First game, new season

After going 1-11 on our last season, the Hawks decided to gut it out for one more season and see if we could pull ourselves together. Wednesday night was our first game of the Winter season, against the universally-adored "Drunk Punks". Some of the QCats stuck around after practice to cheer us on, and in addition to the giant GO HAWKS sign, two other smaller signs appeared. One was right next to the giant one and said "Go Coach S!" or something to that effect. Cool of Gionta182 for not embarrassing GoalieHusband with "Coach Sparkle", but I honestly don't think he'd have cared at all. Another one was taped right behind my net in the 3rd period and said "Beware the [my last name]inator!" Haha. They need to come to every game, I think, because the best games we have played have all been with the cheering section in attendance.

We didn't win this one, but we played really well and I think we have a chance at actually winning a few games this season if we play like that every night. I managed to shake off my exhaustion (thank you, Gatorade) and had a pretty strong game. I always feel like a pollyanna when I say that after a game where I've let in 8 goals... but I really do think I made a lot of good saves. A couple goals were screens, and one was a wide open back door, and I'm sitting here laughing at myself because I honestly can't remember the others. Over my shoulder? Have no clue. Way to go, Goldfishbrain!

I did have one near-disastrous brain fart though. In the second period, with play in the neutral zone, the puck came straight down the middle. One of my D was hustling back to get it, and had an opponent right on him, and it was coming straight for me, so I figured the thing to do would be go out and get it. I didn't communicate with the D where I was going to put it, and for some reason I thought he was going to go to the right, so that's the direction I pushed it in. Unfortunately just as I did that, he peeled off to the left, which left the opponent a golden opportunity. THANK YOU HOCKEY GODS, I was right there and made the stop. That would have been an awful goal to give up. I talked to my D after that and asked what I should have done, and he said he should have told me where he was going, or failing that I should have put it back in the corner. Duly noted.

Though final score was 8-5, in reality it should have been 7-5. Apparently the bug up the ref's ass thought otherwise. In the 3rd period, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the net was off, and as I was tracking the puck I was yelling "Net's off! Net's off!", so the ref who was right there would notice and blow the whistle. The other team had the puck and was setting up a play... and no whistle. And wouldn't you know it, they scored. I immediately turned to the ref, pointed to the net off it's mooring and asked how that could be a goal if the net was off. He just shrugged. I said "Didn't you hear me yelling that the net was off?" He just gave me this totally smug look and said "Nope," and skated away. I yelled after him "Are you kidding? I was screaming my head off!" It was totally obvious that he knew damn well the net was off, and just didn't give a damn. Later, there was a play where two players crashed into the net, sending the whole thing off by a couple of feet. That ref happened to be the far ref at that point, and was in the neutral zone by the benches. "NOW the net's off!" he yelled down to me.

FUCK. YOU.

I don't chirp. I'm pretty quiet. Plus I don't want to put my team down a man. But at that point, with only a few minutes left, I'd had it. I was making snarky comments the whole rest of the time. From the bench, Senator objected to the fact that the face-off following the net crash was in our zone; I yelled back "did you expect anything different?" Welcome back to playing against the hometown boys. (In all honesty, it was just one of the refs who was being a douche. The other guy was fine, and he refs a lot of our games and is a pretty fair ref.) It's not like the goal with the net off was the difference in our winning or losing, so whatever. It was the smugness that pissed me off more.

Our next game isn't until a week from today, and it's the one I'm going to have to make a mad dash back from Westchester for. I seem to play really well in these double-header type situations. I think I kind of thrive on the intensity. YEAH HOCKEY.