Nothin' but good stuff

The Hawks have a game tonight, and I'm sure it'll be a tough one. I'm ready for it though; I'm really pumped and can't wait to get out on the ice. I think my recent improved mental outlook (and improved play) has a lot to do with the training I've been doing. I was talking to GoalieHusband today about this, and I can't really put a finger on it, but ever since I started the training, I feel so much better out there. Maybe it's partly the training itself and partly mental, but I just feel great when I'm on the ice. I feel strong, I feel quick, I feel like I know what I'm doing. (Unless I attempt to play the puck...) I can tell that my hamstrings have bulked up somewhat, and I didn't even realize I was really training my hamstrings. I guess that means it's really working; if you notice a difference and you didn't even know you were working on that thing to begin with. I'm completely sold on Maria's philosophy of death to machines. There is no way working on machines would have ever given me the increase in stamina and sport-specific benefits I'm seeing now. So major kudos to Maria; any goalies out there, check out her newest product. (No I'm not getting anything for this, I just really think she knows where it's at.)

Good Stuff #2: finding pants that fit. Holy cow. If you've been reading this blog for a while you know what a royal pain in the ass it's been for me to find a pair of goalie pants that fit. I'm still wearing the pair I bought 4+ years ago when I first started playing - on pavement - and man is it evident. GoalieHusband and I went to the Hockey Monkey store today, with my pads, to try on some pants and hopefully finally find something that works. And hallelujah, we did. They're more than I was planning on spending ($170), but they fit pretty much perfectly. The secret? Once again: intermediate sizing. The Vaughn Velocity 7300s in intermediate XL fit absolutely perfectly. Now I just have to wait to save up my shekels and hopefully they'll still be either at the store or on the site and I can order them. The ones I'd gone to try were Vaughn Epics, in a senior size small; glad I tried them with my pads on, because the legs were way too long. The Velocity is a step up, quality wise (or, at least price wise), but that seems to be in fitting with what I'm finding. Intermediate gear seems to mostly be the higher end stuff. I guess if your kid is old enough to be wearing that size, he's pretty serious about hockey, so it's the higher end stuff that sells. Senior size stuff can have lower end quality because there will always be beer leaguers out there. Heh heh.

Good Thing #3: the thing that is most important and will actually also make my team-mates happy. Remember my conundrum over my stick position? Here's a picture of my basic ready stance, and this is how I was taught to hold my stick:


As you can see, the blade is at an angle to the ice. I was taught by my coach to hold it like this, and that was reinforced by seeing the goalies I've watched holding it like that. However, it resulted, time and time again, in a puck hitting it at that angle and going straight up over my shoulder and into the net. Much to my team-mates' constant frustration. Obviously I understood that holding the stick like that was causing the problem, but I couldn't understand why my coach would tell me to hold it like that, if it was going to result in that kind of angle with the puck. I admit I stuck to it rather stubbornly, thinking if Coach D told me to do it that way, then it has to be right. (Seriously, he's pretty awesome.)

It wasn't until today that I finally understood the problem, and it took a fellow goalie over at GoalieCrease.net forums to point it out. That stick position is correct if I'm facing really hard shots. It's supposed to deflect the puck up and over to the netting or glass behind the net. But in my leagues, the shots aren't that hard. So they don't have the velocity to go that far; instead they go up over my shoulder and arc back down- right into the net. I have to think that some of the guys I face in open hockey (and some of the ringers that show up in the beer league) have hard enough shots for the puck to go where it's "supposed" to with that angle, but I'm not going to screw myself up with testing it out. Up until now I thought it was just when going into the butterfly that I should be having my stick blade perpendicular to the ice, and that was my problem; not bringing it up to the right position when I dropped. But I guess I have to focus on having it perpendicular ALL the time.

It seems silly, but it's such a relief to finally figure out the disconnect between what my coach had taught me and what was actually happening on the ice. Obviously if I was still taking lessons I could have talked to him about it, but I haven't had a lesson in a long time. So thank you, ItechWarrior, for making it finally make sense!

And... I'm sure I've lost about 99% of you by now. But hey, this is my blog and this was a huge "ah-ha" moment for me, so there.

Now it's off for a pre-game nap. Looking forward to KICKING SOME ASS tonight.

