Pacific Rim - How it should have been - Chapter 1

Opening scene - Forget the whole background story from the film. Nothing is worse than showing off all your goods in the first 2 minutes of a film, i.e. - Michael Bay's Transformers. This starts off in what seems to be present day. But there's no date or year mentioned. We just know that we're in the modern world. Let's establish the characters and develop them a little, first. 2 brothers are engaged in a training session at Travis Air Force Base in Northern California. Brothers are Raleigh and Joe-Shmoe. Let's just call him Josh. Although they're brothers and they're wicked competitive and very skilled as seen in their flying styles. But they're very close, as well. After the training session, Raleigh and Josh are changing in the locker room (eye-candy for the girls) and discussing what an important evening it's going to be and that Josh better not be late. Josh asks, "You think she's actually going to say 'yes' to you?". "Of course," Raleigh answers with an arrogant smirk. Then they can talk about some brotherly love stuff and how Raleigh is so happy that his baby brother is going to be his best man, yadda yadda mushy mushy stuff. Then Josh asks if their brother, Anders will be there tonight as well. Raleigh looks deeply disappointed and answers no, that their brother has to work late tonight. Cut to next scene Night time. Raleigh and his girlfriend, Yuri are taking an evening stroll with the Golden Gate Bridge all lit up as the back-drop. They talk about something trivial. Raleigh suddenly lags behind, takes a knee, and proposes. Yuri is ecstatic and says yes. Smooch, smooch, smooch. Scene fades out with their silhouettes against the Golden Gate Bridge. Cut to next scene Still night time. Josh is waiting with Anders at a restaurant. Raleigh and Yuri walk in, it's a big surprise that Anders is there, everyone is happy as they sit down at their table and start talking about the proposal, the ring, the wedding, etc. It's during this time that shows the interaction between the 3 brothers that they're all very close, but especially Anders and Josh, even though Anders works in the private sector. Suddenly, the ground starts shaking like mad. Vases are falling, dishes are smashing. Women start screaming. It appears to be a really bad earthquake. The shaking continues for another 20 seconds as people hide underneath the tables until it stops. Things settle down and become quiet for a couple of minutes. People come out of hiding. The shaking starts again, but this time continues on and doesn't stop. Raleigh says, "this is one hell of an aftershock". Anders, who is a seismologist answers, "this is no aftershock....." No sooner does he finish that sentence when there's this monster-sounding roar that shatters all the glass in the building. The shaking continues and it's apparent the building is starting to collapse. Raleigh yells for everyone to run and get out of the building. The 4 make a mad dash for the exit, but so do the 100 other people in the restaurant. Raleigh and Yuri are holding hands but amidst the chaos they are separated. Yuri falls down and gets trampled as Raleigh and his 2 brothers are swept away by a human tide of panic-stricken people. The brothers are pushed outside of the building before they can gather themselves together. Raleigh immediately says he's going back in to get Yuri and heads towards the door. He's followed by his brothers and they enter the building, when suddenly the whole building collapses under what appears to be a giant clawed foot. It's hard to tell because it's black and dark. Camera pans out to San Francisco at night. This gigantic black silhouette-monster is trashing the city, destroys the Golden Gate (just like they wanted in the original movie), and continues to trash the Bay Area. And the Kaiju doesn't stop until the entire place is leveled. It then returns to the ocean. Meanwhile, back at the restaurant. Raleigh wakes up. He's partially buried under some rubble, but he's able to get out with just a broken arm. He digs Josh out, who's still alive but hurt. They find Anders, unconscious. Josh initiates CPR but he's bawling in the process seeing his brother like this. Now we're throwing some emotional investment in to this. Raleigh gets up and digs around for Yuri. He finds her, but she's already dead. He starts crying like a little girl. Scene fades out. So now we've established a background. 2 brothers left: both have lost a close brother, and one lost his fiancée. Both have emotional baggage, they've shared a deep emotional and traumatic experience and so have strong "drift compatibility." Now Raleigh and his brother can have a deep-seeded hatred for the Kaiju, not just the "hey, we're pilots and so we're badass rockstars" mentality. Now it's personal and there is some emotional investment. They have the batman mentality. END Chapter 1. Months later they can show that the brothers have recovered and back in good health. The people of earth are trying to figure out what in the world happened. As the military investigates, the two brothers are given their patrol assignments.

