Quarry Cat weekend

The NHL season is underway, and now the Quarry Cats' season has officially started. YAY HOCKEY! This is my absolute favorite time of year. The excitement of the new season, with a whole season stretching out ahead of us, games and highlights to watch, plays and hits to talk about, and my own games ramped up now that both my teams are active. Love. It.

This weekend I got to play in two games, and that made me one happy goalie. On Saturday I subbed for the C team. We played in PA and I made the trip out and back by myself, which I enjoyed. Carpooling with teammates is awesome, but there is something to be said for a nice solo ride now and then. Now that I have a nifty little smartphone, I was able to use GPS navigation to get there, instead of scribbling directions down on a scrap of paper from Google Maps. And I discovered something: I kind of like the "nav". I found myself talking back to it without even realizing it. "Turn right onto Polk Street", the female robot-voice said. "You got it," I chirped back as I made the turn. "Ok now what?"

I need help.

Anyway, the game was a lot of fun. I can say that because we won. It was looking like a tie for a long while there, but we managed to break it with literally 30 seconds left in the game. One thing that's kind of neat is that the C team plays in an actual league, which keeps stats and standings etc. (We play an independent schedule, basically a bunch of teams that all play each other but we're not a formal league. We could be in a different division of the C team's league but no one wants to travel as far as would be necessary, myself included). So I got to keep track of my shot total; only 18 shots on me, and 1 goal. Not awful. But on the other end? Holy cow. The girls unleashed 50 shots on the other goalie and she turned away all but 48 of them. I tried to tell her in the handshake line how great I thought she played, but I could tell she was pissed about losing that close to the end of the game. I get it. I would be too.

That was a lot of fun, and I felt comfortable with the girls since I knew several of them from tournaments this summer, but what I was really excited about was my own team's opening game of the season. We played against the same team we opened the season against last year, and I don't know what the deal is, but I always feel like I play like crap when we play them. Maybe subconsciously I'm underestimating them, because they, like us, have improved a lot over the last 2 years. The game started out and on the first rush into our zone, they scored. It was a garbage goal I'd gotten the first save on, but thought I had the puck covered. Not so much. Man, that pissed me off. And the fact is, we spent most of the time in their zone. So there I am, standing around, watching the girls at the other end, with that big fat 1 and 0 on the scoreboard over the other goalie's head. And after they got a second goal (which incidentally was the same kind as the first)? Mortified. And pissed off. Fortunately I played much better after that, and we managed to tie it up in the second period. I think. The tying goal might have come early in the 3rd. Goldfishbrain, remember?

In the 3rd period we went ahead by one, and the bench went nuts and I felt immense relief. No matter what anyone says, I feel like those first 2 goals were on me. Those are pucks I usually smother. Anyway... In the 3rd period they spent a little more time in our end, and somehow I was endowed with a glove hand that actually works, because I snatched at least two pucks right from mid-air.  Man, did that feel good. I love that. *Yoink!* Oh yeah, you that was going in, didn't you? Think again, sweetie. Hey. I don't get to feel that feeling very often, so when I do, I bask in it for a few seconds. I also was reminded of the way the announcer described, I believe it was Halak's, jaw-dropping flat-out larceny savegasm of a glove save in Saturday night's game. He said something like "And up comes that smelly leather mitt and nabs it right out of the air, while he's in the splits". Hahaha. Smelly leather mitt indeed. No splits here though. All the yoga and stretching in the world won't get that out of me.

Unfortunately they tied it up with only a few minutes left. I hate ties. HATE them. I know there's a lot of people who hate shootouts, but ties have to be worse. And in this league we don't even get a few minutes of OT to try to settle it. So, the final score was 3-3.  I swear, next time we play them I'm going to shut them down.

Our next game is practically a month away, so that's it for now. And the next Hawks game isn't for another week. Fortunately, I have the week off this week, so I'm going to try to get to at least two open hockey sessions.  Right now I'm going to enjoy my coffee and figure out which of several projects I'm going to tackle first.

I love hockey.