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.)

Goalie lexicon, black socks, and furry gloves

Hey guys, guess what it's stream of consciousness night. Meaning, I have no unifying thread but just needed to share these few things with you all. Because I know you're clamoring to find out what's rattling around in my brain.

First up - Goalie Lexicon
Some might think being married to the coach gets you extra perks. Not really. What it really gets you is homework. After Sunday's scrimmage it became evident that not everyone (and by "everyone", I mean "forwards") understands what the heck I'm yelling out there all game long. I know, it came as a shock to me too. Not everyone speaks Goalie. So, GoalieHusband asked me to come up with a list of things I shout on the ice and what they mean, to clear up any possible uncertainty.

You'd think things like "TIME! TIME!" would be pretty obvious, but it was really eye-opening to me to see all the light bulbs go on over people's heads as I ran through the things I yell most frequently on the ice. Good call on GoalieHusband's part, because I had no idea that what made perfect sense to me in my head didn't necessarily translate in a forward's brain.

Next - The Black Sock Effect
For the most part, I'm a big ol' honey badger when it comes to what socks I wear on the ice. Or, I used to be. I'm the goalie, who cares what color I wear, right? But somewhere around the end of last QCats season I got a bug up my ass about having white socks to wear when we wore our home white jerseys. (I have lots of dark colors, but no white). It festered for a while, because I really felt stupid going out to buy socks to match my jersey. I mean, that's like a totally girl thing to do. But eventually it got the best of me and I ordered white socks. I used as my justification the fact that the Cougar(hawk)s also wear white, so I figure between those games and QCat home games I'll get lots of use out of them. I happened to tweet about buying them, and gionta182 responded that as an opposing forward, she can't wait to play me when I'm wearing white socks (she's on another team in the same league as the Cougar(hawk)s). I had no idea what she meant, until she explained; if the goalie's wearing white socks, and the puck is somewhere on her and she doesn't know it, it's a lot easier to find and jab at it than if she's wearing black socks. I sort of wrote this idea off until I noticed something- Rask wears black socks. Even when the Bruins are wearing yellow ones. So maybe there's something to this after all. Regardless, I'd already informed gionta182 that when we play her team, I'm definitely wearing the black socks, just for her.

Finally - There's No Explaining Taste (or lack of it)
A few days ago the team got an email from our former coach, with whom we are still in touch, and invite to team parties. The subject was "Attention! Front Office Mandate!" and all it contained was a link, and the words "Do it.". A link to these:

There are a lot of times I'm really thankful that I'm a goalie and not a skater, and this is definitely one of them. I'm not sure how many people are going to take him up on his directive, but I know Flipper said she would order them specifically for use in tournaments. Now that is going to be a sight.

Not. Fair. ... and a question

Goaliepost.com has Rask as a probable start this afternoon against the Rangers. I know I'm jumping the gun here, but what the...????? So not fair, hockey gods, so not fair. Yes, yes, I will be rooting for the Rangers, could never betray my boys, but you can bet I'm hoping for a 1-0 outcome. In a shootout.

But I didn't come here just to whine. I've been thinking about something and I want to poll my goalie buds and see if this has happened to anyone else. There have been two times now where I've been watching another goalie, and something very subtle about their game or stance jumps out and practically hits me in the face. The first time was when I was watching a college practice while waiting around the rink for something, and something about the goalie's stance just clicked with me. It was something extremely subtle, just the way he held his torso so straight, and although I already knew that's something you're supposed to do, I guess I needed a visual to remind myself. I call it the Meerkat Effect.

And the second time was watching Rask in pre-game warmups the other night. I feel like a completely lame fangirl because he took shots for all of probably 45 seconds total, and seemed like he was really just mailing it in. So much so that I even thought he might be hurt (and I may have posted a few panicked tweets to that effect...). We were standing up at the section entrance, so we weren't even that close to the ice, and our vantage point was behind the net. But I noticed something about his legs. Like, besides the fact that they are about 8 feet long. I can't even explain it here. Something about his stance and how he moved clicked in my brain, and I kept it in mind in my next game and I wound up doing a damn good job, especially considering I couldn't see much.

So, have any of you had an experience like this? Where you had kind of an "a-ha!" moment while watching another goalie? And I'm not talking about conscious imitation, like "Henrik holds his glove like this, so I will too". Just something that worms its way into the goalie consciousness and nibbles at you. Or, maybe I'm nuts. That is entirely possible and I'm completely willing to accept that fact. I am a goalie after all.

Mission Not Accomplished

I was really hoping for two things yesterday; a chance to watch Rask play live (and up close, because we had AWESOME seats), and a chance to maybe tell him that I think he's awesome ('cause he's never heard that before right?) and maybe possibly have him sign my goalie t-shirt. I came up short on both counts. At least I have good friends though. Toward the tail end of the morning skate, my friend who works at the rink texted me to let me know that Thomas was the first one off the ice and Rask was still out there taking shots. I expressed my disappointment and said I had really wanted to watch him play up close. A few minutes later my phone went off again, with another text from my buddy, and what was it? A short video of some of the guys shooting on Rask. Awww. Now that's a pal.

