A red lens shades the ice as the horn interrupts play, signaling to all in attendance: We’re going to a shootout. “We definitely don’t deserve it,” I tell my teammates. “At least, I sure as hell don’t.” You see, back in the second period, I gave up two egregious goals –- the kind of shots that even a Pee Wee goalie should have saved -– but at this point in my EASHL career, that’s pretty much what I am. So, my Pee Wee level of play left my team down 3-1, just 20 minutes away from a certified burial.

But my teammates gave me new life –- removed the nails from my pads and took me down from the goalpost –- by fighting back to tie the game late in the third period, and then maintaining their discipline long enough to avoid any overtime shenanigans.

For the first time ever in a video game, I began to feel a real sense of pressure. The kind of pressure that I’ve only felt in my hoop dreams when I happened to be sweating it out on the free-throw line with a chance to win the game -- not for me, but for the other four guys on the floor, the coach on the sideline, the ten guys on the bench, and the dozens of students, parents, and alumni filling the stands.

While there may not have been quite as many real-life spectators surrounding this game of NHL 09, as the first player lined up to take his penalty shot, it was, as it always is, my teammates’ nerves that were rattling my bones, causing the entire right side of my body –- and the controller melded into it –- to tremble like a deprived addict.

Three saves later, and I’d gone from a bum to a hero. The profanities that had found their way in front of my name (my real name!) just two periods earlier were now replaced by, well, more profanities, but this time, they were shouted in a joyous, not scornful, manner.

The long-suffering adversary of our holy sports genre has finally been exorcised: the one who bears the mark of 001, the artificial intelligence.

We told our opponents “good game,” then closed the victory ceremony with a prayer: A thanks to the gaming gods, that finally, it’s our friends, and not a miserable pile of binary 1s and 0s, whom we can cheer in times of “GOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL!” and scorn in times of “DUDE, WHAT THE @%#$ WERE YOU THINKING?”

Indeed, praised be the gods! Glory to the highest! The long-suffering adversary of our holy sports genre has finally been exorcised: the one who bears the mark of 001, the artificial intelligence.

But as with any loss, regardless of how callous and unscrupulous the sins of the departed may be, there will be those who wish to mourn for the deceased. This, I feel, is pardonable, for it is only natural to mourn the death of a thing that has been so ingrained in one’s life, regardless of whether or not it is thought of as a healthy influence.

What bothers me, then, is how my brothers do tell me that, amongst our faithful congregation, there are some who dare say that a different kind of adversary has taken the place of the departed.

To those challengers, I do remind, in the name of tenderness and mercy, that this new “adversary” is one whom, by nature of his shared humanity, we should be willing to forgive for his imperfections; lest not we forget that he, like us, is brought from the same flesh, built from the same blood. For we are both men –- not A.I. –- and as men are sinful in nature, we must recognize that, on any given shift, each of us is just as likely to earn two minutes of purgatory as he is to take flight and ascend into a cloud of glory.

We must learn to forgive because, a few shifts later, we might be the ones guilty of trespassing in the sight of our teammates.

So as we find ourselves, finally, in sporting competition with full teams of like-minded men, we must, instead of working ourselves into a fervor, screaming like we would at the A.I. for not living up to the numerous deceits of its fathers –- e.g., “it's thinking,” “the first sports game that adapts to you,” et al. –- nay, we must forgive, and we must forget.

We must learn to forgive because, a few shifts later, we might be the ones guilty of trespassing in the sight of our teammates.

To all those who might say that they simply lack the strength to forgive, I humbly ask that you heed the wise words of the pope: “To err is human, to forgive divine.”

I offer these words of wisdom to you, because I recognize that, for years, we have all had difficulty trying to forgive that which cannot be explained, that which cannot be understood, that which one might refer to as “sports game A.I.”

But here is the reason why this online reformation being ushered in by games like NHL 09, and soon, NBA Live 09/NBA 2K9/FIFA 09 is cause for elation my friends!

With the online modes in these games giving us the option to completely exorcise the A.I. from our playing experience, no error, however poorly justified, will go unexplained should we choose to play as teams of gentle men.

And if you are, as we all should strive to be, a calm, compassionate teammate, a simple explanation of error, or better yet, a brave admission of guilt, may be all it takes to soothe the tumult of your brother’s soul -- even if it has grown weary from fending off breakaway after breakaway as a result of the defensemen playing too far up ice.

Above all, my beloved sports gamers, be not ignorant of this one thing: that one shootout victory in the company of friends is worth a thousand breakaways, a thousand cross-checking penalties, a thousand laughs, and a thousand memories. Please join me in prayer.

-- Rev. Jayson C. Young, Seventh Church Of The Apocalyptic Lawnmower