Kids, brain freeze, and "Goals"

It's a good thing I don't have anything important to do today, because I've just wasted a fair amount of time reading through my own blog, looking for a post that I know is there somewhere, but I'll  be damned if I can find it. It's one in which I mention talking to a young girl in the "women's locker room", a kid who was maybe about 12, and was getting dressed in ref's gear. I admired her gumption and then realized her dad was one of our (at the time) drinking buddies, who is also a ref. I've searched on "daughter", I've searched on "dad", "kid", "open hockey", "referee", all to no avail. I've been looking for it because I ran into her again today when I came off the ice after open hockey. I barely recognized her- it's been quite a few years since that day, and I think she's about 17 now. In fact, I only had a vague "I think I know this girl" feeling until she started talking and said her name in a story about how she can't hide in her room away from the relatives for very long before someone calls for her. Hopefully she didn't notice that until that point I wasn't exactly sure who she was, but she is quite a talker so maybe she didn't pick up on it. She did say that she always liked asking "older adults" what made them start playing hockey. "So, what made you start playing?", she asked. Damn. Thanks, kid.

Feeling old was apparently the theme of the day though. I'd completely forgotten this morning when I was scraping my windshield in the dark, getting ready to head to the rink, that duh... it's Thanksgiving. Which means all the college kids are home from school. It's probably a good thing, too, or I would have psyched myself out. I played a mediocre game. I had some pretty good saves, but I had some craptastic goals as well. I think the problem was mostly timing. A couple of those guys had the puck on their stick for about a nanosecond before letting a shot loose. I was the only goalie though, so I guess it was better than no goalie at all. And as such, I switched ends every ten minutes.

You know I hate that. I hate to admit it, but I get all mixed up when I have to do that. If I have a shift on the bench in between it's not too bad. But going right from one end to the other gets all my wires crossed and sometimes I have to remind myself that the other guys are the bad guys now. In fact when we were warming up, I saw a guy in a burgundy Spartak jersey, and thought about this incident from several years ago. Wouldn't you know it, I did almost the same damn thing, and even worse, it was the same damn guy! (Has to be. I've only ever seen one guy in a Spartak jersey, but he seemed a little young so maybe he was borrowing it). I'd started out in net for dark, and then switched to the light side after 10 minutes. I saw Mr. Spartak coming down the boards towards me, and forgot he was my enemy. Fortunately, it probably looked to everyone else like I just didn't get to my post fast enough- he fired and it hit my calf as my brain went "OH! Shit!" and I moved, too slowly, over to the post. Hopefully no one heard me yelling "got time" to him just seconds before that.

Seriously. What the hell is wrong with me. I don't get it. It's really embarrassing to be confused that easily. At least this time it was nowhere near as blatant. But I think it might have also had something to do with the fact that it was the same guy. My brain was already in that "hey remember the time you gave the puck up to the wrong guy?" mode so maybe that made it more likely to happen. Who knows. I also haven't played open hockey in an eon, so was kind of out of that rhythm. There's another session tomorrow morning, and as of now I stupidly plan on going to that one as well. I'm only on one team this year, so am on the ice once, maybe twice a week, as opposed to 3 or 4 times. I need to keep up the momentum or I'll get really out of shape. As it was, I was pretty gassed today after only an hour.

Part of that is my own fault. I've gotten extremely inconsistent lately with my workouts. In fact I feel like I'm letting Maria down. I don't know why, I just don't have the motivation or follow-through that I used to have. So I've taken her advice and made a list of my goals. I'm going to do it each week, and I'm admittedly starting pretty small this week. (The theory is, if I start small I won't scare myself off). The only problem is, I wrote "GOALS" at the top of the page... and then thought hey wait a minute. "Goals" are kind of the opposite of what I'm trying to achieve here. So I crossed it out and wrote "TARGETS". This week my goals are to stretch every day, and either work out or play hockey every day from now until Sunday. So here it is. If I'm not on the ice tomorrow morning, my ass better be in the gym. Sunday  night I'll make a list for next week. This better work, because I'm pretty fed up with myself and my lack of motivation.