Breaking the downward spiral

I won't rehash our last game (much), other than to say we lost 9-4. It was pretty bad. The other team was much better than we were in terms of the little things that make the difference. Scoreboard notwithstanding, I'm a lot happier with my game than I have been in recent weeks. On the whole, anyway. I made one colossally stupid move, the likes of which I haven't made in about 9 months, and put the puck in our own net. Big mistake, but at least its something I know I don't do on a regular basis and recognize the error I made in judgement that lead to it. Two other goals were due to poor positioning, and one would have been prevented if my leg was just two inches longer, dammit. Immediately after the game I wasn't even that upset; I didn't feel like the loss was solely on my shoulders because I recognized that the other team was much better.

It was upon waking the next day, however, that the doom and gloom set in. Looking back at my last 4 or so games (plus open hockey outings), I began to question my coach's sanity in his assurances that I needed to move out of the instructional league. How could I possibly be ready to move up when I'm playing like this? The recent game drove that point home even more; while I felt out of sync in all the other games, in this one, I felt like I had my grove back. I was moving much better, seeing things more clearly, etc. But look at the result.

I was mentioning this to a friend who, until recently, played at a pro level and who also has trained with my coach. I generally don't spew my post-game mental garbage on him; I'll mention the result of a game and how I felt I did but that's about it. So I was surprised when he said "you're in a downward spiral. It's all mental." I hadn't realized it, but he's right. And I guess a more experienced goalie-brain doesn't need much info to pick up on that. So we talked for a bit about how to snap out of it, and I told him that I thought I'd actually already begun that process. Hopefully I'm right. It's just interesting how there can be all this stuff you know, and yet sometimes it takes someone else to point it out for you to go "Ohhh! Duh!" and smack your forehead.

He also gave me tons of advice on breaking in the new pads, as well as how to deal with one particular defenseman who doesn't understand that "SCREEN!" means "you're in my way. move. NOW." (Honestly I'm not sure how this guy doesn't get it. He's been told over and over that when I yell "screen" he has to get his ass out of my way. It just doesn't sink in.) My "mentor's" solution? Violence. A hard shove or a good chop with the stick. I just don't have it in me to do that. That's the difference between me and this crazy sonofabitch. I'm not going to go around hacking at my own defensemen. An opponent? Hell yeah. But my own guy? Maybe I'm a softie because I'm a chick, because that's not the first time I've heard a goalie recommend something like that, but I just don't see the point at our level.

Though give it a few more weeks and a few more goals because I can't see anything but his ass and his number, and that might just change...