely hear us yelling, “that’s what I’m talking about boys!” At the end of each year, we celebrate the season’s success with a picnic, nicknamed “the best day”. It’s been four years, four awesome seasons from this team that we now call our family, this team full of 25 adopted brothers and their parents, four years full of “best days” spent at the rink with our hockey family. It would be impossible to try to capture every single memory we’ve made and put it into words. Now, the freshmen that were playing their first season of college hockey are seniors, preparing for their last run at the National Title. When I wrote this post for class, it was five days until senior night, a night I have been dreading for the past four years. Each year is hard, but this year will probably be the hardest. Christopher is graduating too, meaning no more Theresa at every game to yell and cheer and make noise with. Who knew that something so simple, so common as a bench would play such a pivotal role in my life? In the spring, a brick, our Christmas gift from Theresa and her family, will be put in the walkway in front of the rink commemorating that day that our friendship began and remind us of our friendship everytime we walk past it. Players will graduate, they'll move on with their lives, but that bond, that family that we have will always exist. Now, I can't imagine my life without these incredible people I call my Adrian College Hockey family, especially Theresa and her family. And to think, it all started with a crazy lady crying on a bench.