Catching Up

I’ve been on the illness merry-go-round again, but for now things seem back to normal. My last lesson before I got sick again was a frustrating one, but frustrating in a way that I grumblingly have to admit is probably good in the long run. My coach pinpointed a weakness (dealing with rebound control) and honed in on it. He had another coach there (the dreaded “Johnson”) flinging pucks at me, so he could stand closer to me and watch what I was doing and give me feedback. Unfortunately I just wasn’t getting it right, and it frustrated the hell out of me. At one point when one got past me, I just looked at my coach and he said “Well you know what you did… so at least you can fix it”. I responded “Yeah but it’s still in the net!!!” He pointed out “Yeah. But it’s in the net in practice.” Grrrrr I don’t care. Since that was my last lesson before ending up with the flu again, I’m kind of itching to get back out there with him and work on it some more. However, I emailed him to ask about adjusting my time slot, because I think having the lesson first thing in the morning, working all day, and then playing a game late at night might be contributing to my being so worn down. We’ll see what he says. If he doesn’t have any other time slots, I guess I’ll just suck it up until Spring.

On the team front, we’ve played – and won – two more games, bringing us to an amazing record of 7-0. Last night we played the team that’s shaping up to be our rivals, if only because we all get really pumped to beat them because they are such a bunch of whiners, divers, and cheap-shotters who get away with a lot. The game was very chippy, as expected, but a pretty good one for us- most of the play was in their end. I only faced 15 shots (thanks to a team-mate’s dad for counting!) and fortunately only one got past me. Woo hoo .933 save percentage! (Hey I’ll take it any way I can get it!).

Unfortunately, I was also forced to do my best impression of a pancake, thanks to #17 falling “accidentally on purpose” on my head/neck. Ouch. I was fairly stunned but rolled over and removed my mask, since it had come partway off and was squashing my ear. I heard one of my D telling me not to move, there was a skate right by my now-exposed head. Maybe not the brightest idea, taking off the mask, but that was my instinct. Luckily she guided the guy’s foot away from my head, and after taking a minute to collect myself (and yell “who the f*** FELL ON MY HEAD?!”, as if that would do any good), I shook it off. I heard team-mates arguing with the ref, trying to get a goalie interference call, but apparently the guy who used my head as a chair had tripped over his own player’s stick. Later accounts from my team-mates informed me that it was sort of a Sean-Avery-esque “ohhh look at that… I’m falling into the goalie” kind of move. No matter, he got a nice firm shove from my husband on the next shift, on which even though he tried desperately to draw a penalty, did not succeed. (He tried so desperately that he lay there on his back, waiting for the ref to come over, at which point he squeezed his eyes shut. The ref had none of it.)

Other than the dramatics, it was a good game. I played solidly (except for that one that got by me… kind of a weird bounce/roll), as did the whole team. The other team had a substitute goalie, someone I know from around the rink. I think we have a pretty friendly competition going, and he’s a good goalie, so when our team beats his it’s always that much sweeter. And I will leave you with perhaps the Best Goalie Quote EVER:

“I don’t fear stopping a 100 mph slapshot. I fear not stopping it.”
-Roberto Luongo

Damn, that’s one badass goalie.