This rollercoaster we call life, has dealt me a cruel hand at many a times. To cope with this, I have developed humour and a very deep well of emotions.

This deep well is regularly added to with personal issues, lack of achieving goals, etc... There are very few times when I'm tempted to expose the frustration in the well. Tonight was one of them.

At the end of our hockey game, just before the whistle blew, I went into the corner with someone I have a history with, and gave him a nudge against the boards. He took exception to this and (with his glove on) punched me right in the face when I wasn't expecting it. I fell to the ice, because I was completely caught off guard and off balance. He proceeded to punch me a second time, this time while I am down on the ice.

There were some cobwebs, I admit. It took a few seconds for me to actually realize what had happened. When I got off the ice, everyone had jumped to separate us to make sure we didn't fight. Then, when I show interest in retaliating, he uses the line, "oh now that the referee is between us?". To prove my interest, I moved away from the crowd to an open area and called him over. We locked arms, I even gave him a nice taste of the palm of my glove, but then I let him go.

I could feel inside of me, all the rage from that well building up and it was unfair to him that he was going to be the target. I was ready to pumbel him into dust. Instead, I just allowed cooler heads to prevail (as they say).

Afterwards in the dressing room, my hands were shaking (more so than usual) because it was on the tip of my fingers, just to let it all out for the first time... but not then, not in that forum. Then the humour element kicked in and said, "I'll just wait till I have kids to hit someone like that" :)

My best friend of 25 years is also on the team and he said he had never seen me that enraged before.

I need to find the right time and forum to let this rage out or it's going to envelop me one day.