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LAS VEGAS

It’s midnight in Las Vegas and I’m covered in body armor. In the desert, the summer heat is torturous. I’m sweating like a bomb-squad rookie, and the first period hasn’t even started yet.

I skate for a Vancouver beer-league hockey team. Our squad of clean-cut thirtysomethings includes two struggling screenwriters, five computer nerds, and a City Hall bureaucrat. We have soft hands and softer desk jobs. Perhaps you’ve heard of us: we’re the Screaming Eagles.

Normally we dwell in the Division 3 cellar at the UBC arena. Our games are a hot ticket: Sometimes we play for up to two girlfriends and a bored toddler. But this weekend is special. In our minds, we’re competing for international hockey sovereignty.

Our road trip to Sin City centres on a 102-team tournament dubbed the Gambler’s Cup. It’s being staged by a Peterborough-based tour operator called Canadian Hockey Enterprises (CHE), and is taking place in the Fiesta Rancho Ice Arena at the Fiesta Rancho Hotel & Casino (the self-proclaimed "Royal Flush Capital of the World"). Hockey, baseball, hula dancing, you name it -- sports-team tourism is booming. According to CHE’s general manager, Glen Forbes, the company organized three hockey tournaments in 1987, its inaugural year.

In 2005, it will host almost 1,000 teams at 36 tournaments -- for men, women, and kids -- in locations from Montreal to Banff to Niagara Falls. For many participants, Forbes says, these exercise-oriented trips offer an excuse to go wild, to let off steam: "The guys want to play hockey in an exciting city and enjoy the atmosphere, the party life, with their buddies."

Travel International Sports of Manhattan Beach, Calif., offers sports-team getaways for baseball, football, gymnastics, hula, darts, polo, table tennis, arm wrestling, and even street luge.

Too wild for you? In Lancashire, England, another firm, Esselle Sports Management, runs lawn-bowling road trips to Blackpool, England, and Orlando, Fla. In fact, there is a veritable league of companies -- from Disney’s Wide World of Sports in Florida to English soccer specialists PlayHard Sports -- that steer amateur teams around the world on packaged vacations that blend competition and camaraderie.

Here at the Gambler’s Cup in Vegas, CHE has promised the Screaming Eagles free Gatorade and beer after each game, a three-match guarantee, and, for the winners, gold medals and the coveted trophy. The prize itself, a gold-coloured, two-handled goblet on a faux-walnut base, looks almost eager to tilt champagne down the throats of the champs.

That sounds just dandy, but the only reason I’m in Vegas is because my captain, Ian, personally promised me "a legendary man’s man weekend of Rat Pack debauchery. Madness. Bathtubs of beer. Running out on the room service bill. You’ll sit a grandson on your knee one day and tell him all about it."

I still wasn’t convinced. So Ian took me aside and said, "Hegan, you have to move fast. The NHL lockout could end any second. It’s our golden opportunity to compete for international supremacy."

So I slapped down my Visa. Why not? Gambler’s Cup victors get free champagne, the unofficial title of Hockey Champions of the Whole Damn Universe, and all the groupies they can handle.

Okay, that last part’s a lie. There are no hockey groupies in Vegas, except for ones you bring along. Which no Rat Packer would ever do, of course. You meet women in Vegas.

But when I got to the Vancouver airport early on Thursday morning, I discovered three of my teammates had brought their wives and girlfriends. Unbelievable. This was supposed to be a man’s man weekend. That night in Sin City, I phoned my wife to give her the update. "I can’t believe how lame you guys are," she laughed. "You don’t bring sand to the beach."

Friday, 12:01 a.m.

It’s our first game, and 13 hollering Calgary meatheads want to beat the living snot out of us. They’re massive. Giants. Their blood-red jerseys have their names stitched across their thick shoulders. And to them, we look like a late-night snack. Then three of them trip and fall to the ice. Drunk.

"Uh-oh, they’re hammered," whispers Johnny Two-Swipes. "They’ll be starting fights by the second period." Johnny Two-Swipes is the smallest guy on our team, which pretty much makes him the smallest guy in any league.

The puck drops. We win the face-off, deke out the drunks, and slap the puck in the Calgary net. The rink announcer says: "Vancouver goal by number. . ." but before he finishes, we score again. Then again. After our fourth tally, the announcer stops announcing our goals out of sympathy for the wheezing drunks. Alberta hates us. I love this town.

Final score: 10-0. An unprecedented blowout. Usually we give a brave effort, then collapse in the last 59 minutes. But in Vegas we look like the Detroit Red Wings. Our star defenceman, Fred, guzzles his beer and shouts, "You'd think those fat fucks would be too ashamed to wear their names on their backs!"

This is Fred's third Gambler’s Cup. He loves it because "it’s the only time you get to enjoy playing hockey drunk." Fred’s our team enforcer. He also dyes his hair blond, lives in the West End, and drives a two-tone Austin Mini. Plus, I think he shaves his chest. That’s about as tough as our team gets.

Friday, 11:30 a.m.

The summer weather is scorching. The Eagles spread their wings on lounge chairs. Except for Fred, we’re trying not to drink before our 1 p.m. game. I gaze around the hotel pool. Bally’s website promised "Elegant style. Timeless glamour. High-rolling excitement. . . this jewel of The Strip has attracted high-rollers from around the world." Near the shallow end, a bloated woman watches her husband clip his toenails into the pool. It’s an awful sight, yet I can’t avert my eyes. I look away when he offers to do hers.

