The twilight of the Cougarhawks

I have to hand it to @hkygrl12 and @eco_panda, they have put together quite an awesome team. It was a ton of fun to play with those guys (and gals) this season, and all of us are bummed that we won't be together again for the Spring session. The Cougars have several (about 5) regulars coming back to the team and so there isn't enough room for all of us to stay.  So last night was our final game together, a consolation game between two losing teams of playoff games. Which is to say, it didn't mean much, and started out as just a ton of fun. I even wore my brand spanking new glove that I'd had for all of about 3 hours, figuring a game that didn't "mean" anything was as good a time as any to try it out.

And it was a smashing success. It needs some more breaking in, but I think it will definitely be ready for Florida. It needs to mold to my hand a little more but once it does it will be perfect. I'm already a little in love with it, because it makes awesome saves all by itself. Seriously. It's got a little goalie-brain of its own in there. I made a wicked save toward the end of the game, one that got lots of cheers from the bench. Cheers, and then jeers. The jeers were for GoalieHusband, who had deflected it perfectly from its trajectory, which I had covered, to one that was going up and over my shoulder. But The Glove flicked out and snatched that sucker out of the air like a frog slurping up an unsuspecting fly. It surprised even me. The puck even nestles perfectly in the pocket, getting a nice little goalie hug. See? I told you I'm in love with it

As for the game, it started out perfect, exactly the kind of game I was expecting and looking forward to; a laid back affair that was fun, yet still competitive. There was even quite a bit of jawing between some of us and one of the refs, a drinking buddy of ours from a few years back. Unfortunately the other team didn't seem to have quite the same expectations. I think they thought our game was the prelude to the Stanley Cup playoff games about to begin. They were chippy, even with each other, and there was no end to their bitching and moaning. More than once, my D and I looked at each other with a "what is WITH these guys?" look on our faces. One guy was particularly consistent with the complaining and yapping, aimed at one of my D for standing up for me. He yapped as he set up for the face off, continued yapping at the drop of the puck, and followed her into the corner, still carrying on. I took that opportunity to inform him that I hadn't heard that much bitching since I was in a women's locker room. I don't think he heard me though. He was too busy chasing eco_panda and trying to insult her by calling her "DUUUUDE".  Because that's so highly offensive.

Though we'd gone up 4-2 at one point, we ended up tied 5-5 at the end, and when the buzzer went off, we were on the penalty kill. There was some discussion as to how to resolve the tie, and though I was praying for a straight shootout (knowing our guys would smoke the other goalie... sorry goalie gods), they gave us a 3 minute OT first. Unfortunately they took advantage of the extra man and scored before the power play was over. Dang. Not how I wanted to end that game, not at all. We made up for it in the parking lot afterwards though, as anyone who saw my tweets can attest. I was the unofficial secretary of MBN that night, chronicling all the new rules we had to create based on the crassness of the conversations (thank you GoalieHusband).

It will be interesting playing against this team next session. As Cap put it, at least we know there's one more team that's not a bunch of complete d-bags now.  I have taken the reins in organizing what will be known as the Silverhawks, a nod to our first ever instructional league team. There aren't enough of us to have a full team, so we'll have a few free agents added to the roster, but hopefully they won't be d-bags either. I'm actually kind of nervous about the whole thing. I've never stepped into this role before, and I'm anxious about the team not doing well, or people not getting along. I guess we'll see - the season starts next week already. Hope that glove is ready for more action.

Witty Comebacks, and Women's Locker Rooms

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Autopilot (warning: navel-gazing ahead)

I hate "abandoning" my blog. Especially after something like the "goaliespeak" post, which (so far) has had 206 hits. Up 'til then I think the most hits a post has had has been around 35, so although I am somewhat ashamed to admit it, that made me feel a little proud that so many people found their way to the blog, and apparently stuck around, if the uptick in hits on other posts is any indication. I briefly considered making it a point to write something every day, so as not to lose anyone's attention. But I like keeping it real, and if I have nothing to say, I have nothing to say.

Particularly during times like these. I find that any time I start to succumb to stress, my natural instinct is to head for cover. Facebook, Twitter, my goalie message board, even blogging all seem overwhelming. I know I've alluded to it here a few times, but things at work are downright awful. I've been with this company for 15 years, and started here straight out of college. I don't know any other job or industry. Many of these people, though I do bitch about them, are like a fucked up extended dysfunctional family in some ways. And just over a month ago, we entered Chapter 11 as part of the process of being acquired by another company. It's been bad here for a long time, but never this bad. There was a round of layoffs last week, with another looming this week. We no longer exist as a company but we haven't been purchased by anyone yet. This extended period of limbo, of not knowing who will get to stay and who will be cut loose, is extremely trying for all of us. Coming to the office every day gets harder and harder when you have nothing to do and no direction and no word from anyone, but know bad news is coming at some point. That my paycheck actually hits my bank account on payday is no small miracle, and for that I am very thankful.

