The blue and orange of the Central Maine Civic Center’s seats and railings were a blur. The press box appeared upside down. The black hockey pants I wore for the first time in nearly three years swooshed against the ice as I slid, back-first, into the boards behind the net.

Embarrassed and mad, I got back up, allowing the skate blades that had just betrayed me to touch the ice again. I skated back to the front, left corner of the rink to take my place in line.

Turning to Kevin Turgeon, a forward with the Lewiston Maineiacs, I tried to justify the reason for the nosedive.

“I haven’t skated with equipment on in nearly three years,” I stammered in French. “It’s been a while. This is why I write now.”

Laughing, I pivoted and saw that it was again my turn to zip a pass to the high slot so that Mathieu Aubin could rip a one-timer at John Racine, one of the billet fathers and a substitute goaltender for this practice.

I could take heart that I didn’t miss a pass all practice. My shooting? Now that was a different story.

The day after Christmas is usually a time to sit back and relax after another anxiety-filled Yuletide. But I chose it as the day that would define whether or not I was old even though I am only 24.

As I laced up my tattered skates with the rusty blades (I think the last competitive hockey I played was intramural hockey at Boston University in the winter of 2001), all I could think of was how I might fit in with the younger, quicker, more agile 16- to 20-year-olds who are members of the Lewiston Maineiacs.

A couple of laps and a few shots at the goaltenders made me realize that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.

After flailing at a few crisp passes and whiffing on too many, everyone on the ice, coaches and reporter included, were divided into teams for three-on-three. Both goals were positioned inside the home blue line. Players on the “bench” stood at the blue line, and the “rink” was the defensive zone.

Typical three-on-three.

I was grouped with the rest of the white jerseys, along with the gray and the green. Olivier Legault, Alexandre Picard, Alex Bourret, Francis Trudel, Bobby Gates…and me. On the other side, coaches Ed Harding and Jeff Guay skated with the orange and blue.

No one kept track of scoring, but I am pretty sure my plus/minus rating was nearing minus-20 by the end of the night. I did manage to bang two goals past Racine, thanks to my teammates’ tape-to-tape passes and one tired goaltender.

Aside from the coaching staff, I still wasn’t the oldest person on the ice. Racine, who played for St. Dom’s in the 1980s and for the L/A Rapids in the early 1990s, is in his mid-30s, and Matt Roy, the other substitute goaltender that day is pushing 30.

Still, when I took a good look at my socks from my days with the St. Joe’s Hornets, my blue helmet from my days as an aspiring Lewiston High School hockey player, my jersey from my days as a Boston University Inline Hockey player and my skates that I have worn since I was 14-years-old, I couldn’t help but feel old.

Time has a way of doing that to people.

The Maineiacs, by the way, are good hockey players – the best I have ever seen play at the Central Maine Civic Center for an extended period of time, and certainly the best I have ever had the opportunity to skate with.

They might make you feel old, but at least it’s exciting to watch – as long as you aren’t sliding into the end boards after whiffing on a one-timer in the center of the slot.

Next stop: the upside down press box, where I intend to plant myself for the rest of the season, or until the Maineiacs need an old guy to make fun of during practice again.

Justin Pelletier is a staff writer. He can be reached by email at [email protected].