Wait ... you want to play on MY team?

My wife suggested I tell some stories about my experiences with the Philadelphia Eagles (when I interned in 1996). One of my favorite stories centers around Rodney Peete getting injured against the Cowboys on Monday night ... no, I wasn't happy that Peete got hurt - he was actually having a pretty good season at the time. However, after he got injured, the Eagles searched the free agent market for another qb. Their search produced a former Super Bowl winning quarterback - Mark Rypien.

As a PR intern, I was asked to keep him company prior to the press conference. As luck would have it, we were also collecting sports items for an auction, and we had a hockey stick signed by the Buffalo Sabres. Rypien started fooling around with this hockey stick, and I was searching for something to talk to him about, so I asked him, "Hey Mark, you like hockey?"

Mark responded that he did indeed love hockey, and that if he wasn't playing football, he'd be playing hockey. I'm not sure what prompted me to bring it up to him, but I told him that I played on a deck hockey team ... to which, Mark responded, "Really? Are there any spots open?" I almost fell out of my chair.

Mark Rypien just asked me if there were any spots open on my deck hockey team. Super Bowl champion Mark Rypien just asked me this. "Sure," I blurted out, having to wipe a bucket-load of saliva off of Mark's face. "I have to check with Coach Rhodes to see if it's ok first," he said excitedly.

I called my deck hockey captain, and asked if we had any spots open. "No, we're pretty packed," was the response. Then I mentioned that Mark Rypien wanted to play, to which my captain responded, "Yes, I believe we have a spot open." That's what I thought.

Two days later, Mark Rypien came up to me sadly with his head down. "Coach Rhodes said I can't play." He looked really upset by this ... however, he was getting paid about a million dollars from the Birds, and all we could offer him was maybe some free beer and wings after the game. Still, that would've been something if we showed up to a deck hockey game with 6-foot-6-inch, 245 pound Mark Rypien. That would've been quite awesome.