Moral Victories

Being as competitive as I am, I hate that expression. There's no "victory" in losing, no matter how well you played. But the reality is, sometimes it really is about how you play the game, and there's really no other way to describe the last two games my teams played, so I will begrudgingly label them as such. Two games, two teams, and I think they are both frikkin' awesome people and count myself lucky to be a part of them. (No, I'm not drinking. But it's almost Thanksgiving, so I give thanks for my awesome team-mates).

First up, a Sunday evening home matinee with the Quarry Cats. Our last game was over a month ago, so it almost felt like the first game of the season. We've been working extremely hard in practice, and a lot of credit goes to the coaches, who have been really honing our play and working on some finer points. We were matched up against a team who, from what I understand, usually beats us pretty soundly. I think everyone was up for the challenge.

Unfortunately, a goal against in the first minute, and then a complete bungle with the puck in my feet several minutes later put us down 2-0 to start. I was none too happy with myself about that second goal and even slammed my stick. I never slam my stick. But I got it together and so did the rest of the team, because we pressed very hard in the 2nd and 3rd and were rewarded with 2 goals. There are no OT or shootouts in this league, so we had to settle for the tie. I felt for a little while like we would have won if it wasn't for my screw-up, but I think I also made some pretty key saves to keep us in a position to tie, so I guess it washes out. Maybe. It was awesome to see the hustle and work that the girls gutted out, and even better to see it pay off with a few goals. Next time I'll do a little better job of controlling my clown feet and not kicking the puck into the net.

Next up was a Hawks re-match against the team of assclowns that ran up the score to the tune of 12-2 a few weeks ago, and played like complete douchebags on top of that. They used to be in a higher division but dropped down because they were losing; but not only did they drop down, they added some pretty decent guys. And they're mostly in their 20's. It actually wasn't too bad a game in the d-bag department. They're very fast skaters and never let up, and we kept up with them. Everyone out there hustled their tail off, and we came away with a loss (6-2), but it didn't feel nearly as bad as the others have felt. There's only so much you can do against a team that doesn't belong in your division, and keeping them to half as many goals as last time is pretty good in my book. I also feel like I had another really solid game. I made a mistake or two, but nothing I'm hanging my head in shame over. No complete brain farts, and it's about time. I even played the puck once or twice, and it didn't end up in the net. Go me.

What's really great is the teamwork we had. I told you this group would gel eventually. It's also nice to know your team has your back, even if they mis-read something that happened. (Not that I ever doubted for a minute that either team has my back... I know they'd go to great lengths to protect me and back me up). In the 3rd, there was a rush to the net, I bit on a deke, and a guy put the puck in just past my foot. There was enough force behind the shot that it bounced back out and was sitting just over the other side of the goal line, and just as I got to that side, a second guy came in and smacked it back in. In retrospect, I don't think he really knew it had gone in already, because the ref didn't blow the whistle. I just assumed he had, because play kind of stopped, and I looked up at the guy and said "WTF dude, it was in already." He barely responded when #48 came up and gave him a good cross-check to the back. Was it cheap? Yep. But he thought the guy was hacking at my glove. I think a lot of people thought that, because I heard him later saying to someone else "I didn't touch your goalie!" So thanks, #48, for having my back.

Somehow we got out of that without a penalty (I think the ref would have called both of them, but didn't feel like dealing with it and let it stay even), and not only that but the goal didn't go on the board because the ref never saw it. So really, we lost 7-2. Some team-mates will say if the ref didn't call it, it didn't count, but I know when a puck goes in my net, that counts. Regardless, I'm happy with my game and with the team effort all around. We'll play these guys again; there are only four teams in the league. Maybe the third time will be the charm.

Overheard at the Pro Shop

While at a local rink pro shop waiting for my skates to be mangled- I mean, sharpened, GoalieHusband and I overheard a conversation I thought was worth sharing. A dad walked in with his two sons, and one of them gestured excitedly at all the nice shiny new goal pads lined up on a shelf way up high.

Dad: Hey yeah, those are nice, maybe they'd actually close your 5-hole!

Me: [*snort*] Niiiice.

Dad: Oh, was that bad to say?

Me: Well, it was funny. (It was funny when I thought he was joking around. But then he said...)

Dad: What. I didn't tell him to be a goalie, I don't have to be nice to him.

