Under Water Hockey is a game played in a pool, 5 vs. 5. With fins, snorkels, facemasks, sunken goals, special sticks, and a heavy puck. This was how I viewed it after playing twice, note, ramming is illegal: Fins plunge like sharks on the hunt. And I dive into bubbled calamity. From my perspective in this 3-D game, the action is like the eye of a hurricane, chaos surrounds the puck. I can feel concussive waves from the fight. Black sticks hack and slash the white sticks.
My mask provides no peripheral vision, pool particulate is visible in the 45 degree downward charge. The white stick passes to open space using the doorknob flick, it’s less than a meter away. 15 seconds since inhale. Vibrations to my left alert the location of a veteran speeding by. He deftly controls the puck, but to no avail. I’m just plain bigger. Eyes on the prize, I stretch out my stick, holding my left arm bent in a RAM! He’s knocked asunder. 30 seconds since inhale. I can hear the light clicks as I drive the puck a few meters. The overhead profile looks like a bullet accelerating from explosion. I can’t see them, but 9 surround me. The adrenaline consumes the oxygen from my already empty lungs, my chest feels like it is imploding. I am able to dump the puck to a friendly stick before surfacing, and inhaling air and water. I hack for a few moments before another plunge, my team needs me.
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