Eventually I got used to the idea of not being able to watch Rask work his magic and instead watching the beast known as Tim Thomas. Not a bad deal. (Is there a better tandem, anywhere, past or present?) He didn't disappoint. We got a nice flashy glove save in the second period, which is when he was in our end. And although the Bruins played the first period and a half as if they were asleep, they finally woke up and it was like the proverbial sleeping bear (haha pardon the pun). It was a treat to watch a game that close- 10th row, behind the net and off to the left side- and it was great to see the Bruins win. But with the sounding of the final buzzer, it was time to get into fangirl mode. Hkygrl12 had texted to let us know where to meet her outside the rink, and we joined the herd of people headed toward the exits. While we were in a big crowd on the stairs I jokingly said to GoalieHusband "Look for a Bourque jersey".

GH: There are Bourque jerseys everywhere. Look, there's one right there.

Me: Hey... that's Hkygrl12!

GH: No its not.

Me: Yes, it is! (yelling) HEY!!!! HKYGRL12!

And off we went to stalk - erm, I mean wait for- the players. There were a considerable number of people waiting there already, including two separate groups of Slovak guys who were chanting for Chara. We got right up to the barrier though, and .... were mostly ignored. What a letdown. Two guys came over to sign Hkygrl12's stuff: Tyler Seguin and Andrew Ference. Everyone else seemed to be in quite a hurry to get to the bus. Including Tuukka, who was one of the first guys to come out. Thomas at least grinned and partially waved, but he didn't stop to sign anything.

I was actually quite a bit more bummed about it than a sane person would be, but I guess that's probably no surprise. Hkgrl12 did tweet @ Seguin and told him to "Tell Tuukka he broke my goalie's heart". Haha. We're not stalkers. Honest. Maybe at some other point the hockey gods will see fit to allow me to greet Rask in person, but if not, I'm content with watching his awesomeness on TV. I guess.

But, now it's back to reality and back to my own hockey merry-go-round. We QCats have another 3-in-3 this weekend. We just played this morning at the posh country club outdoor rink. Man, is that some fantastic ice. We won, 4-1, despite the fact that I could hardly see a thing. I thought it would be smart to wear sunglasses, since the last time we played there the sun glare in my eyes was brutal. They did cut down on the glare, but unfortunately they cut down on everything else too. I had such a hard time seeing any of the lines on the ice and was totally disoriented. I kept losing the puck in the shadows too. Next time, I'll just suffer and squint.

Tomorrow night and Sunday night we have home games. Hopefully the weather won't ruin tomorrow night's game, because it's supposed to snow and our opponent is coming down from Connecticut. Both games are going to be a pretty good challenge. I'm really looking forward to it. It's a good thing we're this busy, too, because the Cougars got shafted in the scheduling department and don't play again until February 9th. Or maybe it's the 6th, but regardless, that's a whole month in between games, which flat out sucks. So until the next Cougar(hawk)s affair, it's Cats time. Spectators will receive free tampons and deodorant.

A little inspiration?

The one thing about not having Hawks games now is that my playing time has been cut in half. I'm not too thrilled about that, but that will change once the new season starts up for AIL. So I was pretty happy to be able to pick up an extra game last night, and it turned out to be a really great one. The Westchester C team had an ice slot to fill and asked our C team to play, but they already had a game on the schedule. I'm not sure how it all came about because I wasn't involved, but what ended up happening was that we cobbled together a team of D players and a few C players, some from previous years who aren't on this year's roster, and some die-hards who hopped into the car, fully dressed, after their game and zipped to the rink for a second round of hockey.

I was fully expecting to get my ass kicked, as was my buddy the Mayor, but I shouldn't have worried. We played a really solid game, and it was tons of fun. AND we won! Our rag-tag combination team beat their C team! We won 4-3, and I feel I had a pretty good game. All three goals were mistakes on my part, but fortunately they were forgiven by the goals on the other end. (Two of them, I was too deep in the crease and would have had if I was out a little farther. The other was a misguided poke-check. I thought I was making the right play, but it bounced from the girl I poked it away from right to another girl waiting at the top of the slot. Stupid.) Also fortunately, I redeemed myself with lots of really good saves, including one rather nifty glove save through a partial screen with less than a minute to go, to keep the lead intact. So what was the secret to my good game? I'm pretty sure the increasingly giddy and ridiculous conversation I had with hkygrl12 as we were getting suited up had a lot to do with it.

As I think I've mentioned before, hkygrl12 used to play for the C team but this year is coaching us. She joined us on the ice last night though, as part of the combination team we put together for the game. We sat across from each other in the locker room, and when she proudly showed me her new Bruins t-shirt, I remembered that GoalieHusband and I are going to a Devils/Bruins game next month, and mentioned it. What a coincidence, she's going to the same game. "You know," she said, "I know where the players come out after the game. We can hang out and wait and you can get Tuukka's autograph."

I may have spazzed out slightly, (may have?) and immediately started wondering aloud what in the world I could say to him that wasn't boring and didn't make me sound like a complete tool. "I should say something in Finnish," I said, "but what?"

Hkygrl12: Find out how to say 'milk crate' in Finnish!

Me (giggling): Yeah!!! And I'll just yell it at him.

Hkygrl12: Or you could draw one on yourself and ask him to sign it!

Me: Omg. I'll just bring one with me!!! That would be hilarious!

And so on, our ideas getting sillier and our peals of laughter getting louder. I'm quite sure the other players around us thought we were nuts. One of them even said "hey go easy on the goalie, don't kill her before the game".  No worries, I had Tuukka-power on my side. I'm going to have to get that giddy before every game, apparently.

Now, to figure out how to get a milk crate into the Rock....