http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOLq9hJn6nU
Yes, the Blue Thunder captured the entire thing on video and put it on youtube. It has been a couple of weeks, but I remember being nervous as hell! At one point we were ahead and I just wanted the game to end. I don't remember doing anything noteworthy. The Blue Thunder seemed a little frustrated that they weren't beating us easily. My theory is Jeff had them all pumped up, telling them that they were far superior to us. The game ended in a 4-4 tie. No tie breaking during preseason and I was totally ok with that.
Sometime during the 3rd period, I was in the middle of taking a slap shot on goal and a player on the other team smashed full on into me. I was in a pretty defenseless position, with my stick in full swing. I went down hard and bounced on the ice. He got roughing and put in the penalty box. In shock, I left the ice. I recovered enough to go back in, but the hit stayed in my mind. The guy apologized afterwards for being so rough, but I was pretty shocked that someone would do that. I'm not the best player and my shot on goal most likely would not have gone in. He probably could have stopped it by just standing in front of me, instead of ramming into me.
That night after I got home, my chest hurt from the impact, but the next day there were no lingering physical effects. It was just the remembrance. That took longer to go away. In fact, I won't watch the video of this game. I know how it felt, I don't want to relive it.
On Friday of that week, I went to sticktime and guess who I ran into...Jeff. He is such a loud talker. He was asking me about my team and what they were named. Then he said, "You are playing the Blue Thunder" I said, "Yes, we played them on Sunday" Jeff replied, "But you are playing them this Sunday, it is your grudge match" I just looked at him and walked away.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
In the beginning, there was the Sunday class
Yes, originally I wanted the Sunday class, because that is all there was. In the meantime, management decided that there were so many sign ups, a Tuesday class would catch all of the overflow. In fact, when I paid my money, I was told that I had to go to Tuesday and I protested, as any good mom with half custody would. What child wants to hang out watching their mom take a hockey class every Tuesday night? I figured that Sunday he would only have to go every other week.
Then I attended the first class and Sunday was a mob scene. Way too many people. The day after, I emailed and switched to Tuesday. I wasn't alone. Kenicake also switched. But we didn't know each other back then. So as the class progressed, we skated and Galen dislocated his shoulder and Jordan got an undisclosed injury and people dropped out and our coach moved to Atlanta and our new coach was unreliable and the third coach wasn't really given permission to coach our class, which left us with very uneven training. In fact, to this day, we don't know much about hockey. I know where to stand in a face off and what icing and off sides is. I have no idea what a penalty would be. Although I found out soon enough at the preseason game.
About 4 weeks before the end, Jeff, the Sunday coach took charge. He ran us through his drills and did not end up with a high opinion of us. His Sunday class had already formed a team of their top players and had signed up for the league. Jeff approached Tammy and I and told us that we had no business playing leagues and needed to repeat the class. Jeff is a loud talker, so I think the entire building heard. The guys were drinking beer at the time and noticed something was up. They told us to ignore him; that if we wanted to play, we were sticking together. In Jeff's Sunday class, only one girl is playing league. All the rest are repeating the class. Coincidence? I think not.
So, the one good thing that Jeff did do for us was to arrange for some random players, mostly from the championship Bronze team, to come and scrimmage with us the last 2 weeks of class. That is the best you are going to get out of me concerning him. It was fun actually getting to scrimmage together for the first time. Usually we only had each other and with our dwindling numbers, that meant barely enough to make 2 teams.
When we finished the class, there was supposed to be 2 Bronze leagues, but without a fourth team, we got absorbed into the Bronze league. Lo and behold, who was our first game against? None other than the Blue Thunder, the best and brightest of the Sunday class...
Then I attended the first class and Sunday was a mob scene. Way too many people. The day after, I emailed and switched to Tuesday. I wasn't alone. Kenicake also switched. But we didn't know each other back then. So as the class progressed, we skated and Galen dislocated his shoulder and Jordan got an undisclosed injury and people dropped out and our coach moved to Atlanta and our new coach was unreliable and the third coach wasn't really given permission to coach our class, which left us with very uneven training. In fact, to this day, we don't know much about hockey. I know where to stand in a face off and what icing and off sides is. I have no idea what a penalty would be. Although I found out soon enough at the preseason game.
About 4 weeks before the end, Jeff, the Sunday coach took charge. He ran us through his drills and did not end up with a high opinion of us. His Sunday class had already formed a team of their top players and had signed up for the league. Jeff approached Tammy and I and told us that we had no business playing leagues and needed to repeat the class. Jeff is a loud talker, so I think the entire building heard. The guys were drinking beer at the time and noticed something was up. They told us to ignore him; that if we wanted to play, we were sticking together. In Jeff's Sunday class, only one girl is playing league. All the rest are repeating the class. Coincidence? I think not.
So, the one good thing that Jeff did do for us was to arrange for some random players, mostly from the championship Bronze team, to come and scrimmage with us the last 2 weeks of class. That is the best you are going to get out of me concerning him. It was fun actually getting to scrimmage together for the first time. Usually we only had each other and with our dwindling numbers, that meant barely enough to make 2 teams.
When we finished the class, there was supposed to be 2 Bronze leagues, but without a fourth team, we got absorbed into the Bronze league. Lo and behold, who was our first game against? None other than the Blue Thunder, the best and brightest of the Sunday class...