As a result I have been running on autopilot lately. It's gotten progressively worse over the last week or so. The only way to get through it (other than drinking heavily, which I will not allow myself to succumb to) is to just numb out. That, and live from hockey game to hockey game, though I have to admit after the final week of 5 times on the ice in 6 days, I may be a tad burned out. BUT.... the Cougars have a game tonight, and a tournament is a mere four days away. I've managed to shake myself free of the inertia enough to focus on those things and enjoy what I can. It took me until just this afternoon to come to that realization. Maybe it's the Buddhist CD I'm listening to in the car. Maybe it's my brain finally screaming awake after a period of being zoned out. Whatever it is, I'm back. At least for a few days. And I SWEAR, this time I will blog the tournament as it happens. I know, I know, I say that every time. But I have to really do it. There are so many funny little details that get left out when I do a post-tournament wrap-up. It should be an interesting experiment.

So..... LET'S GO COUGAR(HAWK)S!!!! This is a playoff game. (I know! Already???!) This season went far too quickly and I'm going to miss playing with these idiots next season, so I know I have to grab hold while I can. BOO. YAH.

The lost post (as in blog post, not post-my-best-friend)

I wrote this a week ago but forgot to hit "publish". Woopsie.

If you've been a longtime reader, you know that I have always been a little shaky with handling the puck. (If you're new, well there you go, I just told you). I haven't mentioned it much in the last year or so, but it's something I've been making a concerted effort to work on. I got past the complete deer-in-headlights stage where I was petrified to even try because it would invariably end up in the net, and now I'm fairly confident and even have a clue what I'm going to do with the puck once it's on my stick. Last night I even passed to a teammate who was up near the blue line! Go me. However, as with all learning processes, there's always that time now and then where things don't go quite as planned. I guess I was feeling a little cocky after that pretty pass in the 2nd period, because in the 3rd I gave my entire bench a heart attack. In my defense, there was no one around for miles when I went out to get the puck as it came into our zone on a power play. I was all "oh, no big deal, I'll just mosey out here and get it, and-" OMG WHY IS GOALIEHUSBAND SCREAMING "MAN ON!!"???!

A forechecker had come flying out of nowhere and the puck squirted out into the slot. Both of us raced for it, and I swear it was one of those slow-motion moments, in which I got to the puck a fraction of a second before he did through nothing more than sheer force of will. I was even gritting my teeth and maybe even growling a little. I went flying on my belly as I poked it and somehow he ended up on the ice too, crashing into me. All I cared about was the puck was off in the corner, far away from any green-clad players. As I got up and retreated to my crease, he skated by and said "Sorry man," then did a double-take and said "uh... girl?" Ha. Dude, if I'm going to be offended by being called "man", I think I'm in the wrong sport. Funny thing is, that's the second time that happened in that game. The first time was after a Mack truck barreled into my head while I was crouched over a puck to freeze it. I was in a little less of a good humor at that point though.

What really made my night though, was hearing about something that was said to a teammate. After a very frustrating game, which we lost 2-1 despite the fact that we actually scored 3 goals, a good number of us hung out on a glorious spring evening for a beverage or two. Hkygrl12 told me that a fellow teammate had been at clinic a few days before, and someone from another team in the league was there as well. That person stopped him and asked him "What have you been feeding your goalie??" I didn't get it at first. But then Hkygr12 explained that the goalie they'd had the season before was also female, but I guess made less saves. (Trying to be diplomatic. You know me and how much I love to toot my own horn.) This person apparently thought it was the same goalie, but much improved. (I'm cringing even writing this, feeling bad for the other goalie, who hopefully will never read this). I'm not going to lie, hearing that really made me feel good.

Wait.... it's over???? Already?!?

I still can't get over how quickly this season went. The QCats played our final game on Saturday, a win in which I saw 15 shots if I was lucky. Our unofficial record for the season is 12-5-5. That is pretty damn satisfying. We have one practice left, which GoalieHusband and @hkygrl12 have promised will be "fun", but will not reveal any other details. We're all hoping that "fun" means "no Herbies".

