Weekend roundup

I am in my bliss right now, with both teams' schedules picking up. For some reason the QCats schedule is always much heavier on the back end (that's what she said) than in the first few months. And now that the Cougar(hawk)s got our 6 bye weeks out of the way, we're playing weekly games. From Friday through Monday I had three games, two wins and a loss.

Friday night the QCats had a home game against a team we haven't played in a while. We weren't sure what to expect, as their organization has several levels and you never know which players are going to show up on any given night. As it turned out, we got the low end of the spectrum. Coach (aka "GoalieHusband") was delighted and said it was an awesome game to coach, and all the skaters were pretty jazzed about it too, but I was kind of bored. We won 3-2, and it shouldn't even have been that high. The first goal was courtesy of my d-man's stick blade. The second was probably due to a slightly slower than usual reaction on my part, with my head somewhat out of the game. I find it so hard to stay focused when you're only seeing a few shots a period.

Fortunately our next game was more exciting. It was a Sunday night away game, against a team we match up against fairly well. We were down 4 players; one injured, three with whatever germs are running rampant right now. We managed to get two extra bodies on the ice though, since gionta182 was free (even though she'd originally not planned to play), and our very own Assistant Coach hkygrl12 hit the ice with us. I don't really know what was going on that night, but our D was nowhere near as tight as is usually is. It might have been a combination of unfamiliar partners, and the other team's tendency to creep down really low. I've never yelled about my back door so much in one night. Also, the refs were fairly clueless. Icing was apparently optional, as was indicating whether it had occurred or not, and one was either completely oblivious, or purposely baiting me. With the score 2-0 and only a few minutes to go in the 3rd period, play was deep in our zone when the net came off slightly. It was the right post that got knocked off, and the near ref was right there to my right watching the play. I started saying "net's off", and when he didn't pick up on it, hkygrl12 joined in. It went something like this. "Net's off".... track track track skate.... "net's off!!" ummmm the other team has the puck, what's the deal here .... "HEY! Net's OFF!!!"..... "wtf THE. NET. IS. OFF!"

Yes, the other team had the puck the whole time I was yelling my head off. Apparently the bench was going bananas too, with the far ref right near them. He was craning his neck to see but I guess I was blocking his view. I told hkygrl12 later that if I didn't have a shutout on the line, I would absolutely have let my "inner Tuukka" out and shoved it WAY off myself, and taken the penalty. The funniest part though? After that play, and me adjusting the post myself, the play came back into the zone and suddenly there was a whistle. Everyone - including me- was looking around, looking for the ref for an explanation. "Net's off" he said, calmly putting it back into place.

And that is why I think he was f-ing with me.

Regardless, we won, and I got a shutout, one which I felt was pretty well-deserved. I worked hard for it and made some decent stops, and I guess I got a little too cocky about it, because the hockey gods handed me a slice of humble pie when I played again on Monday night.

This was a Cougar(hawk)s game, one I was particularly amped for, due to our opponent's reputation. Those who have been in the league for a while were indicating that this might be the "d-bag" team of this league. They pretty much lived up to expectations. They were also the "Italian Soccer Player" team, flamboyant dives being a specialty of theirs. Unfortunately we were pretty scrambly in the first period and although we did score first, they got 4 in that frame. I feel that I definitely should have had 2 of them; one being a bad bounce off my arm, the other being a complete paddle-down fail. The other 2 were pretty impossible though. And they only got 1 more goal for the rest of the game, early in the 2nd period. After that we shut them down. The end result was a score of 5-2, and a very humbled goalie. I was told that it's not unheard of for this team to score 8 or more goals though, so I wasn't pouting too much.

We've got another similar weekend lined up, with games on Friday and Saturday, and then a game on Monday night, which is a good thing because it gives me a nice outlet for all my pent up my-company-went-bankrupt-angst.