Recreational level hockey isn�t about glory. It�s about having fun. It�s about camaraderie. It�s about having a beer with your teammates afterward.

It�s also about memories.

It�s been more than two years since I last played a rec league game. That was in Las Vegas. At the time, I had no idea it would be my last game for at least the next two years.

It ended up that way because I accepted a reporting job with a twice-weekly newspaper in the small Washington town of Poulsbo. The move brought many sacrifices, such as selling a 1963 Chevy I wanted to restore, a Fender Stratocaster guitar and my pinball machine. I was shocked when I arrived to find that unless I wanted to commute by ferry to the Seattle area, and risk missing the last ferry returning to the Kitsap Peninsula if games were late at night, I would have to sacrifice my No. 1 hobby.

No big deal, I thought. I spent my teen years not being able to try a sport I found fascinating. Las Vegas had an ice rink in the mid-80s, but it didn�t have glass on the boards and was about 60 percent the size of a standard rink. There was also no place to buy equipment.

As it turns out, the Chevy, guitar and pinball machine I don�t miss. The same can�t be said about hockey. Not only did playing provide a good source of stress relief and exercise, but I especially missed the camaraderie of being with guys from many backgrounds who shared hockey as a common interest. It would have been nice to get away from journalists and sources for a few hours each week.

But while I missed playing the game itself, I missed the little things which happened both on and off the ice. Such occurrences, many of them obtuse, seemed to follow my former recreational team, the Oilers.

The bizarre follows the mediocre. (If you need proof, look at the history of the Hartford Whalers.) The Oilers went beyond mediocre. We were terrible. But few could top us in goofy characters and silly events.

To wit:

� We once suited up a woman, who was about 5-foot-2, and a 6-10 man in the same game. I can�t recall if they were linemates.

� One of our forwards played with shin guards held together by duct tape. They looked so old the rumor was he had someone steal them from the Hockey Hall of Fame. Another forward used skates which were new around the time the World Hockey Association was founded.

� Yet another forward enjoyed quoting the Hanson Brothers from �Slap Shot� whenever he lined up for a faceoff.

� Our goalie once decided to try karyoke in the bar adjoining the rink. He sang a James Taylor song, but tried to impersonate Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam. His impersonation, which included the same facial expressions and body movements of Vedder, caused several patrons to leave.

� Have you ever seen grown men imitate Beavis and Butthead?

� Speaking of impersonations, I used to mimic a teammate�s voice and mannerisms with such perfection that I used to make the locker room erupt in laughter. I also made a referee laugh so hard that I spared my victim a 10-minute misconduct for arguing a call. Another favorite target of mine was the rink announcer.

� A summer game against a co-ed team pitted one of our defenseman against his wife. One play, where he cleared the puck out of the defensive zone in front of our bench, he took a vicious crosscheck to the face � from his spouse. She also speared him when he was laying on the ice. The incident caused the bench to erupt in laughter, and miss a line change. After the game, the victim had no idea why his wife cross checked him in the first place. He also never lived it down.

Anxiously waiting

There are, of course, numerous other bizarre stories I could tell, but they are inappropriate for a general circulation magazine. Yet that is what makes recreational hockey such a great adult activity. It gives men a chance to flex testosterone in an environment where tact basically disappears - and few, if anyone, cares.

You can temporarily return to behavior you may have last exhibited in your college fraternity or high school. I have no clue as to whether women players reach the same depths of Beavis and Butthead behavior in the locker room and the bench as men do.

I�m not done with hockey, though. My wife and I are planning to move across Puget Sound to Seattle within the next 18 months, and the first thing I�m doing is joining a rec league.

In the meantime, my gear sits in a closet next to a water heater; my skates hang from a coat rack. I stay in shape (somewhat) by weight lifting and riding an exercise bike, dreaming of the next time I miss an open net (My nickname was Fantana).

I�ll also take one of my sticks onto the patio, shoot pine cones into the forest, and recall, as The Boss put it, �boring stories of glory days.