We have tournaments lined up for the whole off-season, and I'm definitely looking forward to them, but it's still a little sad for the season to be ending. We're going to feel pretty aimless the next few Sundays, with no games to hurry off to. I guess we can probably fill the void with firepit gatherings and other warm-weather type stuff. (Yuck. Warm weather.)

Fortunately, being the hockey whore I am, I am impacted a little less than the rest of my teammates, since Cougar(hawk)s games go year round. We've got another matinee tonight, and then a game at 11pm tomorrow night. We've also learned that several regular Cougar members are coming back for the Spring session, so our Cougar-Hawk blend is going to have to part ways since there isn't enough room for all of us on the same team. It's too bad, because this team has some pretty good chemistry. But, GoalieHusband and the other Hawks and I are already working on forming a team of our own. It looks like we'll even have a few QCats on the roster. We're tossing around the idea of calling ourselves the Hawks again, and busting out the snazzy yellow jerseys we all bought. More on that in the coming weeks.

On the NHL front, I'm still extremely mopey about Rask being hurt, so I went searching on Youtube for the pre-game interview he did on NESN last week. My perusing also revealed a nifty little video that I watched out of mild curiosity, but which ended up with a huge "A-HA!!!" moment. Bless Tuukka's crazy little Finnish heart, he solved my slimy-glove problem! (Ok, technically I guess his trainer solved it. Tomato, tomahto.)

Shootouts everywhere

I neglected to write about any games  last week mostly because I was busy sulking about them. There were three, a loss and two ties. The first game was last Friday night, the first of the Quarry Cats' two final home games, and we played a team that is more of a C/D mix than a true D team. We lost 5-2 and that was pretty darn good for the competition we were up against. My post-game locker room expletive-filled rant about one particular ref notwithstanding, it actually wasn't too bad morale-wise. We all knew we  played decently against a much  better team.

The next game was a tie, and that one actually felt more like a loss than the one before it. We were up 4-2 and with about 3 minutes to go the other team scored not once, but twice, to tie the game. We asked the refs for a shootout, and they gave us what seems to be the rink standard: a 5-man shootout. (Not sure what's up with that). Unfortunately, although I turned away the first 3 shooters, the next two found their mark, and we had two goals out of 3 as well. The refs wouldn't give us any more shooters so we ended in a tie. Not sure what the point of the shootout is then... but ok. Everyone (myself included) was kind of ticked at letting that one get away.

We had Sunday off and then on Monday night the Cougar(hawk)s were back in action for another matinee. (For my new readers, in our world, "matinee" means basically "any time before 9 pm") I don't feel I played my best game, even though two goals were complete screens. I'm supposed to have those anyway, right? Have to learn to find the puck no matter where it is, etc, etc. Fortunately we managed to tie that one up in the last few minutes, in mirror image to the QCat game two nights before; we were down 4-2 and tied it 4-4. UNfortunately, for whatever reason the refs didn't see fit to give us a shootout. Both I and the other goalie stayed in our nets at the final buzzer, and teams milled about waiting for a shootout, but one ref skated to the benches and said "That's it, you're done", much to everyone's chagrin. I can't say for sure but it may have something to do with the fact that it had gotten juuuuust a little chippy at the end there, with one particular guy from the other team really ticking off several of our players. (He really was a grade A d-bag).

So, from that wholly unsatisfying hockey weekend into a week full of work drama, stress (oh the life of a Chapter 11 proceeding), and germs. Yes, for the third time this winter I've come down with a cold. At least this time it seems to be a minor one. I was supposed to  be off on Thursday but ended up working 6 of the more stress-filled hours I've had in my 15 years there, and was banking on the fact that when I woke up the next morning I'd feel better, and not worse. Good thing that was the case, because we had a morning game out in Westchester, NY.

GoalieHusband drove my germy ass and The Mayor to the rink, and I wasn't at all confident that I'd be able to stop much more than the most non-threatening of shots. I told the team beforehand that the game plan was "keep the puck in their zone" because not only was I sick, but I was having some kind of odd issue with my pads sticking to the ice (this later resolved itself). Bless my teammates, because they listened. I've never seen a better forechecking game than ours today. The puck was rarely in our zone at all, and when it was the D was sound. I didn't count shots but I couldn't have seen more than 15. The lone goal against came on a breakaway that I normally would have had in my sleep. I challenged, my angle was fine, but I just didn't react, and she beat me blocker side. Thankfully, we tied it up in the next period and the score stood at 1-1, even through the OT period they allotted us. With plenty of time left, they allowed us to go to a shootout. My teammates had to be a little nervous about that, knowing I was sick, and that I'd allowed that crappy breakaway goal. But by then I had my head on straight and I knew I could do my part.

