"Good Game"

Jeremy's hand was wrapped tight with athletic tape, and he could only bump the Warriors' hands after the game. Every tap sent slashed pain through his wrist. Patrick tried to goad Josh into another technical foul and squeezed his hand hard enough to make him wince. The gauze pad above my eye had soaked through with blood. The excess oozed down. Coaches Lundgard and Browning hardly brushed one another.

The refs didn't call the flagrant foul on Matt's game-winning shot, but we still said, “Good game.” We would play again. There would be atonement. That would be a good game.

***

This may be over the top, especially with the threat of "atonement," but it rounds nearer to the truth for me than not. How often, especially when you're in high school or whatever, do you really mean "good game" when the final second passes and your team has lost? Do you really mean that the referees called it fair, that everyone played to the best of their abilities, that you deserved to lose, that they deserved to win? Hardly ever, for me at least. There is always that promise when you go through the line that if things had been a little different, if a foul had not have been missed or one mistake not been made, the result would have been different, and it will be that little bit different next time.