From the first hit, you’re hooked.

The stale, musky smell of sweat disappears and the only sound you hear is the pounding of your heart in your ears.

The ends of your nerves have been stretched and electrified. Sweat pours down your face and burns your eyes until they’re red pinpricks staring out from behind your cage.

It’s hockey. Welcome to the suck.

Often considered the bastard child of the sports world, hockey has long been relegated to off-handed jokes about missing teeth and what you watch in between football and basketball playoffs.

But never before have you seen a set of athletes so dedicated to their craft, even if their craft means the occasional fistfight to the cacophonous chant of “Blood on the ice.”

There’s a culture that comes with the hockey lifestyle. For years I had watched college and professional hockey, trying to catch the adrenaline rush of the lads on the ice. It’s contagious, and television doesn’t do the sport justice.

So, I figured, why not try out? The University has had an ice hockey club team in some incarnation or another since 1990. I knew the sport, so why not teach myself how to skate and go out for the team?

Cut to one year later and a 200-pound right wing barreling down on me during tryouts. Out of pure luck, I get my shoulder down and slam into him. I send him reeling back into the boards and I’ve tasted the game.

It’s a lucky shot. Not five minutes later, I’m body checked, stick checked and receive the end of a stick full-blast into my stomach, under my pads.

There is an infinity between the first moment of contact and the time you hit the ice. The lungs compress and the ribs expand into a thousand different directions of confusion. The head whips back, the skates fly out from beneath you, and you’re in the air.

Then your heart speeds up and your body makes hard, unmistakable contact with the ice. Sometimes you’re back up before you feel the pain flooding in. Other times, you’re halfway down the ice before your leg goes out from under you and you taste frozen water.

That night my body took its revenge for the sudden change of lifestyle. True, I may have run cross country in high school and participated in triathlons, but nothing can prepare the body for hockey.

Looking at my naked reflection, I take an inventory of the war wounds. There’s still a small trickle of blood running from my stomach where I was speared. A random stick check to my back has darkened to a purple bruise. Every muscle fiber is screaming in exhaustion.

The thing is: I suck at the game.

A guy from southwest Kansas cannot jump into ice hockey and expect to keep up with guys who’ve played for years. But I made the team.

I’m terrible, but I love the game. No, it’s more than love.

To play hockey is to be obsessed with hockey.

From the moment you wake up to the moment you sleep, hockey is at the back of your mind. It’s that shard of metal that can never be tweezed out. You watch the game on television, you listen to it on the radio and you have at least six different team Web sites bookmarked on your computer.

There are lads on the University’s team who have sacrificed grades, scholarships, relationships and jobs simply for the two-and-half hours of glory on the ice.

Every time you sneak a quick backhand shot over the goalie’s mitt, for that split second you’re Bobby Orr. You’re Gordie Howe. You’re Wayne Gretzky.

The day-old-pizza stench of sweat is our badge of honor. The metallic taste of blood is the nectar we take our nourishment from.

There’s an acceptance you find in players of the game. Even someone so lacking in skill as myself is brought into the fold. You sit around the living room, drinking cheap beer from 32-ounce soda cups. You rampage under the cover of night. You’re a brotherhood.

I’m a senior and I waited until my last year in school before I tried out for the team. After I graduate, there’s a good chance I may never feel the blade of my skate cut through the ice. I may never again know the thrill of my stick hitting the puck so hard it vibrates my arm.

But every time I watch someone take the ice, from now and until I hang my sweater up for the last time, my muscles will flex, my eyes will dart and for one more moment I’ll be down on the ice facing down five animals with murder in their eyes.

And so will my teammates.