Yeah, about that double-header

(I wrote this Wednesday evening but forgot to post it. Oopsie)

Let's file one game under "it was a loss, but damn it was fun and I played my butt off" and the other under "meh".

The Quarry Cat game was the first one of the night, and we ended up with a 4-1 loss. I wasn't crying in my beer over that one though, because I felt like I stood on my head. GoalieHusband said he counted at least 50 shots and knows he didn't get them all. We were up against a team we'd never played before, and they were quite a bit faster than we are. Still I think we didn't do poorly. The D was absolutely fantastic. I can't speak to the forwards much because I wasn't really watching them. I got to experience the fun of a penalty shot, too. I don't even remember exactly how it got there (I think took a weird bounce off me while I was holding the post?) but the puck ended up behind me in the blue paint, skittering towards the goal line, while I was facing the right corner. One of my D launched herself towards it, with the intention of shoving it out with her hand, but when she landed she obscured the ref's vision and he assumed she landed on it. TWEEET. Penalty shot.

I felt really confident, like eh... no problem, I got this. Then I heard the bench chanting my name. Gals, love the support but that's making me nervous as hell. Benefit of having your husband on the bench as assistant coach? He knows stuff like this. Unbeknownst to me, he told them to stop saying my name and just cheer or call me "Goalie", because that's what the cheering suddenly changed to. Girl picks up the puck, comes down the middle.... fakes a shot that I don't bite on... so on her way in she tries to flip a backhand over my right pad. OH LOOK my leg is over here now. DENIED. Bench erupts in cheering and stick-banging. Damn, that feels good. I know I'm not supposed to get all carried away, but I have to say there's nothing like hearing your bench go nuts after a save. Warms my goalie heart.

After the game we had beer and pizza with the other team to welcome them (or maybe just because we wanted beer and pizza...), and a few gals stuck around for a while with us, but eventually we were left on our own just killing time waiting for the Hawks game. The team I subbed for was playing about an hour before our game, so we at least had that to watch for a while.

Annnd... as for the Hawks game I really don't have much to say. We lost, I think the score was 9-4 (see? blocking it out already), and it's just really starting to get old, letting that many goals in every single game. I'm really starting to feel like I am part of the problem. Guess I just don't belong at this level, and that's a very tough pill to swallow. "This level" is a step above instructional, and its depressing as all hell to think that I'll only ever be good enough for an instructional league. (That said, the levels at this rink are so f'd up it's unreal. Their "instructional" would be most rinks' D, and their "D" should be a C or higher, etc..)

But I have a game tonight, so all that is going in the vault.