Owen Maguire
Amherst, Massachusetts
EVERY SUNDAY NIGHT in Amherst I play hockey; when I’m home, that is. My Dad does too. So does my summer boss and another carpenter on our crew. We have a local radiologist, a real estate agent, a roofer, painter, woodworker, insulator, mechanic, nurse, chiropractor, landscape architect, several students, and a stonemason, to name a few. Collectively we have the skills to build a house, fix a car, save a person, and sell that house. But instead, we just play hockey. Or some slow, awkward version of it. Our oldest skater is pushing seventy, our youngest about twenty-one. Me, I’m turning twenty-four next month.
The puck bounces around for an hour and a half, off the boards, sticks, legs, skates, and into the goal. I myself…
