Table hockey rocks. It's fun and intense. You drink beer, trash talk, make weird noises and sometimes you actually play the game.

I've played it since I was about 5 years old. My brother Sean and I stole our uncle's game. It was a 1957 Eagle PowerPlay. It took a lot of abuse over the years. We played it for hours and hours, until our fingers had blisters on them.

The 57 Powerplay had steel painted men with smiles on their faces and I think they had all their teeth which I always thought strange. The side of the game is really cool painted graphics. We would curve the players sticks to lift the puck. Games went to 10 and they were filled with emotion.

I was a few years older than my brother so if the going got tough and he had me on the ropes I would penalize him and remove one of his players for being too aggressive. The penalty would usually last until I scored, a few seconds to a few minutes. By the time I scored my brother was ready to lose it.

When you are a kid, well a kid like me, I guess a little knob-head jerk to be exact, angering one of your siblings is really what life is all about. My brother would tire of my antics and start tossing the puck in my net with his hand. We were playing on the bathroom floor and he did his little piss me off toss. I screamed at him, "You bastard!"

Then I heard my mom's angry stomping footsteps coming up the stairs. Before she even got to the top of the stairs I heard, "What did you call your brother? You filthy mouthed little thing." Oh boy this was going to be bad. Once she was in the bathroom she repeated, "What did you call your brother?"

I said rather impishly, "A bastard."

Then she reached into the sink and picked up a large bar of wet soap. "Open your mouth." She demanded. "Open it...WIDER."

I did as instructed, the soap didn't taste so bad, until she pulled it out after a few fine strokes and I realized my teeth were covered in shards of it. I couldn't stop slobbering and crying and it took hours for the taste to go away.

My brother and I didn't play much after that. That's the way bastards are, they get you in trouble then they disappear.

Flash forward 25 years, I'm doing a comedy show in Toronto and I find out one of my fellow comedians is a table hockey addict. Pete Sawyer is thrilled that I play, we set up a challenge match. One of Pete's best jokes is about how if you don't want trespassers on your property a head on a stick is the best way to go.

I told Pete "Don't be too up set when you lose, I was the best in my neighbourhood growing up."

He came over the next Sunday afternoon. We set the game up on a coffee table and we both sat in kitchen chairs and played a 7 game series.

I beat him solidly in the first three games. He looked frustrated, in fact he looked like he might explode. This was likely due to my little comment I made after each of my three victories.

The games went to 10. After I would score the 10th and deciding goal. I would say, "Well Pete the main thing is you tried. But is that really all you got."

This really rattled him and his play became more erratic in game 4. I reached 9 goals pretty quickly, he was stuck on 3. My little metal goalie seemed to be laughing at him and taunting him. He was actually playing pretty well, but he could not score.

So being the gentleman that I am. I offered, "Pete why don't you just give me the last goal, I don't want you to hurt yourself."

Peter stopped playing and he looked at me like I was going to be his next head on a stick. Then he smiled this crazy serial killer smile.

He came back to beat me in game 4 and then he annilihated me in the next three games to take the series. When he scored the winning goal in game 7, he walked to the door of my apartment and started to leave, but he turned to me and said, "Is that all you got? Is that all you got? Because obviously I've got a lot more than that." Then he left, and I could hear him cackling all the way down the hall.

He kept promising me a rematch. But I never played him again.

Lesson: Let sleeping dogs lie. Don't be a knob, never give your opponent a reason to to come back.

Forward 10 more years. I'm online at work and bored. Well not really bored. I just hate work. It sucks.

I type "table hockey" in Google and a site comes up that lists people in different parts of North America that are looking for people to play.

The guy closest to me is Len Mecca, Cherry Hill, New Jersey. I email him he responds and invites me to his tournament in Haddonfield. We play on STIGA. Len Mecca is the god of table hockey. I thought I was addicted, he is a dealer. He actually sells games and comes up with little inventions.

We play all the time in his basement. Len is in his early 50s and I'm in my early 40s. My girlfriend, Chrissy, says that our mental ages are 15 and 13 respectively. She maybe right.

I am pretty immature but Len is really really immature. We make weird noises and imitate other people that we have played over the last couple of years in tournaments. His wife overheard us and yelled down the stairs, "I can year you guys down there, are you all right?"

No. We're not. But we got game. Table Hockey Rocks!