The Game I'll Never Forget - VII - The Drought and Resurrection

For people who say their personal lives aren't affected by residency, they're lying. It always affects you in one way or another; whether you're post call and too tired to do anything or whether you have to study for your boards, you're life IS affected. My life was no different. There was always something that had to be done and if there wasn't, then I had to be studying. After 4 long years of that somewhat mundane existence, that finally came to an end.

Graduation. This marked a pivotal time in my life, as it signified the end of my residency, the start of a new job, and a new road towards marriage, a new life. And again, there was no room for hockey. Yet. Life issues had to be established and settled before pursuing other interests, and that would take a while. As it turned out, it would take over 2 years.

One day in March of 2007, about 2 years after graduation, Q for some reason expressed an interest in picking up roller hockey, again. I'm not sure what brought this on; perhaps it was the Cup Finals that Anaheim played in that previous year that motivated him. Either way, he told me about it and I encouraged him. Then, he suggested the unthinkable,

"Why don't you play, too?" ME? I haven't played hockey in over 10 years, I haven't played ice hockey in 20 years. I wasn't in shape or working out. That would be suicide for sure. Besides, I'd have to have Mom and Dad send all my equipment over, again. And who knows if I even had a full set, anymore. However, it would be a form of exercise, something I was lacking quite severely but that I needed.

Despite making excuses not to play, I found myself shopping for hockey equipment online. My interest for getting back in to the game snowballed, as did my time researching equipment. My old ice hockey equipment was 20 years old and would not suffice; the pads were old, moldy, and coming apart at the seams. Buttons and snaps were rusted and fused. OSHA standards recommended replacement of helmets every 7 years. Mine was 15 years old.

Surely by now they've improved the technology, making padding lighter, stronger, and more comfortable. Sticks were stronger and lighter and skates were stiffer and lighter. A lot of research went in to choosing my equipment and I learned a lot about hockey equipment that I had no idea about before. For example, I learned that there were different types of sticks: wooden, one piece, 2 piece (huh? 1 piece, 2 piece?); not all curves on the blades were the same and in fact were very very specific; a curve on a blade had 5-7 specific characteristics and varied with each player; the shaft itself had at least 2-3 different specifications, as well. Woah! That was news to me. You mean you just didn't grab any old stick out of Sportsmart and use that one? I guess you could, but you'd be using a much different stick each time. The stick I ended up using was a right shot, Lie 6, mid curve type, moderate curve depth, moderate length blade with a rounded toe, neutral face angle, and a 102 flex with a low kick point. Huh? Exactly. Put simply, the Lindros/Kane P88 blade.

(Back in the day, composite sticks were just coming on to the market when I stopped playing ice hockey. But as young adult with no knowledge or experience of equipment, Q and I thought these new sticks were made of aluminum. When I had asked about aluminum sticks at the proshop as I was researching my new set of equipment, the guy looked at me like I was insane.)


My Excalibur

Skates were no different. The skates were THE most important part of playing (the 2nd most important is the stick). And not being in the game for so long I had no idea what was available, what was good, what wasn't. All I knew was Bauer and CCM and neither of those felt very comfortable. I searched many websites, went to many proshops and tried on many skates and for some reason they all hurt my feet. It felt as though someone was squeezing my feet together. Because of that, I took a chance and ordered a pair of CCM skates online that were wide-boot. Waiting for those to arrive in the mail was agony, but I eventually got them and tried them on. For the first time ever in my skating/hockey career, I wore a pair of skates and felt absolutely no pain in my foot. I was set.