Way to go, Pops. Douche.

The Color Game

I'm stuck answering phones at work for a while, so why not blog? Here's a little tidbit from Wednesday's game that I didn't include in the last post because it was already long enough, and I wanted people to actually read it. But since it's vaguely interesting I'll post it by itself.

When the Hawks joined the league many moons ago, it was comprised of several teams. The only choices left for jersey colors at that time were: orange (uhhh no thanks, not in NJ. SUCK IT FLYERS!), green (ahhh, yeah, I don't think so), or yellow or some shade thereof. Feeling like yellow was the lesser of the three evils, we decided to go with a nice loud yellow-gold. We ordered cheap gold jerseys with "HAWKS" written across the front and a vinyl number on the back and were good to go.

Several seasons later we decided that since we'd been around a while as a team and were likely to stick around for a while longer, we ordered nicer jerseys. We went with the St. Louis Blues jersey with "HAWKS" in gold, and splurged on not only numbers, but names, stitched on. They look pretty damn sweet if you ask me. We figured the one or two times we played the other team with blue jerseys we could just wear our yellow ones. Unfortunately there seems to be a jersey curse with this group. We used them for one season, and then things sort of fell apart and we didn't play over the summer (well documented by my whining on Twitter). While we managed to patch together a team for the Fall, since it's about half "old" Hawks and half "new" Hawks, we couldn't really ask all the new guys to shell out lots of money for a fancy jersey when it's really not clear what's happening beyond this season. Furthermore, all the "new" guys had gold jerseys already, so the decision kind of made itself.

All that back-story is for the new-ish readers who maybe weren't around when we got our fancy new blues and I subsequently butchered mine. So we hit the ice this week in what we're now calling our "throwbacks". Have I mentioned that now instead of having 6 or 7 teams in the league we have - count 'em - FOUR? Including us. Naturally, one of the remaining teams is the blue-jersey team. The other ones are white and green. The green team seems to have done the same thing we did at first- just got a bunch of cheap solid practice jerseys. Theirs didn't have a team name, or in some cases, even a number on them. Wednesday night, we got on the ice and there were all these guys skating around in nice blue jerseys trimmed with white. "Who the f*** are these guys?" I asked GoalieHusband. "Looks like Green Team got new jerseys", he said. So yes, in a league with all of four teams in it, two have blue jerseys, and one would really like to use their nice snazzy blue jerseys but at this point that would be ridiculous. I was remarking on this to #14 the other day when he relayed a conversation he had with the Formerly-Green-Team center prior to the inital puck-drop.

#14: Hey the new unis are nice.

Other guy: We're jackasses. They were supposed to be green. Since Blue Jersey Team wears blue, it's pretty stupid.

*puck drops*

#14 said the other center said on a later face-off "Sorry about that before. I should have just said thanks."

No, you really shouldn't have. What you said was far more entertaining. And now you're in my blog. Muahaha.

Finally!!!

Didn't I tell you we'd put together a win? I guess you could say "Damn, woman, out of 12 games you gotta at least win one", but you have to believe me when I say it really wasn't looking like we'd be able to do it. Until yesterday. I had that chomping-at-the-bit, get-me-the-hell-out-there feeling that comes from 7 days off the ice, but I also had a hunch. A feeling deep down in my goalie gut that we'd be able to pull this one off. And pull it off we did, to the tune of a 9-6 win. A 9-6 win which, as GoalieHusband would be quick to point out, would have been 9-5 if he hadn't turned and put the puck straight behind me short side while attempting it to wing it around behind the net. It's all good though. A win makes everything better. Now it's a funny anecdote instead of the dark cloud of insane fury and self-loathing (on his part) it could have been. Hey, I've told you he's an honorary goalie. He's just as nuts as we are. Almost.

But that's not where my night started. It started at the rink a full hour and a half before the rest of the Hawks got there, because it was Quarry Cat practice night. Fortunately, the main focus was once again on working on forechecking, so despite being worked pretty good in the first half of practice, I wasn't all that busy for the second half. Perfect. We got off the ice, I went into Locker Room 2, grabbed my bag and dragged it into Locker Room 3, chatted with the boys for a few minutes and then it was back out to face some more rubber.

