I asked for it

Practice last night was... brutal. In a good way. I think I would have fared better if I'd eaten smarter during the day and drank more water. But I guess I wasn't expecting it to be as intense as it was. Coach has decided that he wants to really work on our conditioning. (See? I heard all of you groan!!!) Skating, skating, skating was the first order of business. Then we split up into forwards and defense, and I had continuous work for about 40 minutes straight. Lemme tell you, I was absolutely beat. The last 15 minutes or so passed pretty much in a haze, and I ended up with that bright-red-face-for-an-hour that happens when I really over exert myself. But, I lived to tell about it, and after wolfing down a Dunkin Donuts breakfast sandwich and still wanting more, I'm back to normal. Except that I'm not quite sure if I still have hamstrings. All griping aside, if practices keep up like this all season we're going to be kicking some serious ass.

Speaking of griping, allow me to complain for a moment about college kids working in pro shops. Who are obviously forwards. We got there slightly early, so I brought my skates into the shop for a sharpening. They didn't really look like they were doing much so I thought they were about to close, and asked if they could do a sharpening. The kid made a slightly affirmative noise, so I asked for them to sharpen the skates at 9/16ths. Kid looks at the skates...

Kid: Those are goalie skates?

Me: Yeah

Kid: We do those at a half inch.

Me: (wtf?) Uhh, yeah I don't want a half inch. Can you do them at 5/8ths then? (I'm thinking since not too many people ask for 9/16ths he couldn't figure out the math)

Kid: [shrug] sure, leave them there. (points to empty counter).

I can't say I was surprised when, 15 minutes later, I walked in and there were suddenly 2 pairs of skates in front of mine, and the machine wasn't even running. I told them since it seemed like they were pretty busy [ha!] and I needed to get on the ice, I was just going to take them. Yeah.... now I remember why I go elsewhere for my sharpenings.