Air hockey in the Smoky Mountains

So, last week I spent a little time in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains with my wife’s family. As luck would have it, not only did our cabin have a hottub and 2 jacuzzi tubs, it also had a pool table and an air hockey table.

An air hockey table.. in the middle of nowhere… seriously. How middle of nowhere? Here.. check out our view.

…and another in the national park

The best part was that I had Eric to play against. So – not only did I have an air hockey in my place, but someone good to play.

Now.. when I first saw the table, I thought there was about zero chance I’d even attempt to play a game… and that it would be sitting there taunting me with how much fun I could have had… because it was in such sad shape – the legs did very little to hold the table up. I could move the table with the tip of my finger a good 8-9 inches with little effort. My father-in-law saw the problem and tightened up some bolts and what was once a table that looked on the verge of falling over on itself became a very shitty, but somehow serviceable table. About this table: it was chewed up, small, used the smaller-sized puck and mallets.. didn’t have corners at right angles, and had a ‘net’ – so it didn’t even have the goals built into the end of the table, but extended out about 4 inches. It was some weird variation on an air hockey table and had many dead spots – and that’s putting it generously. The puck didn’t exactly move very well, and any good hit would send it right off the table.

Here’s Eric at the table:

Strategies changed against Eric… and I now found that my slim power advantage against Eric was nullified completely by the table. Hitting the puck hard did nothing but turn it over. Shoot… hitting a bank shot became near suicide… a miss would almost always result in a turnover… and off-goals, foooogetaboutit. The most reliable way to score was to be really, really sneaky. It became very good practice for hitting cross-straights and cut shots from everywhere on the table. Sometimes you could rally and miss a couple times and set up a shot. Quick drifts would sometimes work… but eventually Eric would just tune into the straight shots and just stay rigid well in front of the goal… and only then did my bank shots work. Everything was half-speed at best, and I did a decent job of keeping everything on the table. The thing is, it was actually really useful for getting the technique of each shot down… it’s easy to hit something at half-speed –with light mallets and pucks… so I was even able to hit left wall unders with ease and cross straights off the back of my mallet. It may turn out to be good practice when I go back to the Stubb’s air hockey clinic tomorrow.

It reminded me that I actually grew up with an air hockey table in my house as a kid. I don’t remember playing all that much… in fact, the only thing I really remember was that I was playing my oldest brother (8 years my senior), and we had our table pushed up against our basement wall. We had a rule that if the puck flew off the table, the puck belonged to the person who could get it first – and this would sometimes involve tackling and kicking, tripping, and pushing – essentially it combined air hockey and wrestling. Being much younger than my brother and never, ever, being successful in prying the puck away from him.. I did the smart thing – and just let him have it. It must have irked my brother that I didn’t want to duke it out with him because there was one time that the puck came off the table and it landed right next to my left foot. This one, I could reach over and snag.. and that’s exactly what I did. I bent over – slapped the puck on the table, saw that my brother was nowhere to be found and not defending his goal.. so I extended my arm to take a shot… and right then – my brother checked me right into the wall like this was an actual hockey match. I fell to the floor with tears running down my face, as I wasn’t expecting the shot. Fearful of punishment, my brother quickly encouraged me to calm down and he decided he’d give me a ‘penalty shot’ (yeah)… but when I tried to shoot, I couldn’t even take the shot my shoulder hurt so much. This terrified me more than anything, which really brought the waterworks. I literally couldn’t lift my arm… it just hung there, limp. I ended up going to the doctor that day, and though nothing was broken – I was in a sling for a week or so because the muscle in my shoulder was bruised all the way through. It took days before I had even passable movement in my shoulder. I don’t remember playing air hockey at home after that incident. My goodness.. here I am with an air hockey blog, and I had completely forgotten about that story. Quite the auspicious air hockey beginning everyone would expect, no?

Anyway… I’ll briefly analyze the Rood family in terms of air hockey skill.

Eric – very good, deceptive and consistent… my only losses came to him. The best Rood air hockey player by far.

Joe – you’d think that being athletic would translate to some kind of skill, but he sucks. He’s got no offense and his defense is susceptible to the cross straight… at least he played a triangle defense.

Michelle (not a Rood) – So boring I don’t even remember playing her. Please.

John (the Patriarch) Rood – 7-1 in our first game, with his only score came in a weird lapse on my part. Had a very useless quick “side-to-side” defense. Our rematch was closer, but only because he went to the “I’m not moving my mallet and I’m keeping it right in the middle of the goal” defense… which prolonged the game enough for him to get a couple lucky shots in. I’m pretty sure he thought his mustache would help him, but it didn’t.

Lane – Completely inconsistent.. made a couple brilliant shots, but we ended up not keeping track of the score as I scored at will against him. He was completely distracted by the cartoon playing in the same room.

Logan – Terrible, just terrible. For such a tiny table, Logan barely can see above it, and he doesn’t play “bigger” than himself. His attack of walking up the side of the table and slowly pushing the puck to my side of the table did nothing against my formidable defense, and left him completely out of position for easy scores, and couldn’t even get to the puck on the right side of the table as it was pushed against a wall. His morale was completely shattered after a couple shouts of “In your face!” and “Boo-yaaaah!”… I don’t even think he finished the game and just ran away crying. Logan’s got a long way to go to beat anyone in a serious game of air hockey.

(ok, the screaming at a 4-year old didn’t actually happen… but I stand by my claim of him sucking.)