In 2014, Molly and I had just gotten married in June, and we were heading out on our honeymoon to Iceland. We did it a bit unorthodoxly, we ended up staying with my friend Dave Ostman in Reykjavik for a few nights. Dave was studying in the city, and he lived in a one room apartment with a shared kitchen. It was tight quarters, maybe not what most people visualize for their honeymoon.

Ten years before that, I was a freshmen at Wheaton College. I’d been a hockey player most of my life and my identity was still tied into that. I met Dave, and went running around campus most mornings, I think just so we had something to do. One day, we went to the weight room, and the senior working the desk asked us if we’d be interested in trying rugby.

I was absolutely not interested. Dave was ready and willing. Dave convinced me. Four years later, we were graduating as members of the most successful D3 Wheaton Men’s Rugby team in club history. We had 11 seniors starting on the squad that year.

On that honeymoon trip in Iceland, now some years since I had played in college, I got to train and play in a match with the Reykjavik Raiders rugby club. We were practicing at 8:00 or 9:00 PM, due to the late sundowns, and it was a fully international group. Most small nations don’t field teams of their own countries because they simply don’t have the numbers. Iceland, being a football (soccer) crazy country of low population, always struggles to get players.

I rediscovered how much I loved the game and slipped right back into playing it with ease. Having an old teammate in Dave beside me certainly helped.

At the end of our time there, I was asked if I’d consider relocating to Iceland, joining the team, and figuring out what I could do for work on the fly. The club president, Birnir Petursson, was adamant he could help me out if we really wanted to make a go of it. Of course I had to say no, but you can understand how tempted I was. The Raiders gave me a metal stenciled emblem of the team’s crest, and I promised to bring it back, along with a team for them to play.

Over the past year, I worked with Wheaton College, our Rugby Alumni Association, and the Reykjavik Raiders to get a group of nearly thirty people to Iceland to play a match. It took a lot of effort, and a lot of grace and patience on the part of my family, but I was able to swing it.

What I didn’t tell anyone was this was going to be my “retirement” game.

I’ve been coaching sports since I was in college. One of the most important things I learned was that you don’t always get to choose when you are done. People get hurt, programs and venues close or lose support, and crises arise that prevent sports from continuing on. You do not always get to choose how things end. Your last shift or last match might be something you never see coming.

I don’t play rugby as often as I did in college, a match or two a year, but every time I do it hurts for days afterwards. It’s just not a thing I can keep doing, but everyone wants to go out on their own terms in a way that is satisfying, even if it is final.

We got beat pretty badly in the match. The Raiders have really made huge strides to improve their team, and they were helped by players who came from rugby backgrounds in Wales, South Africa, France, and New Zealand. But the end result didn’t matter so much, I got to decide this was the last one on my own terms. I brought a team there, we played the match I’d dreamed of us playing, and we helped establish bonds for players that will hopefully make this event happen again in the future with even more clubs involved.

I wanted to be done playing this sport in a way that felt fulfilling and final. The Raiders, Dave, and Birnir gave me a chance at that.

Sports are weird. We cheer for teams we don’t play for and celebrate accomplishments of players we’ve never met, which is why I think many of us, including me, probably take men’s league hockey or rec league basketball, or even pickleball too damned seriously. We still want to feel like we can be actively competitive on some level, not just armchair critics.

But ultimately we play sports because that competition is fun and fulfilling. Rugby gave me some of the best moments in my life with some of the people I love the most. I could keep doing it here and there for years after this, but I like to write stories, so of course, I wanted a chance to write my own ending.

Not everyone gets that.