I wish with all my heart that last night's game was the one that was recorded, because I think I played my best game of the season. I was so focused, probably from being partially in the "zone" for practice, and I think I played slightly more aggressively, and certainly completely balls-to-the-wall, anything-it-takes hockey. I felt like I channeled my inner Hasek with some of the saves I was making. Certainly not your textbook butterfly stuff. The one I'm most proud of would probably even make the Dominator himself smile, given that he was often credited with having eyes on the back of his head. (Ohhhhkay maalivahti, let's bring it down a notch, shall we? Perhaps he wouldn't have smiled. Maybe one of those slight goalie nods.) At any rate, I had one save where I came out to challenge, and somehow (why are the details always so foggy?) the puck ended up behind me in the blue paint while I was already down. I reached back behind me and I swear I knew EXACTLY where that puck was and just slapped my glove down over it. The whistle blew, and there I was on my back, with my glove over my head and behind me, thinking "holy shit" at the very same time I was staring up at a team-mate who was staring down at me, his voice echoing my thought. Damn that one made me feel good. I still have no idea how I knew exactly where that puck was, but I did. I wasn't guessing. Maybe I smelled it. Who knows. Way to go inner Goalie-sense.

I am by no means crediting myself for this win. We had some great offense again with the return of two guys who hadn't been playing with us this season. One is on the roster, he'd just been gone most weeks preparing for his wedding and then spending God knows how long on some gorgeous tropical island with his beautiful new wife. (Every Hawk crushed on her the instant she came and played with us one season back in Instructional League. Yes, every Hawk.) The other wasn't on the roster but he hardly counts as a ringer; he'd been playing with us for well over a year, but just didn't sign up this season. With those two clicking, the whole game seemed to open up and flow better for the entire team, and it was awfully nice to be a part of a game with that feel again. Everyone played well. I want to bottle that and bring it back next week.

Those weren't the only awesome parts of the game though. As promised, most of the Quarry Cats stayed for at least a little while to watch some of the game. And yelled. And cheered. And clapped and stomped. They had an absolutely enormous sign that they unfurled and taped to the glass that said GO HAWKS! Gionta182 and her friend took quite a bit of time to make it and that really made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. She also had her obnoxious vuvuzela with her, which she blew at every opportunity. It was fantastic. At one point, preparing for a faceoff at the right circle, I heard the ref ask one of our guys "are they here for the team or for the goalie?". They were cheering their heads off for me and for GoalieHusband, but they were certainly carrying on for the team as a whole. "LETS GO HAA-AAWKS!!!!!" *Bang-bang-bangbangbang* on the metal bleachers. It was hysterical. It sounds totally dumb but it does make a difference having people there yelling in support. And this morning, still floating on first-win and goalie-high I was totally in a "man I love you guys!" place. My team-mates - on both teams - are frikkin awesome.

Hockey is Better Than Zombies

Since I just scared the ever-loving wits out of myself watching the second episode of "Walking Dead", I'll just come bask in here in the nice safe world of hockey and try to de-freak myself. There is a reason I don't watch horror movies. I'm ridiculously easily freaked out (big tough hockey player here!). But the first episode was really not that scary, had more of a "The Stand" feel to it than anything else. But yeah. I went from window to window watching my husband as he took the recycling out, just to make sure the zombies didn't get him. I also briefly entertained the notion of barring up our windows so we'd be safe in here during a zombie attack.

So! How about that cleansing of the palate? Well let's see... last night's Ranger game was EPIC on the excitement-level scale. I wish they could all be like that! Sunday's game... well I'm probably better off not voicing my opinion on that one, because it's probably an unpopular one. To sum it up in a nutshell? Avery was a class A douchebag for sucker-punching Smid, but you know what? Smid didn't have to challenge him on a clean hit either. And Pekham didn't have to try to follow him down the tunnel. OF COURSE Boyle is going to grab him. That's what you do, you protect your team-mates. And once Boyle grabs Pekham, naturally everyone else is going to square off. And Dubinsky getting fined for defending himself when someone grabbed him is just complete and utter bullshit. I fail to see how the Rangers are the bad guys in all this (other than Avery). But hey, I know everyone loves to hate the Rangers, so have at it. It'll make the rest of the season that much more exciting I guess.