Friday, 1 p.m.

Our opponents are 10 guys from "around ‘bout Boise, Idaho," wearing moth-eaten jerseys, ancient helmets and children’s shin pads. In rec leagues, this means they’re probably really good.

My roommate, Tim, chats with one of the Boise guys, then gives us his report: "When they were younger, they didn’t have a hockey rink. So one year all the parents got together and built one."

Fred belches and says, "What a nice story. It’ll make a great after-school special. Now stop fraternizing with the enemy and go kick their farmer asses."

Surprising everybody, we squeak past Idaho 5-4, earning us a fourth game on Saturday night. The Eagles cheer, but Fred smashes his beer can and yells: "I was only mentally prepared to play three games!"

Friday, 8 p.m.

Instead of hitting the Strip for ring-a-ding-ding mayhem, the Eagles eat two-for-one fajitas in the Frontier. Johnny Two-Swipes, a newspaper editor, tells us about the time he interviewed Pamela Anderson and couldn’t remember the colour of her eyes. Fred, nearly comatose from margaritas, shouts, "Bor-ing! Reader’s Digest called and they want their story back." Then his eyes glaze over and he drools on the tablecloth.

Wow. Sinatra would never do that. I quietly pay my tab and stagger back to my room.

Saturday, 7 a.m.

Again, it’s blazing hot. Outside Bally’s, we’re lying hungover on our hockey bags. Tourists stare at us, goggle-eyed, as if we’re exotic moonflowers. A fat guy chuckles and says, "Hockey and Las Vegas just don’t seem to go together."

Beer in hand, Fred is sporting wraparound sunglasses and a mashed straw cowboy hat. Fred’s a great guy, the life of our party. But he’s been trash-talking Johnny Two-Swipes non-stop, and I suspect his patter is affecting team unity. The vans arrive to take us to the arena. Johnny asks which one Fred’s riding in. Tim points to the right van. So Johnny tosses his equipment in the left van and climbs in.

En route to the rink, we gaze at sun-bleached Vegas suburbs. Signs for 7-Elevens, Terrible’s convenience stores and "World’s Loosest Slots!" repeat every 10 blocks. This is Middle America on auto-repeat. Scotty says: "It’s like Fred and Wilma’s background furniture on The Flintstones."

Scotty’s our self-described Newfie. That’s a conflict of interest this morning, since we’re playing a team from St. John’s. Our teams have identical records. Instead of playing them again tonight, our captains cancel the fourth game to make this the championship. This way, we’ll have more time for Rat Pack-esque depravities.

Saturday, 8:15 a.m.

The Newfies’ captain tells me a typical hard-luck Maritimes story: "Our goalie’s house burned down, so we had to hire a goalie for 30 bucks a game."

I nod like I care, then tell my teammates: "Their goalie’s a freelance sieve." I can already taste the champagne."

It’s a great game. The Newfies are tremendous skaters. There are just 60 seconds left, and we’re losing 3-2. St. John’s swarms our net, but the Eagles battle back. With 11 seconds left, I skate into the Newfie zone and drop the puck to Scotty. He whips a wrist shot. The puck soars over the goalie’s glove and bounces off the goalpost. The buzzer sounds. Game over. The Eagles look crushed. We’ve just lost the Hockey Championship of the Whole Damn Universe.

Saturday, 8 p.m. to Sunday, ???

One million beers later, the rest of Saturday is a kinetoscopic blur. I vaguely remember Fred’s girlfriend buying him a lap dance at Cheetah’s Topless Club. Which is sort of Rat Pack-esque (other than the girlfriend part). Then at 3 a.m., I’m pretty sure Scotty, Tim and I returned to our 12th-floor room for our amazing view of the glowing Eiffel Tower look-alike. Vowing to capture the moment, Tim balances his camera on the lampshade, sets the timer, then runs to join us. I scream and wave my cigar.

"Hey, we should exchange shirts and pants and recreate the photo," Scotty says. We strip. I pretend I’m Scotty, Tim pretends he’s me, we snap another photo. Giggling like this is the funniest thing ever, Tim unzips my pants and says, "Wait’ll we show our wives!"

It's Saturday night in Vegas, and instead of dancing with callgirls, pulling elaborate casino heists, or doing anything that resembles Frank, Dean, or Sammy at their most debauched, I'm modelling my buddy's sweaty clothes and yelling "I've never hung out with a better bunch of losers!"

Sunday, 6 p.m.

Floating over the clouds, the Eagles toast each other with smuggled Labatt cans. The pilot announces, "On behalf of America West, we welcome the famous hockey team, the Eagles, back to Vancouver." Passengers applaud. Party girls smile at us. Fred stands and waves. He smiles at Johnny Two-Swipes, who grins back. We’re silver medallists. Runner-up champions. And there’s nothing more Canadian than that.

Five minutes later, the speaker crackles on. Our excited pilot says, "Fasten your seat belts, everyone. They just announced the NHL players’ lockout is finally over. Real hockey is back!" The passengers whoop and shout. Businessmen high-five. The party girls stop smiling at us. Fred slowly sits down. Our moment in the sun is over. The Eagles return to earth.

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