My Pegasus

The rest of the equipment - helmet, face shield, shoulder pads, elbow pads, pants, shin pads, and cup weren't as crucial. I could always adjust to those and I realized that nothing that I wore would ever feel 100% comfortable regardless of how light the material was. Sacrificing comfort for protection wasn't an option, either. I had a job and a family and I couldn't jeopardize my livelihood just because my shoulders felt uncomfortable whenever I took a shot.

I eventually completed my equipment shopping, taking a very different angle on it than I had when I was younger. Before, it was all about buying what was cheapest but as I found out, that meant the least protection. At the same time, I didn't need the super-duper shoulder pads people wore in the NHL because I wasn't planning on playing in the NHL with bone-crunching body-checks, either. So I ended up buying equipment that was very middle-of-the-road.

Now I was set. I had the stick, I had my full set of equipment. Now the hard part: getting my game back. I had to figure out a plan for that.

Pet Peeves

The most annoying things ever. It's no mystery why that strange yet wise hermit lives at the top of the mountain in seclusion...

1. People who drive slower than I do - I didn't think it was humanly possible, but apparently it is. If their car is 30 years old and rusted to no end then I can understand. But what about those who are driving fairly new cars? No excuses! Move it!

2. Tiny white collar workers in monster SUV's. If you're driving a truck or SUV, you'd better be hauling around lumber, furniture, tools, or fertilizer. Why does a 4' 8" 90 lb. desk jockey need to drive a Hummer? Get over your Napoleon complex on the roads, people. If you want to feel safer on the road, then pay attention and drive safer. The counter for that would be, "well, other people don't drive safely and so I could still get hurt." If you pay attention and are savvy enough to avoid the accident, you won't get hurt!

3. Drivers with the phones glued to their ears. Does this even need explanation? Spend the 20 bucks and get a bluetooth, already! People say they can't afford bluetooth. Well, maybe you shouldn't be spending money for cell phones and cell phone service, then. A wise man once said, "there is no phone call that is so important that I have to risk my life and the lives of my passengers for." -Bernard Hume. Hang up and drive, you frakking morons.

4. Lazy people. Everybody hates lazy people, but to what extreme? I can't stand those people who take the elevator 1 floor up when they have nothing to carry. I do it all the time, but I'm lugging around 30 lbs. of gear with me everywhere. For those people lugging around an extra 30 lbs. of fat, maybe they wouldn't have the fat if they just took the staircase 1 flight up!

5. Politicians. They're all the same, they all lie, no one is different than the other. Some look better than others on TV, but that's about where the differences end. In the end, the rich and powerful will always stay in power and the poor and ordinary will remain that way. People get so heated over political discussion it's retarded! It's like vehemently arguing over which is more blue? Blue or Navy blue? Or sky blue? Who cares, they're all blue!

6. Smokers. Everyone has the right to jump off a building, but nobody has the right to drag a handful of people with them. Smokers should feel free to rip their own lungs out if they wish. But why impose that cruel punishment on those of us who actually enjoy breathing clean air? Maybe non-smokers should randomly walk around and strap an oxygen mask on random smokers they see on the street to force them to breathe clean air whether or not they like it or want to.

7. Lazy whiners. Whining is fine. I think we're all entitled to doing that as long as we have diligence to back it up. But for those who just sit around and don't do their jobs and whine about it? Shut up and do your job!

8. Puck hogs and those who never want to change shifts. Hey, puck hog! There are other people playing, too, you know. Care to share? Skate or get the frak off the ice.

9. Dumb law enforcers. Shouldn't it be a good idea for law enforcers to take common sense tests before being allowed to join? These people have real power. Shouldn't logical reasoning and common sense be a prerequisite?