Crap, I said I wasn't going to go there didn't I. Ah well. That's a hell of a lot more interesting for you to read about than how the light bulb went on and I figured out how to solve my "ARRRGHHH I can't keep up with this workout schedule while working full time with a sucky commute and playing hockey at the wee hours of the morning!" problem. Actually, GoalieHusband solved it. We were talking it over one night (things are INSANELY exciting in this house, let me tell you!) and he said why don't you just do the workouts when you can and not worry about getting them done in a week? Well DUHHHH. 'Cause, um, that would like, make sense. So, I'm almost finished with "Week 3" but in reality it'll be more like 10 days. I would have knocked off that last day this morning but the stabbing sharp pains I was getting in my knee all day yesterday made me decide to give it a rest. Not sure what that was all about- it's completely gone today, thankfully.

Tomorrow is double-header night. I can't wait. Practice and then a game. I am completely nuts for being this excited about that. Yay hockey! (See? I told you it was better than zombies).

Not-stalking Lundqvist

Yesterday was a whirlwind but it certainly was interesting. Started out with a workout (yeah baby, almost done with week 3 and therefore Phase 1!) and baking some delicious muffins, and then I headed out to the Monkey Sports store that just opened in Woodbridge, NJ. As part of their grand opening they've had player appearances the last two weekends, and yesterday Lundqvist was there. I've never gone to one of these things so I wasn't sure what to expect, but it pretty much was what I thought it would be; crowded, stuffy, hard to see/hear, but hey, you don't get the opportunity to see the King in person very often so what the heck. I think the most memorable part about it though was getting there. I'd only been there once before and got hopelessly lost, but I blame that on Tom Tom.

I wrote down directions from Google Maps and it seemed pretty straightforward, so after a quick chat with Hkygrl12 on Twitter (who had completely forgotten about it and was going to go to a skate with Ron Duguay instead, HELLO???), I hit the road. It's about an hour from where I live, so I was having a good time relaxing and rocking out to some tunes, and when I got closer and had to start paying attention to my directions, it still seemed pretty easy. I was even getting all cocky about how much better Google Maps was than Tom Tom. I was stopped at a light when a car in the next lane caught my attention. It had a puck-shaped magnet that said "Hockey Rules". Yes, indeed it does, I thought. Then I noticed the Quarry Cat magnet. Huh, I thought, interesting. And then I saw the Red Sox sticker. Heeeyy waitaminnit that's gotta be Hckygrl12! As luck would have it, I ended up right behind her when we got off the exit. Driving along, I got a text from her asking if there were a lot of people there. "Im behind u", I texted back. I figured great, I'll just follow her. Except it wasn't long before we were in another town and knew we were completely lost. We pulled over to laugh about it and figure out what to do and hit the road again. After MANY u-turns on Route 9 (and a few calls to GoalieHusband, who knows the area a little and was meeting me there) we finally made it to the store. Google gave us some really ass-backward directions, involving taking a side street with no street sign that looked kind of like a scary back alley, so I guess my cocky "ha! Google Maps kicks Tom Tom's ass!" moment was premature.

Regardless, we made it, had some good laughs about the fact that we were jammed up against the jock display while waiting, and tried to take pictures of Hank through some dude's really big greasy head. I have to say, he may be a fantastic goalie, but he's a hell of a boring interview. And the Bauer rep who was with him spent about 10 minutes asking him about why he liked Bauer, etc. Ok, we get it. Bauer's great and there's a sale on all Bauer equipment. Let's move on to the real stuff. I think the best question from the crowd was the first one, from a young kid who blurted out "When you retire are you going to become a US citizen???!???" (Hank very diplomatically answered that he loves NY and will probably always have a place here but also loves Sweden.)

It was kind of interesting to go and check one of these things out, but I don't think I'd do it again. If he was some kind of goalie thing, and he was going to be talking about goaltending, I'd probably go. But otherwise? Just don't really see the point. I also felt a little bad for him, because it was obvious he still wasn't feeling all that great after having the flu two nights before. (I only know this because Biron got an unscheduled start, and the TV announcers kept talking about how Hank had the flu and wasn't even on the bench. Really. I don't have a camera in his bathroom or anything. Come on, that's gross.)

That's the extent of hockey for me this weekend, other than watching games on TV. The Hawks don't play until Wednesday night- interestingly, right after Quarry Cat practice. That'll be a nice exhausting night. It feels kind of weird to not have a game on a Sunday night. What am I going to do with myself from 11pm - 1am? Ohhh yeah... I'll be asleep. Nice!

