When Losses Are the Wins

It is Saturday night in Detroit and the scoreboard says we lost.

Kip — my fifteen-year-old, the one who plays like Tom Wilson and makes me grip the rink railing in that specific way only hockey moms understand — has just come off the ice. His split-season team went into overtime, then a shootout, and on the fourth shooter the other team scored on our goalie. Just like that, we're out of the tournament. No semifinals. No finals. Done.

And I'm standing in my corner of the rink, the spot I always stand, and I'm thinking: that was the best game I've ever watched.

Here's what the scoreboard didn't say. Eight weeks ago, Kip injured his hip. They thought it might be an avulsion fracture — we'd had one of those two years back and knew what it meant. It turned out to be an impingement, but the result was the same: no ice. For seven weeks, he watched his split-season from the sideline while his teammates played. We got clearance on a Wednesday, drove to Detroit on Thursday, and had a game early Friday morning. The kid had barely laced up before he was back out there.

He was just thrilled to skate. That was the whole win right there, before a single puck dropped.

And then the game happened. A Canadian team, big — really big — came in assuming they were going to sweep. They didn't know this team. The boys played them to 0-0 through regulation. Through overtime. To a shootout. It was the kind of hockey that makes you forget there's such a thing as a theme park. You don't need a roller coaster when you're watching that.

We lost on the fourth shot. We went back to the hotel.

And because they lost, the boys got to just be kids. No 5 a.m. wake-up for a 7 a.m. game. No early bedtime, no clocks, no feeding and showering and herding teenagers. They wandered. They goofed around. I sat in the hotel lobby and got to actually know two of the other moms — which never happens in a short split season. We talked and laughed and I was present in a way I don't always get to be when the next game is always coming.

Kip came back through the lobby at some point with all his pals. He was grinning. He'd bought a fish. Just a fish, from a store nearby. Named him Gary. He also bought underwear — "I needed clean ones, Mom" — which, honestly, good job, buddy.

And earlier, in the car, unprompted, he said: Mom, I don't think there's anything else I could have done. I left it all out there. I'm so proud of how I skated.

I still get a little teary thinking about it.

That's the win. Not the scoreboard — the story you lived getting there.

Because in hockey, someone has to lose. There's no co-Stanley Cup. There's no tie for first. Eventually, through every overtime and every shooter, there is a winner and a loser. That's the game. But the game is not the whole story. The whole story includes Kip on the ice after seven weeks off. It includes a late hotel night and a fish named Gary and two moms I'll actually remember. It includes a kid who knows — really knows — that he gave everything he had and it was enough.

I see this in business too. The audience sees the scoreboard. They see who got the contract and who didn't, who launched and who went quiet. What they don't see is what happened in the lobby after. What you learned. Who you met. What it made possible next.

Both can be true. A loss can be the win. The really cool thing that never would have happened if you'd won.

You're not on a wrong turn. You're just on your scenic route.

Listen to The Scenic Route →