Today’s installment of our Summer Cooldown series takes us to Meredith, New Hampshire, site of the successful-and-growing New England Pond Hockey Classic.

This video, unlike the last couple we’ve posted, doesn’t delve into the event itself. Rather, we meet a handful of guys whose teams are comprised of former college teammates. As a former player myself, I can’t echo what these guys are saying enough. Once you’ve been in the room, survived the bus rides, tied your skates day-in and day-out, shoulder-to-shoulder, at 6am practices and 8pm games, you form a bond that never goes away. Ten years after my last meaningful game, I still regard many of my teammates as my closest friends. More importantly, even the guys I haven’t seen in many years, we share a commonality that bonds us tighter than many folks I deal with on a daily basis. And it goes back to something Jack Falla once said: “Never put your total trust in anyone you didn’t play sports with.” Because when you’ve gone into battle with each other, and had each others’ backs, and essentially lived with each other for years at a time, you learn the definition of integrity and you learn what it means to be a teammate. And years (and decades, and pounds, and families) later, that persists. And it never goes away.

Great work by tourney founder Scott Crowder, and all the tourney directors across North America, for letting us have that back one weekend a year.