*THUD*

I have officially hit the wall. I was doing so well, except for the 2 days I was sick, right up until yesterday. And then I careened into the wall and came to a dead stop. I have been really digging the Ultimate Goalie Training but I'm not gonna lie- it's hard. The workouts themselves are tough, and being disciplined enough to get up really early and spend an hour or more on them isn't any easier. But I love the way I feel when I'm done and I love the improvements I'm already seeing, so I push onwards.

But man oh man, something has to change. I'm not sure if I need to slightly reduce the number of sets on certain things or maybe start eating a little more to replace the energy. Wednesday night I had a late practice, so I didn't get up early to work out on Thursday morning. By the time I got home from work I was so wiped out that I almost didn't make it through the Ranger game- I went straight to bed as soon as I saw the stick salute. And I had no intention whatsoever of getting up early today to either go play open hockey, or work out. I slept like the dead straight through to 6:30.

Here's how it's been going, on average:
Monday- usually have a very late Sunday game, so Monday morning is out.
Tuesday - up at 5, do one of the longer workouts
Wednesday - up at 5, medium length workout. 10pm, hockey practice
Thursday - nothing is happening on Thursday morning other than me sleeping as late as possible
Friday - up at 5 to work out, or to go play 2 hours of hockey
Saturday - up by 7, work out
Sunday - light workout, usually a hockey game at night

But this week I just couldn't do it. This morning I just could not drag myself out of bed and do it. And I really needed that sleep. So, what do I do? Cut out a rep here or there? Or start having some protein-rich snacks throughout the day? I think I'll try that first. I haven't been consuming any more calories since I started this than I was before. And since the goal isn't to lose weight, that's probably a factor in the wiped out feeling. If that doesn't work, I'll have to do a little less, but I hate the thought of doing that, because I'm already not keeping to the schedule as it is, with such late games/practices.

Oh yeah, and I really need to drink lots of water. I do great for a few days and then slack back off and barely drink any. Any fitness gurus out there with any input, please feel free to post a comment. But I'm thinking maybe a higher calorie intake (of the right stuff, obviously) might help.

Right now, though, I'm intaking calories in the form of fermented grapes and sugar. And about to watch Marty's return and (hopefully!) Khabibulin. Man, I love watching goalies.

Goalie envy, and late night beer & chips

Practice last night was pretty good, but not as physically intense as it's been. Coach is starting to teach the skaters some set plays that they can use in given situations, so those drills end up being a lot more cerebral. I didn't get nearly as many shots as usual, as the last 25 minutes or so were spent on diagramming plays and then working on them. Lots of stopping to explain details, etc., which is fantastic, don't get me wrong. There just wasn't a whole lot for me to do. For the last half of that time, the C team (on the other half of the ice) wrapped up their practice with a shootout contest. As I stood around waiting for our drill to pick up again, I watched the other goalie and wished I could be down there. I love shootout contests. (I'm not complaining. I completely get why what we were doing was important. I just was having some serious goalie envy.)

I kept my mouth shut though and didn't even joke around about not having many shots, because if next week's practice goes the same way I'll be more than happy. The Hawks have a game at 11. This'll be interesting.... Practice at 10, then hop over to the other surface for a game. I mentioned this in the locker room last night afterwards, and asked the girls to go easy on me next week. And that's when they decided they needed to stick around to watch our game. Ohhh boy. I warned them. I told them we're 0-7 and we've been getting killed every night, and it's not going to be pretty especially against the opponent we've got lined up. But they wouldn't be swayed. Gionta182 said she's going to make signs (oh dear lord)... But that's not all. She's bringing her vuvuzela. I hope she has at least a few occasions to make lots of obnoxious noise with it.

In truth, although I don't really want them to see how badly we are doing, I think it will bring a little bit of levity to have them yelling and banging on the glass like we did when we watched another team-mate's mens' league game. It's been a rough season. I think anything that makes it a little more light-hearted is good. And who knows, maybe this will be the week I've been saying is coming eventually.... the week that we break our winless drought.