10. Last, but not least, the passive aggressive person. Why cloud your true motives behind social etiquette? Why be a wolf in sheep's clothing? If you're going to be mean and intimidating and bully people around, do it with authority. At least other people will know where you're coming from. You don't see Darth Vader strutting around in a Barney suit asking people politely to do his bidding. No! He wears a black scary mask and cape and if you defy him he'll strangle you or slice your arm off. Be true to yourself.

The Game I'll Never Forget - VI - The Dark Ages

So there I was in Maine. MAINE! Ice country! Hockey! Nope. To my astonishment, my classmates who were primarily from the New England area were mostly basketball fans and football fans. Even in Maine, of all places. They thought that someone who grew up in California like me with such a love of the game was intriguing.

UNECOM didn't have a team that I knew of or that was advertised anywhere. Then one day I saw a flyer posted on the small bulletin board about a roller hockey team that was forming. Would I play? Sure, why not? It'd be a nice break from the constant studying. So I asked Mom and Dad to send me my hockey gear via mail (it was a huge package) and got ready for a game.

This was a league, we'd be wearing uniforms, playing in a rink, with score keepers, timers, and refs, etc. We had never played or practiced as a team, there was no talk of strategy, positioning, or anything. Oddly enough, I was the old-timer veteran on the team, too at the ripe old age of 27. Everyone else was 19-20.

Anyway, the arena was huge and there were multiple teams, bright lights, a REAL scoreboard, etc. It looked great! But when I got in the rink and started playing....ew! I hadn't played in months. Worse yet, I've never played with this bunch before. Needless to say I was probably the worst one out there. But was I really? At least I had the team mentality: I skated hard every shift and when I got tired I got off. These other kids I played with would stay out on their shift forever, get tired, stop trying and float. It was frustrating.

I played 2-3 games but the fun just wasn't there. The lines didn't roll as they should have, games were irregular, and I had very little playing time. The 45 minute drive to play 5-10 minutes/game wasn't worth it, so I basically stopped going to the games and concentrated on school, instead.

So there it was. I was on extended hiatus, my nose was in a book all the time, and I didn't even have time to watch games. That is except for the 1998 Olympics. To make things worse, Canada didn't even do well in the tournament.

My involvement in hockey continued to deteriorate as my academic career progressed to internship and residency. Hockey took a far back seat for the next 4 years.

It wasn't until my last year in Chicago that I had finally found a rink close by (relatively). Proximity was a major issue because traffic in Chicagoland is horrid! I'm sure there were rinks an hour away in the suburbs, but who wanted to spend a whole half of a day for a hockey game? And the rink I did find only had hockey leagues at the most inconvenient times. Besides, I had boards to study for and jobs to check out.

This was definitely hockey's darkest hour in my personal history.

The Game I'll Never Forget (V) - Falling Stars

Well, unfortunately nothing lasts forever and our team started to disband; key members left here and there for whatever reason and our losing streak began once, again. Not only was it because our team had a face lift, but also because we were moved in the difficulty of our division. One would think that after winning the C division, you would advance to the B division, but that's not what happened with us. We had just won the B division, but for some reason the next season we were put in the C division. The odd thing about that is that all the teams were so much better than who we played in the previous 2 seasons. Strange but true.

One game in particular was especially exciting for me, as Q was visiting and doing a rotation at Davis and so he stayed over at my place. We shared my room for a month, just as we did when we were kids although this time it became a bit cramped with all my junk, all his junk, and my tiny little bedroom. Not to mention we were both a lot bigger.

With Q's visit, I invited him to play on our team in Sacramento to sub for some of our players. It was a tremendous opportunity to play with Q, again. It was like reuniting Gretzky and Kurri, or a more modern analogy would be putting Crosby and Malkin together (Q would be Malkin, the sniper. I would be Crosby, dishing out the pass to him). Little did I know at that time, though, was how out of practice and how out of shape Q was, but understandably so. I mean, in med school there ARE more important things (there are?) like studying. Actually, that game that Q played in, I felt more and more like Darth Vader as the game progressed.

