Better late than never

I'm a complete convert to the world of tournaments. (Except for that whole being away from home thing... I'm like an 8 yr old at her first sleepover sometimes, I swear.) Summer Sizzler this past weekend was my second "away" tournament and it was just as much of a blast as the first one was. The schedule was a tad more compressed though; we had 4 games in 26 hours. But there's actually something kind of cool and exciting about that.

Here's how it shaped up:
Game 1, Saturday at 1pm. We completely bulldozed this team and won by a score of 5-1. I was starting to worry that maybe we were the "ringer team" of the tournament, but as it turned out, we definitely weren't. The team we beat was the weakest.

Game 2, Saturday at 7pm. This team was a tad better than us, and faster than us. But we completely battled and stepped up all our games and fought to a 3-3 tie. On a personal note, this was my best game. When you're late getting back into the locker room because you're talking to friends, and you come in and everyone cheers and claps for you... you know you did something right.

Game 3, Sunday at 9:45 am. Ohhhh man was this one hard to wake up for. After 2 hockey games and a night of socializing, getting out of bed was the last thing we all wanted to do when that alarm went off. We met nice and early for breakfast and then headed over to the rink.... to get our butts spanked 3-1. The score was actually 3-0 up until about 40 seconds left. When the bench started calling for me I thought they were nuts, but then I realized that goals for count in a tie breaker so figured what the heck. And damn if we didn't score 10 seconds after I hit the bench. Nice!

Unfortunately, if we'd won that game we'd have gone to the championship. The loss put us in the bronze medal game which was...

Game 4, Sunday at 1pm. Guess who we played again? The team we tied the night before. We battled just as hard but I guess they battled harder, because we lost 3-1.

We had a fantastic time though, and that's what counts. Team bonding included: speculating about the theology of and yes, mocking, the end-of-the-world nutjobs having a convention at our hotel. Their cars were plastered with stickers, magnets, and neon pizza-delivery-style signs broadcasting the date of the end of the world and admonishing us all to "fear God". Cult- I mean, church- members were all wearing t-shirts proclaiming the same date and asking if God loved us. Pretty frightening stuff when we saw little children all running around in the same t-shirts. Then again, at the rink I saw children sporting Carcillo jerseys, and that's pretty damn scary too.

We also all had a great time making derisive comments about Pink Sock Girl. This chick played on the team we tied in Game 2 and were beat by in Game 4. She was whiny enough to put Sidney Crosby out of a reputation, and a cocky swaggery biotch. She was one of those players who has to wear one different color sock in an attempt to be studiously indifferent and therefore oh so cool and way better than everyone else. (Ok, she was way better than everyone else. But the Pink Sock tactic is like wearing a mirrored visor. Everyone knows you're a douche immediately). I had a grand time chirping at her, since for the most part I owned her. She did get two goals; one in the first game that made me realize what I was up against, and the 2nd in the 2nd game which was a complete garbage goal that anyone could have had. In between? I stuffed her more times than I can count, and knew I was in her kitchen when she loudly complained every time I made a save. You may be good, sweetheart, but you're not guaranteed a goal.

I also had an interesting conversation with one of the C team members (this was a combined C/D level tournament). But since this post is already too long, and it's a little too early to speculate about (no I'm not going to be playing on the C team) I'll just leave it be for now. I'm sure it'll come up in the future.

The weekend was just what I needed, because both teams are off for the summer. But it also had the effect of really whetting my appetite for actual games, and now I'm just chomping at the bit to get back into a regular schedule. I love open hockey and scrimmages, but it's just not the same as when there's a big lit up scoreboard and a real competition. Once again I say: bring it.