We scored first, then their first shooter came in, went to the left, and shot towards the right. She thought she had me, too, until I flicked out my right leg like a snake's tongue and kicked her puck to the corner. Their goalie made the save on our next shooter, and then I got a freebie when their shooter completely flubbed it and didn't even get a shot off. Again our next shooter was denied, and their next one came at me pretty straight, but made a series of odd moves with her stick blade, above the puck. Really? Did she think I'd bite on that? SAVE.

That win felt good, because I'd felt pretty crappy about giving up that goal, after all that time spent in the other team's end. I've spent most of the rest of the day chilling (and fielding panicked calls from work), and I feel a million times better tonight than I did last night. Which is good, because we have to do it all over again tomorrow morning. We'll be in Bridgewater for our final game of the season. I can not believe that it is March freakin' 16th, and our season is over tomorrow. This season absolutely FLEW by.

No matter, though, because we have TOURNAMENT SEASON right around the corner, and plenty of Cougar(hawk)s games left to play. One on Monday and one on Tuesday, to be exact. And then our final practice on Wednesday. So that's five times on the ice in 6 days. I think I can live with that.

BOO YAH.

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.

3-in-3... and then some.

I have no games this coming weekend, and nothing next week until Friday. I'm thinking this is a pretty good thing, after my marathon of hockey crammed into 72 hours this past weekend. I had three games scheduled; a QCat game on Saturday and Sunday, and then a Cougar(hawk)s game Monday night.

The QCat games were against the same opponent; a home-and-home.  The first one was at home,and in all honesty was one the whole team would rather forget. We lost by a score of 2-0 but more than that, we played horribly. It was the first game for most of us since the holiday break and boy did it show. It was pretty awful. In fact I've blocked out the goals and can't even remember how they were scored. Probably much better that way.

We headed out to their rink the next night for a rematch, determined to pick up a win. Coach @ramad451 (aka Coach Sparkle) gave a pre-game pep talk, telling us all to just forget the previous game and start fresh, and to remember that we win and lose as a team, and no one person is responsible for any outcome. (People had begun to start taking blame personally for things, and that's never good.). It worked- we went out and played a very sound game, and it was a lot of fun to play because we were so evenly matched with our opponent. So evenly matched in fact, that we ended up with a 1-1 tie. We were all really hoping for an overtime or shootout, but their goalie had pulled something on the last play of the game and wasn't in the best shape, so we just called it. A post-game gathering at the nearby Houlihan's was a perfect cap to the evening.

But what could be better than two nights of hockey in a row? Ding ding ding, you got it, three nights of hockey! The Cougars are still throwing around possible new team names, and the combination of Cougars and Hawks that resulted in "Cawks" was the front runner until Monday. (Actually, in our silliness at Houlihans, @lct29 and @hkygrl12 and I thought "Wicked Cawks" would be even more awesome.) But a teammate who until recently I only knew as "the defenseman with the glasses who pairs up with orange socks guy" offered an alternative. It's so obvious it escaped us. The Cougar Hawks. Thank you, Urban Dictionary dot com.  I don't know if there will actually be a name change, but I think that is pretty fantastic.

And the game itself was pretty damn fantastic as well. Another evenly matched affair, lots of play in both ends, and from what I could tell, everyone really enjoying themselves on the ice and on the bench. And I think I probably had one of my best games ever. It's too bad it ended in a 1-0 loss, but I am pretty proud of how I played. And how I felt. It's all coming together now, the confidence is back, there's even a little bit of swagger poking through. I felt unstoppable out there. And I almost was. Almost. The one goal I allowed was a wierd scramble after a first and second save; I'm pretty sure I had it frozen, but the ref didn't blow the whistle and I think somehow one of my own teammates got it away from me. I don't really know what happened, as I was down on the ice in a forest of legs and skates and sticks, and suddenly I didn't have the puck anymore and it was headed straight to a wide open opponent. Argh. Chalking that one up to a collective brain fart. Other than that, we played great. We had a few breakaways, and it was great to see Senator48 with one. I know he's been feeling very much like I have in terms of not being able to contribute much to the team. So when he went flying up the ice and dished it off at the last second to another guy, I had a big grin on my face. Unfortunately it didn't result in a goal, but you can tell from the way things are going that this is a solid team. I'm very much looking forward to the rest of the season.