"When I left you, I was but the learner. Now I am the master." I remember one particular play where I got the puck and skated end-to-end before deking the goalie out of his jock-strap and passing to Q for a shot at a wide open net...AND HE MISSED! WTF? But that's okay. You play long enough and you're going to miss a few open nets.

At this time I was at the top of my game, no question. The biggest problem or obstacle to overcome at this point was...boredom! How could I possibly get bored? Well, there was a limit to how much I could improve, as I didn't live at the rink like some people; I actually had an outside life. And I have to admit that my kung fu class was actually much more interesting to me, then. I mean, at least Sifu would teach us new things and techniques that we could perfect and work on. With hockey there was no coach, no mentor, no example to follow. And at this point I was stagnant. I wasn't going to do this for a career, I wasn't trying to get noticed by scouts. I had already won 3 championship titles with 3 different teams in 3 different leagues. What else was there to do?

Despite getting bored, though, I did finish out the rest of the next season before heading off to med school, myself.

The Game I'll Never Forget (IV) - Ascension to Zenith

Now I was playing in the big times: I was at a big rink with multiple leagues and players who were skating since they were 3. Yes, the competition would be a lot stiffer. And it showed the first season I was there.

I joined a rag-tag team composed of a group of people with mixed skill levels who didn't know one another. Which was good in one sense but made winning extremely difficult. That first game was especially hard, as I had not been playing for about 2 months or so and was completely out of shape. My timing was also way off. Needless to say I made a very poor impression that first game, and if anything may have reverted back to my former style of playing of float and pass. But that was due to more of a survival instinct than anything else. There was this one teammate who wasn't very good at all who kept calling me off the rink, telling me to come to the bench to substitute out. Which is fine but he was getting so upset about it. But he, himself would stay out for double shifts and he was worse than I was. Maybe not that day as I was just getting back in to it, but I knew I was better than this guy once I got back in to shape. Screw him; thank God he only showed up for a couple of games.

The next game was much different. I was back in form and back to my usual style of play which was now run-and-gun style. Everytime one of my teammates got control of the puck I would burst up the rink as fast as I could and yell "Up-up!". I guess there was such a big difference that one of my other teammates asked if I had been practicing since the last game after I skated around a defenseman and scored up high, top shelf.

"Uh, no. This is what I usually play like." I continued to play like that for the next few games and after a while my other teammates grew to respect me; they would actually pass to me, now that they could see I could put the puck in the net. Despite my individual efforts and the team's growing cohesion, however we continued to lose. Even the addition of Mark, our big center who was a skilled player and the closest thing to a power forward on our team didn't change the team's fortunes that year. We actually ended the year as a mediocre team despite our growing pains.

The next season was better, as our team continued to grow and develop. We had a decent number of attackers that unless the other team had skilled defense on every line, it was difficult to stop us. If I could skate the puck up and get it to Mark, he'd score 9 out of 10 times. If I couldn't get the puck to him, I'd score myself. If both of us were neutralized, Paul would rush the puck from defense. Greg was a pretty good skater who could score, as well, although he really didn't have the best sense. And of course, there was the other Greg who played goalie. There were other players who shifted in and out and would show up every now and then, but the 5 of us composed the core.

The 2nd season we played was a wild one. We finished the season with a fair record and made it to the playoffs. Playoffs weren't bad, as we beat the 3 teams we played. The final game was a close one, one that flip-flopped back and forth in terms of the score and momentum. Towards the end of the 3rd period, we were trailing 2-3. We scored to tie 3-3. A minute later we scored again for a 4-3 lead. Then the other team scored to tie 4-4, and then went ahead to lead 5-4. But we evened it up at 5-5. I believe time ran out in regulation: sudden death OT. While I was in my regular position in the slot screening the goalie, one of the defenseman tried pushing me out of the way and specifically told me,

"We don't play to lose!" Okay, whatever. After a few minutes I skated in to the corner and threw the puck to the slot where Mark was waiting for it, as he had been doing all season, and he put the puck in the net to win 6-5. Looks like they just lost. After that while we were changing in the locker room I said out loud,

"Hey, that was an awesome game. What time do we play next week?"

