Get 'Em Next Time

It feels so weird to be writing about a tournament in February that I can't figure out how to get started. Perhaps my brain is warming up for the writer's block I'll have later when I finally force myself to sit down and work on my resume. (If I keep ignoring it, it'll go away.... right???)

The weekend started off with what could have been quite a disaster. Flipper (aka lct29) and The Mayor stopped at my office to pick me up, and we were barely 2 minutes into our journey when I spilled the entire cup of coffee I'd just purchased- all over my feet. If you've ever bought coffee at a Dunkin Donuts, you know they serve it at approximately 387*F. We were just pulling out of the parking lot and I let up a howl that had Flipper wondering where the nearest hospital was, and in my panic, I thought if I could just get out of the Jeep the pain would stop, so I opened the door and swung my legs out. That was when logic kicked in and I realized, duh, just take off your socks, idiot. With several people behind us, we couldn't just stop, so we pulled into a gas station next door to assess the damage.

I felt absolutely awful about dumping a whole cup of coffee into Flipper's car, but fortunately what didn't end up on my legs and feet all went on the floormat. There was a large angry red patch on my foot, but no blisters were forming, so we counted our blessings and I kept an ice pack from the cooler on my foot for the next hour. It did end up blistering, but not until sometime overnight. What saved me from a certain 3rd degree burn was the fact that I was wearing socks. Pretty ironic considering I'm a big proponent of being barefoot. Perhaps I need to reconsider that, at least when I've got a scalding hot cup of coffee in my hand.

Coffee mishap notwithstanding, it was an otherwise uneventful trip. We got to the hotel with plenty of time to spare, and made our way over to the rink early so there'd be time to figure out where we were going, and sign in, and all that fun stuff. I don't know if it's the stress of travel, or traffic or what, but we always seem to have a bad first game in our tournaments. I figured we'd be ok, with all the extra time we had, but that was not the case.

We definitely could have beaten the team we played, but all of us seemed to be a step off. We ended up losing 4-2, and I'd like just about all of those goals back. Monx77 was busy beating herself up over a turnover that resulted in a goal, but that certainly wasn't the deciding factor in the game. We just.... crapped the bed. That's the only way to describe it. The other team was ridiculously chippy and bitchy, too. So much so, that one player got called for unsportsmanlike conduct - mid game - for yapping at the ref. Apparently she'd been warned already but just kept at it. They took lots of penalties, and we only took one. And when we did get called for that penalty, their entire bench erupted in cheers. So, not the classiest team we've ever played.

That was Friday night, and since it was a late game we knew nothing would be open afterwards, food-wise, so Pants had brought up an entire sandwich and salad and cookies spread. We feasted in her room, all 13 of us jammed in there, listening to music and drinking beer and flinging ping-pong balls at each other in a modified version of "carpet pong". Gionta182 supplied us with a box of 36 balls, so for an all-female team, there were an awful lot of balls flying around.

We had two games on Saturday, and we played extremely well in both. The first was a 3-1 (I think???) win, and the second was a shutout for me, 5-0. If we'd played like that we'd have easily beaten Friday night's team. And that team was the one that ended up going on to the championship game, too. Those two things combined kind of stuck in our craw. Even though we had a great time and had two really strong games, we were all pretty bummed about not playing on Sunday. Discussing it on the ride home, Flipper and The Mayor and I decided it seemed to have a lot to do with playing right after traveling up there. (It was about a 4 1/2 hour trip). We have another tournament in just over a month, and we all decided that if we can, we'll take Friday off work and head up in the morning, so we're up there and settled way before game time. I know that would make a huge difference for me - I always seem to be janky and just not quite right when playing right after a road trip.  So the verdict for this one was: lots of fun, but we know we can do better, and are looking forward to the chance to prove it.