It will certainly be fun if the revelry in the locker room last night was any indication, that's for sure. Captain sent out a text saying to bring beer, it was the Assistant Coach's birthday (not GoalieHusband... he's unfortunately on a bit of an enforced hiatus because of his miserable hours at work lately). What the Captain asks for, the Captain gets; we had about five coolers stocked in the middle of the locker room floor. I gotta tell ya, it put the mens' leagues teams that me and another girl play for to shame. Some of the girls from the C team came over and joined us, and it was packed to the gills in there. We were all putting our disgusting hockey-glove-hands into bags of chips and passing them around, and drinking beer and generally making lots of noise. I guess having 2 beers right after playing (instead of rehydrating with actual water) goes right to my head. Fortunately I wasn't driving. My car pool buddy was trying to convince me to have a third, so the ride home would be more fun. Fortunately, I declined. Two beers and three-quarters of a bag of salt & vinegar potato chips at midnight? That would have been fine 10 years ago. Even maybe 5. Not so much now. Ugggh.... Pepto, you are my friend.

It's worth every stomach-churning morning minute though.

Just call me TOSKALOL

You know, because I've told you, that the last few games I've felt really strong and I felt I played quite well, despite what the scoreboard said at the end of the night. We lost, yet again, this time by a score of 8-3. This yoke keeps getting heavier. I would say my play last night was pretty mediocre, but only if you average it out. Some of the time I was "good lord what is that stench" awful and some of the time I made some of those saves that I have no business making. It just figures that last night I had to pull one of my more bone-headed moves, something I haven't done in a while (thankfully). It just figures, because unlike all our other games, last night's debacle is now memorialized forever on video.

One of our team-mates is half owner of a video production company. He's been saying for a while that he was going to have someone come film one of our games, and it turned out last night was it. I'd give them a shameless plug but I'm afraid you'd then go to their website and find our video, and I really don't need that stress. Because in addition to seeing a few sloppy bad goals, you'd also see my best Toskala impression.

Now, I know I know that I should be chained to the net and never, ever, ever be allowed to touch the puck. But sometimes it's just unavoidable. We were down 5-2, somewhere around the middle of the 2nd period, and with play going on in the other end, suddenly the puck came out and rolled down into my zone. Right towards me, dead on net. An attacker from the other team gave chase so I had no choice but to do something. I went out to corral it, even had my pad down behind it and everything, but it hit the cheater on my glove and bounced back out. And with me down in the wrong kind of position to be pushing over and making a save, said attacker scooped it up and plopped it into the net. And that's on video for ever and ever. Lovely.

On the other hand, I did make some good saves. I guess it was Channel Finnish Goalies Night in my brain, because I also made several awesome "take it in the flaming C" Kiprusoff saves. I really have to get a Flames jersey that I can wear over my gear (I have one but it's way too small for on-ice wearing). Because that will just never, ever get old. Ever.

Bottom line, we lost again, which I think puts us at 0-7 now. And strangely I'm still doing ok in the confidence department. Yeah, I sort of shat the bed on a few goals last night, but for some reason I'm keeping perspective on it. (Except for the whole BEING ON VIDEO thing. UGH.) In conversation with a friend, I compared myself to his big, dumb, dopey, loveable, single-brain-celled dog, and said maybe I'm just stupid like Bertha because I'm just excited to get out there every night. Good girl, Bertha!!! *dumb happy tail thump*

The chasm of GoalieBrain

Well, I played open hockey yesterday and the only person I gave nightmares to was myself. And maybe anyone playing in front of me. I had a pretty crappy outing but amazingly enough, I just sort of shrugged it off and didn't get down about it. I just felt like I couldn't get into my groove at all. As I mentioned on Twitter, the rink was playing god-awful music (who the heck gets pumped up to play hockey listening to "Cornflake Girl" and "Champagne Supernova"???). It's fine though. I guess that just means I'm saving my "A" game for the Hawks on Sunday night.