"That's it!" answered Greg, our team captain.

"What do you mean that's it?" I asked, not understanding what had just transpired in the game we just played.

"That's it. It's over. That was the final game!" answered everyone in the locker room.

"What? Woah, and we won?" The light finally went on.

"Holy......yes, we won!" was the general response. Hey, we won! It wasn't pretty and it was a hard fought win, but we were the champs! And this was the Sacramento league, not a small farm town in the middle of nowhere in California. Our captain took it upon himself to choose the team's trophies, and for some reason ended up choosing a T-shirt instead of an actual trophy. So we all got T-shirts, which I couldn't believe. How or why would anyone choose a T-shirt as a trophy after winning the Sacramento league unless they were poor and couldn't afford much clothing? Well, in any case, here it was:




I guess I should be grateful, but I couldn't help but think in 10 years when I look back at all my accomplishments and trophies, there would be this old ratty moth-eaten T-shirt that would signify one of my greatest sports achievements.

The Game(s) I'll Never Forget - Part III - Rising Star

Joining the leagues was big time. The days of playing in city parks and basketball courts were over; now I would play in actual rinks with real boards, player benches, penalty boxes, face-off circles, etc. It began small when I played at the Davis League, which was an outdoor basketball court converted to tiny hockey rink. I joined a team, played a season there, and developed a reputation as a prolific scorer with my new run-and-gun style of hockey.

It didn't start out like that, though. I was undoubtedly the smallest skater on the team; I played with a bunch of brutes. Every game would end up being 10-1 or so and I would only have 1 or 2 goals, but 5 assists or so. As my comfort level adjusted with my new teammates, so did my production. I was consistent, getting at least 3-5 points/game regardless if the score was 15-0, or 5 to 4. I really didn't think about developing my game at that time; all I could think about was winning each game. The win was more important than my individual achievements, that much I KNEW. And no one would really care about a great player on a losing team, anyway; everyone knows a good player on a winning team.

After crushing the Davis league, our newly formed team joined the Woodland team. This league was much nicer: it was indoors, large rink, they used a puck (which I always preferred), they had NHL regulation size nets, etc. It was definitely a step up, and so was the competition. Instead of beating teams 20-1, the best teams would only suffer 8-1 losses.

With the increase in competition and skill also came increased ferocity. It was during our first and only season at the Woodland league when I was seriously injured. I was going on a break with the defense practically riding my back. With the puck in front of me the goalie dove at my feet. That caused me to do a face-plant right in to the concrete surface, and with the lame Jofa Gretzky helmet with visor, needless to say my helmet popped off my head and I was hurt badly. In fact, I remember hitting my head so hard that I was screaming almost uncontrollably in pain and another one of the players had to come over to calm me down. All I could see looking up from the floor were 9 players all standing around looking over me with one kneeling over me calling for towels, ice, wiping my head off, and applying pressure to my forehead with a towel before throwing it away and getting another one because it was soaked with blood. BLOOD??? Hey, wait a minute! Needless to say, I had to go to Urgent care to get stitches for that.

I missed the next few games while my injury healed up and I think I may have finished out the season. Needless to say we won champion standing for that league as well. I did pretty well, also. At this time I was changing as a player from play-maker to scorer. Unfortunately, the team was breaking up afterwards and we were all heading our separate ways.

Mark, our best forward and I went to join another team and another league in Sacramento. This league was another step up from the Woodland league, as it had an NHL size rink indoors with blue lines, red lines, face-off circles, penalty boxes, etc. This was getting in to the big time.