Monday, September 26, 2011
Week 2 regular season...I know, not the way to start anything!
Apologies readers! I'm starting off in an awkward spot, but don't worry...I'll Tarantino it back to the beginning for you. For now, welcome to my quest! This all came about today in little pieces. You see, the Capitan...I prefer to think of him in this way, makes me smile...texted me today with an apology. You see, towards the end of the game, I had the puck on the left side of the goal-if you are me-the right if you are the goalie and I was trying desperately to shoot it in. Funny thing was, someone's stick kept hitting mine and preventing me from doing so. Since I was intently focused on the net, puck and goalie, it wasn't until I got in back of the goal that I realized it was my own center. He said, "my bad". Well, that led to him texting to see if I was still mad at him today. No, it wasn't something to be mad about. Even though I did enjoy punching him in the arm afterwards. The resulting discussion led to me saying..help me get a goal. Then while driving today I thought...I should write about my journey, this quest to get a goal. So here we are.
My team is the Hawks. Game 3 was against the Rush. Now the Hawks are made up of the Tuesday class that took adult learn to play together. We lost a few who weren't old enough to play adult leagues. One is in the class again. One is playing high school leagues. One is just going to sticktime every week. One decided that he was too good to play with us and our first goalie is drifting around somewhere. We also gathered in a few new people. One from the Sunday learn to play...more on the "grudge match" later. Brothers from the upper league and one from street hockey. We are a close knit little group, even with the new guys. And as you can tell, we are not all guys. There is also one other girl. I tell the team, having girls is good luck. So far, we have been.
The Rush have been around for a year and landed in last place in league play last season. They were supposed to drop down a league, but there weren't enough teams for a Bronze A and a Bronze B, so they stayed put. This also meant that the first place team didn't have to jump up to Silver B. Yes, we get to play them too.
Before game time, Sasha was saying that he was too sick to play. I took this as a bad omen. Sasha really kicks ass on defense. I think we must have peer pressured him into it, because he did play and beautifully. Our goalie was in Japan, so we had a sub. He was amazing...as you can tell from the shut out. New Mike had a goal and Capitan had one. We had 3 penalties, nothing too serious. All in all, we played well, but a little slow. Need to be quicker and attack more on offense. There was a fabulously embarrassing moment when I was all alone, headed toward the goal, went to take a slap shot and missed. I felt a little better after it happened to Ricky Bobby only a couple of minutes later. I had a couple of great passes to Capitan, but neither of them led to a goal. Same with a between the legs of a defender pass to New Mike. The Rush has a pretty awesome girl defender on their team. Lots of holding going on with that one. But when she isn't holding, aggressive and efficient, with a nice shot. The Rush had a few more penalties than us. Pulled their goalie at the end. Too bad we couldn't have capitalized on that.
So what do I want, besides a goal? To stop being so nervous and to end a game happy. At one point, I noticed that I was shaking while out skating. Kind of hard to pass or shoot while you are that nervous. After each game, all I can think about is what I did wrong. I'm kind of quiet and moody at beer time. People are starting to wonder if I'm ok. So stick with me and see if I can overcome my obstacles and get the goal!
My team is the Hawks. Game 3 was against the Rush. Now the Hawks are made up of the Tuesday class that took adult learn to play together. We lost a few who weren't old enough to play adult leagues. One is in the class again. One is playing high school leagues. One is just going to sticktime every week. One decided that he was too good to play with us and our first goalie is drifting around somewhere. We also gathered in a few new people. One from the Sunday learn to play...more on the "grudge match" later. Brothers from the upper league and one from street hockey. We are a close knit little group, even with the new guys. And as you can tell, we are not all guys. There is also one other girl. I tell the team, having girls is good luck. So far, we have been.
The Rush have been around for a year and landed in last place in league play last season. They were supposed to drop down a league, but there weren't enough teams for a Bronze A and a Bronze B, so they stayed put. This also meant that the first place team didn't have to jump up to Silver B. Yes, we get to play them too.
Before game time, Sasha was saying that he was too sick to play. I took this as a bad omen. Sasha really kicks ass on defense. I think we must have peer pressured him into it, because he did play and beautifully. Our goalie was in Japan, so we had a sub. He was amazing...as you can tell from the shut out. New Mike had a goal and Capitan had one. We had 3 penalties, nothing too serious. All in all, we played well, but a little slow. Need to be quicker and attack more on offense. There was a fabulously embarrassing moment when I was all alone, headed toward the goal, went to take a slap shot and missed. I felt a little better after it happened to Ricky Bobby only a couple of minutes later. I had a couple of great passes to Capitan, but neither of them led to a goal. Same with a between the legs of a defender pass to New Mike. The Rush has a pretty awesome girl defender on their team. Lots of holding going on with that one. But when she isn't holding, aggressive and efficient, with a nice shot. The Rush had a few more penalties than us. Pulled their goalie at the end. Too bad we couldn't have capitalized on that.
So what do I want, besides a goal? To stop being so nervous and to end a game happy. At one point, I noticed that I was shaking while out skating. Kind of hard to pass or shoot while you are that nervous. After each game, all I can think about is what I did wrong. I'm kind of quiet and moody at beer time. People are starting to wonder if I'm ok. So stick with me and see if I can overcome my obstacles and get the goal!
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