Speaking of Twitter, I guess I never realized how completely stream-of-consciousness my tweets are. (That's kind of the point, isn't it?) I'd say 99.9999% of my tweets are hockey related, and about 94% of those are goalie related. The other .00001% are probably rants about traffic or people being complete dillholes in general. But it wasn't until I got this response from a friend (blog reader known as "#14") that made me realize just how completely goalie-centric pretty much everything out of my twitter-mouth is. After randomly musing about the way Lundqvist reportedly has his skates cut, I got this IM from him: "You understand that reading your tweets is like walking directly into the chasm of the Goalie Brain, right?" Hmmm. He's right. So be it. It's honestly how my brain works. It's kind of like this: work thought - work thought - work thought - check twitter - work thought - work thought - OMG holy crap I just figured out something I was doing wrong on the ice!!! - work thought - work thought - Rask - Rask - Lundqvist - VarLAmov - work thought - Lehtonen - Rask - Kiprusoff - Rask - work thought.... etc. It's ok though, because on Twitter I've found a little cadre of people whose brains all work the same way. Mostly. Just substitute "Brust" for "Rask" in one person's case. Actually, substitute "Brust" for all of them. (hee hee hee).

On the training front, things are moving along nicely. I'm wrapping up Week Two and find myself a little anxious to get going on Week Three, because the exercise sets are going to change up a little. I peeked ahead at the schedule and saw "Core 2" on some days instead of "Core 1". Woo hoo! Something different! The only thing that's bothering me a little is fitting the schedule into my regular work/hockey schedule. For example, every Wednesday night I have practice at 10pm, which means I'm not home and curled up in bed until 12:30 at the earliest. Sorry but there's no way I'm getting up 4 1/2 hours later to work out. (I have to be up at 5 to work out in order to get to work on time). So Thursdays are out. Then this week on Friday morning I got up early to go play open hockey. So no training on Friday morning either. But it's not like I sat on my ass and did nothing - I was on the ice for an hour and a half. I've resolved it this way: some days on the schedule are just core and flexibility. Some are speed or strength AND core and flexibility. I make sure that I get in all the days with all three so I'm not missing anything. I hope that'll be ok. I just keep reminding myself that something is better than nothing, so if I'm missing a core/flexibility-only day here or there, at least I'm still doing a heck of a lot more to improve myself than I was before I started this. Sleep is important. If I don't sleep, I get sick, and then I can't work out (or play!) at all.

And now that I've really rambled, I doubt there's anyone still reading this. It amazes me that people even want to read this in the first place, since if Twitter is walking into the chasm of GoalieBrain, this has to be complete immersion. Probably only other goalies can stand it, and even then only the obsessive ones. But that's how my brain works... I have to pour stuff out or it rattles around in there and drives me nuts. So thanks for reading, if you've made it this far.

I'll give you nightmares

I'm getting my swagger back. I'm not sure how that's possible losing games 7-1, 12-2 and now most recently 8-2, but I am. I'm feeling strong and powerful on the ice and I'm looking forward to every single outing. I give a lot of credit to the training I've started doing; that really pumps me up and makes me feel strong. Well, afterwards it does. At the time it makes me want to die and almost puke, at least the speed and agility portion of it. I'm loving the other stuff though.

So we had another game last night, and came out with another loss. Maybe I'm just delusional but this isn't frustrating the hell out of me on a personal level. Hell yeah I want to win. Losing sucks. Losing by so much sucks too. But I think it's the overall feeling of the team that makes the difference. There isn't a poisonous atmosphere anymore. Everyone out there is working their tail off, no one's slacking. It's hard to be upset when everyone's giving it their all. I guess we'll probably end up dropping down to the instructional league after this season, which is going to be hard to swing in the GoalieHousehold, but we'll figure something out. Regardless, right now we're still in this league, and yes we're getting killed every night but by HockeyGods, if anyone could get a win for pure balls-out effort it should be us.

I had a little bit of a confidence boosting experience during/after the game as well, which never hurts. During the 2nd period, we were down by I think maybe 4 goals, and there was a breakaway down the left wing. I saw it unfold, I waited... I waited.... and I totally STUFFED the guy. As in he thought he had an easy goal and BAM there I was nice and tight, no rebound thank you very much. That save made me feel great, and having him tap me on the pads between periods and say "great save" made me grin, but it wasn't until after the game that I felt the swagger come back. Right after getting off the ice, I was talking to a friend who'd come to watch the game, and that skater came over to me and said "Man that really was a good save. I'm going to have nightmares tonight because of that."

Six more days 'til I'm back out there again. Trust me, I've got perspective. I may have made a few great saves but at the end of the night we still lost 8-2. But damnit, I'm determined to just keep plugging and get that win.