Hockey? Really?

So I get a call from Ryan this afternoon telling me that his hockey team is way short of players for their game tonight. He asks me to play. Its been 3 years since I've been on skates, I sort of gave the game up when I started into triathlons. Yikes. Do I play? Will I even be able to stand up after not skating for 3 years? On top of that the team's goalie can't make it so I've been asked to see if I can fish one up somewhere. Well I manage to find one and I agree to play and my only goal is to not hurt my groin, stay upright and not embarrass myself. Anyway I still have training before playing so I do my swim, keeping it shorter at 1500 m and then go for a run. I had no expectations and didn't know if I would end up doing 3 km, 5 km, 8 km or more. I haven't run in a few days and I feel pretty good starting out and my pace is faster than normally. I run a pretty good first km and haven't felt any pain so I continue to quicken my pace to see what effect it has. Firstly I wanted to see how my groin reacted and secondly to see how my run fitness has been affected by all this off and on running. By 3 km I'm running at a 4:35 pace which pleases me to no end but by 4 km I've gotten a bit of groin pain. Its not bad and the doctor told my that I could continue to run through it but I slow down a bit regardless. I figure I'm not going to push it and settle into a 4:50 pace the rest of the way home. The groin wasn't too bad and all in all I'm happy with its progress and moreso with my running. So, now hockey. I find all my gear and am surprised that its in great shape. Nothing has deteriorated and there's no rust on my skates so I'm good to go. When I step onto the ice, holy cow, I can still skate. Whereas my timing is off somewhat I can still skate and the bonus is that I'm not experiencing any tredness due to all of my tri training. I almost get a goal, I set up Ryan who almost scores but that's the extent of any heroics. My groin actually feels great and I welcome the end of the game feeling very successful that I've accomplished all of the goals I stated earlier. Whew.