You want excitement? Try over-40 hockey

In need of a hockey fix and tired of 30 Rock reruns, I motored down to El Segundo Thursday night to watch the title game of the Toyota Sports Center's over-40 summer league. It turned out to be well worth the haul from Pasadena.

The California Leafs rallied from a 5 to 2 deficit in the final 10 minutes to take the league trophy with a 6 to 5 win in overtime over the L.A. Force (the online box score has errors in the order of scoring). Trailing by a goal, the Leafs survived a Force power play with 4:39 to go in the third and then tied the game on their own power play with 1:13 left in the period.

The video -- sorry about the crappy camera work -- shows the game winner by Mike Pearson with a Thomas Szabo assist that came 7:13 into the sudden-death period. My hockey buddy Scott -- the dude who persuaded me to give the sport a try -- notched three assists.

It was a well played game. It also was a pretty good reminder how far my skills have to advance to even think about playing with some of these dudes. In fact, I'm heading over to the Pasadena public rink now for some late afternoon skatework and toddler avoidance practice. I'm toying with playing in the Sports Center's beginner league this fall, but still need to find out how they define "beginner."

--Steve Hymon