Feb. 24, 2006

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After my freshman year I was faced with the dilemma of where I was going to live the following season. I checked out every option and ended up going with what you could say has been a hockey tradition at Ferris, and that was to live in a trailer home.

Now I know what everyone thinks when they hear the word "trailer" and all the stereotypes that come along with it, but as a college student I didn't pay much attention to them. After adding up all the costs, it was clearly going to be the cheapest route for my upcoming years. So when all was said and done, my roommate Jamie Dunlap and I moved in to the trailer park. It has been an experience ever since.

Now that you know about my living arrangements, I can tell you what has become one of the best team-building experiences outside of the rink. It was a Wednesday night last season and Adam Welch, Dunlap and I were just sitting around the trailer with nothing to do. We began talking about the times when we were younger and how much fun we had terrorizing hotel hallways playing mini-sticks - or what the Michigan guys call knee hockey. Welch made a comment that the TV area in the trailer would be perfect for some one-on-one mini-stick games. Before you knew it, we were at Lowe's in Big Rapids buying all the supplies needed to build two nets.

The following Wednesday we held our first tournament at the trailer. As I remember, there were only five guys who played. We called the tournament the "Grey Goose Cup" and we used an old Grey Goose bottle as the Championship Trophy.

By the time this season came about, the tournament's popularity had grown within the varsity team and now has become a weekly activity that we do outside the rink as a team. As the number of guys interested in competing grew, so did the tournament. We have had a lot of fun coming up with different ways to make the weekly tournament bigger than what it really is. We have officially named the league the NTHL (National Trailer Hockey League) and have launched our own website with tournament brackets, stats and player profiles at http://nthl.bravehost.com.

The tournament is held every Wednesday night around 8 p.m. This year the tournament has had at least eight guys each week; usually if there are eight guys playing, there are another five who show up just to watch and hang out. Some rules that have been put into play consist of: no bank shots off the couches, games are five minutes long or first to three goals, and finally absolutely no timeouts unless you are bleeding (this has only happened twice).

Even though it's mini sticks, when you put eight hockey guys competing against each other, it's going to get pretty heated. We have had intense championship overtime wins where the game has lasted over 20 minutes to blowouts that last about one minute. It has become our getaway from the stress that comes with going to school and playing such a demanding sport. I'm sure next year when I look back at my times at Ferris, aside from hockey, those out-of-the-rink team activities are going to be missed the most.