Where Did I Leave Off??? (Tournament Blog Part III)

Yikes. I brought the laptop with me because I planned on being all organized and doing some blogging while there, rather than leaving it all for when I got home. I'm not sure what happened to that plan. Ok, yes I do. It got kind of lost in the whirlwind. We had a game on Thursday, one on Friday, two on Saturday, and one on Sunday morning. If we weren't playing, we were eating, or drinking, or sleeping. I'm still exhausted. But we had so much fun. Even GoalieHusband loved it, and I was a little nervous about him, being so completely outnumbered by females for that long. Fortunately the recently-ex Head Coach was there as well, so that provided a bit of testosterone to combat all the estrogen.

Our game on Friday night was a tough one. We knew going in that it wouldn't be the cakewalk our first game had been, and it didn't disappoint in that regard. There was a shot clock, and I can't remember now how many shots I had, but I know I tweeted it that night. Maybe 35? I'm not sure. We lost 6-1 (one goal was an emtpy net) and it was a fast, physical game. And I unleashed my inner Hextall. There was one chick who slashed me "accidentally" after the whistle in the first period, and I got her back as she skated away, but barely touched her. I considered mentioning her to my D, but decided against it. Then in the second, there was a scramble in front of the net, I smothered the puck with my glove, the whistle blew, and this same chick slashed my glove hand. I wasted no time in giving it right back to her, hard. One of my D started pushing her away, when the other came flying from across the ice and dropped her. The ref took both her and my overzealous D. She was busy crying about how I'd slashed her. I informed her she wouldn't have had a problem if she hadn't slashed me first. Only I don't think I said it quite that politely.

I feel like I played pretty well in that game, but not as well as I'd have liked to. Obviously 5 goals against is too high in my opinion. But the team felt differently, because I was unanimously awarded Sidney the MVP Chicken in the locker room after the game.

Here's the story behind Sidney: Fortunately one of the team members has a condo not overly far from the rink, so many of us stayed with her instead of getting hotel rooms. On Thursday when we were all hanging out, someone commented on the Thanksgiving centerpiece on her table. She lamented that she'd had someone else decorate the place after they'd bought it, and they did a really fantastic job... except for this bizarre centerpiece. It was pretty shabby, and there was a pathetic looking turkey right in the middle of it. She mentioned that she wouldn't be sad at all if the turkey disappeared, and that was all the goading it took for us to remove him and have all kinds of fun perching him on people's hats, drinks, etc. Someone decided that he would have to be the MVP prize for each game, and that the recipient had to wear him on their head. He was also christened "Sidney". And although he is a turkey, for some reason everyone kept calling him a chicken.

Somehow this seems a lot less aweseome now that we're back at home in our normal daily lives. I guess it falls under "you had to be there". Here's a very grainy picture of a very sweaty me in the locker room after the game, with Sidney in the place of honor:


After that game, everyone was completely drained and by the time we got back to the condo and cleaned up, no one wanted to go anywhere. We had an early game coming up the next day, so the (wise) decision was made to just chill in the condo in our jammies with our laptops and go to bed at a decent hour. ("Decent" meaning, sometime before 3 a.m.)