I didn't count shots in that game, but I'd estimate about 40. So when I came off the ice I was pretty exhausted, from that game and also from the cumulative effect of the two before that. I walked into the designated women's locker room, really looking forward to a nice cold beer, and saw that Gionta182 was there getting ready for her game, which was next on the schedule. I was barely three steps into the locker room before she told me her goalie was sick and asked if I could play. I was already exhausted but what was I going to do? Leave them goalie-less while I sat outside and drank beer and ate cupcakes? Absolutely not an option. (If it had been a bunch of strangers, I don't think I'd have agreed. But I couldn't do that to my buddy). I consented, but warned her that I didn't think I'd be much good, this being the 4th game in 3 days.

When we do tournaments, 4 games in 3 days is nothing. But when we do tournaments, we also have a few hours in between games to relax and recharge. I gobbled a couple of Starburst for the sugar, refilled my water bottle, and was back out on the ice. At first it seemed like it would be just fine; there was an early flurry of shots on which I made some really good saves, including a save on a shot on a rebound off my forehead. But that's where it ended. I just had absolutely nothing left in me. At all. I've never been that tired on the ice. The first period wasn't too bad (2-2 at the end) but after that everything unravelled. To be fair, the team didn't play very well in front of me either, by their own admission. But after standing on my head in a 1-0 game, to allow 11 goals (ouch, yes I said 11) was like a hockey bitchslap. We even had the same refs we had my game right before it. They must have wondered where the hell the Jekyll & Hyde routine came from. I felt absolutely awful, and apologized to everyone. I'd say about half of the goals were on me due to complete exhaustion and not moving as quickly as I usually do, or being off in my angle slightly, but the other half were back-doors, or screens, or just bad coverage. So I'm trying really hard not to take the double-digit to heart. We all decided that game didn't count against my save percentage, since it wasn't my actual team. I can live with that.

GoalieHusband and I went to the diner afterwards with Gionta182 and other Cougar(hawk) who had stuck around for the second game. It was after 2a.m. by the time we left, which put us at home at 2:45. Yesterday was pretty rough for both of us, and I think the only reason we managed to stay awake for the Ranger game last night was because of the pure awesomeness of the game itself (and mostly the awesomeness of the goalies. Savegasms everywhere!).

Practice tonight.... I'm tired just thinking about it. But I don't care, because everything is awesome right now. Yay hockey. <3

Ohhhh yeah, THIS is what it's supposed to be like

Glass of wine? Check.

Alternating live look-ins on Finnish goalies? Check. (Heeyyyyy Kari, I missed you!)

Lingering post-game after-glow? Check!

You know how when you're so entrenched in a situation, you can't see the reality? At least until you remove yourself from it and look back and go "what in the world was I thinking???" I had one of those moments last night. From the time I packed my gear until the time I was back at home in front of my computer, stinky but wide awake and unable to tear myself away from the love-fest on FB and twitter, I had one big long "a-ha!" moment. What was my big epiphany?

Hockey is supposed to be fun.

Is it frustrating sometimes? Sure. Do you have to deal with douchebaggery? Of course. But on the whole, you're supposed to look forward to going to the rink, be excited at the drop of the puck, and not want it to end. Well, mission accomplished. All week I looked forward to the debut of the cobbled-together Hawks and Cougars team (for now, called the Cougars, but we have some other lewd ideas about how to combine the names...), and it didn't disappoint. We scrapped and battled and came out with a 5-3 win.

There were some things about the game and the league that I am still absorbing. It wasn't all sunshine and roses. But in comparison to what games had been like before, it was wonderful. And I didn't realize how much I'd been suffocating in that other environment until last night. This is hard to express, because although some of my very best pals from the Hawks are with me on this new team, I've also left behind friends on the "old" team. I have nothing at all against the old team. It has nothing to do with them, it has to do with me. It has to do with me understanding where I belong and stubbornly refusing to face it for far too long. I miss the feel of the old team, but I know I'm where I'm supposed to be now. Due to the strange locker room situation that presents itself with this league, we females are missing out on quite a bit of team camaraderie, but what is lost in that regard is made up for on the ice. (Also, once it gets warm I'm sure we'll all be gathering outside for a few post-game refreshments and I'll get to know the other guys better.)

It's not just me being a gushy mushy chick. I touched base with a few of the guys and everyone seems to have the same feeling: one of excited optimism for the season. My twitter stream and 18-hour-long Facebook status commentary are proof of that.

I'll write more later about the two things that unsettled me most: the locker rooms and the weird uncontrolled abandon on the ice, but for now I'm just basking.