How Do We Lose Gracefully?

Image by Travis Hanable via Flickr

I just got done playing a game of Hockey with the EB Boys, in our Tuesday night Minnesota Wild Adult Hockey League division. We lost by a pretty large margin.

Let me start from the beginning. We started playing this season with 7 wins and a tie in 8 games. We were really doing well and we felt very confident. Perhaps too confident.

There are about 16 of us that play regularly with 4 or 6 subs as needed. Almost all of us get together 45 minutes before our games to have a men’s bible study. Four games ago, we got skunked and lost by a large margin. We didn’t get there in time to have the bible study and the other team was very “chippy” and getting away with calls that should have easily been penalties. Our team started to get angry that they were getting away with things and a lot of us lost it. Lets say that it really wasn’t a good “Christ-like” experience.

After that game, the thing that started to come up in discussion was the idea that with pride comes a great fall. With humility comes wisdom. Now, I hate extolling my own strengths because I feel my head bloating larger and larger… But, I have had a lot of experience being humbled.

As a kid there was rarely anything that I wasn’t good at. It didn’t take me very long to learn to ride a bike. It only took me a week or so to learn to skate. I was blessed with a good amount of athleticism and a fair bit of intelligence. In fact, there are really only two situations that stick in my mind in which I failed at something. Sixth grade tenor saxophone. I wasn’t a natural at it, therefore I didn’t want to play it, but in order to be good at it, one needs practice. I dropped it after the first year.

The second incident was really the first couple years of college, specifically Calculus. I did not understand calculus at all. I got my first failing grade. I got my second failing grade. I got a couple more failing grades because I was trying to put all of my effort into understanding calculus that I neglected other classes. It was indeed a very humbling experience.

When it comes to hockey, I excelled at goalie. It’s kinda funny how I started playing that position though. I started off as a wing and was finding myself out of breath more often then the rest of my team mates. I was feeling the effects of asthma and bronchitis. It was suggested that I try something different, so rather than drop hockey, I switched to goalie.

Throughout high school I played the majority of games, usually starting. We had a decent team, but not “state-worthy”. It was normal for us to do well against some teams and then get slaughtered against others. We regularly lost to Brainerd, Detroit Lakes and Wadena, usually by a large margin. It was also normal for me to have over a hundred saves in those games. I seem to remember one game against DL that I had over 150 saves. We lost 8 to 2. I had many lessons in humility, both as myself and as part of a team.

This brings us back to the here and now.

Four games ago, we lost 7 to 0. Most of our team lost our cool. We started to learn, or re-learn some things like humility and team cohesion. The last two games we tied. Tonight we lost again, 9 to 3.

Tonight we didn’t have anyone lose it. We had one penalty, which was barely one at that. 3 games ago we had too many to count. Was tonight a test by God to see if we really learned anything? I think it could have been and I am happy to say that I think we passed.

So, how DO we lose gracefully? This is going to sound cliche, but I think that you can lose the competition, but as long as you don’t lose yourself, your values as a Christian or your love for the game; you really didn’t lose anything at all.