Yeah, we need to work on that

I missed open hockey last week because I decided it would be smarter to be at work, given some of the stuff that's been going on. Wouldn't you know, I could have come in late, no problem. So, I was thrilled to get a call to sub for one of the instructional league teams this week. While I have been trying to stay on the ice as much as possible by doing open hockey, its not the same as being in the rhythm of an actual game. It felt good to get back into that the other night. I played very well, which is probably a good thing for my confidence given the shellacking I've been taking in the other league.

Well.... when I say I played well, I mean I made a lot of saves and tracked the puck well. What I didn't do well was play the puck. In fact I took several steps backward and was back in the old habit of being completely paralyzed in deciding if I should get it or not, and once going out to get it, doing the completely wrong thing with it. At one point, I even sprinted out to get it as it came into our zone, with no one else around, but as I skated towards it I caught an edge and my legs flew out from under me and I landed on my right ass cheek. Hard. I also landed on top of the puck, and the defenseman coming back for it was baffled. He also had a trailer on him. I fished it out from under me and pushed it to him and scrambled back to the net, only to notice the ref standing at the half boards, laughing his ass off. "I wish I had a camera for that one, goalie", he said. Yeah, thanks ref. (Though in all fairness, if he landed on his ass like that I'd have laughed too).

I really need to get past this mental block. I was even discussing it with one of my defensemen, who said it's a huge help if I can get out and play it, but I just freeze like a squirrel in the middle of oncoming traffic. Maybe GoalieBrain needs to smack ConsciousBrain around a little. Hmmm.... would that count as a goalie fight?