Waking up the Goaliebrain

For the last five months at work I've been on a major project and logging lots of hours. I didn't take any time off over the holidays, in fact I worked most weekends and holiday days. I have a reprieve, just in time for my favorite thing ever - Olympic hockey. I've taken a few much-needed days off, scheduled around the women's hockey games I don't want to miss. (The big men's games are mostly on the weekend, so no vacation time needed there). Yesterday morning I settled down with a nice hot cup of coffee and watched the replay of the Canada vs Switzerland game. And I was hooked within minutes. I had the same feeling I got all those years ago when I walked into the rink for a public skate and saw women playing. The skating plans were quickly abandoned, and I spent the next hour transfixed.

It would be a few years before I would become a part of that big and quirky family, and I really did enjoy my years playing with the guys. In fact sometimes I miss it a little bit. For as much as I have been a proponent of there being no gender on the ice, there really is a difference. I've always said "I don't care what's in you're pants, when you're on the ice you're just a hockey player". But now I kind of get it. I've spent years watching the NHL and hearing about players who as kids idolized this or that player, and whose goal was to make it to the show one day. It wasn't until yesterday morning that I really got it. The close-up of the goalie reveals the same intense gaze, but this one is highlighted with eyeliner and mascara. (Hey, they're going to be on camera. I don't blame them for wearing makeup). There are braids and pony-tails flying out of the backs of helmets as the players hustle up the ice. The shots of the bench look an awful lot like my own bench. Those are WOMEN out there. People just like me. I found myself randomly just breaking out into a grin, basking in the joy of watching the best women in the world in the sport I love. I still think that when you get right down to it, hockey players are hockey players regardless of their chromosomes, but having the chance to watch all women at this skill level is really invigorating.

The game itself wasn't all that exciting - at least for most people. I was in goalie heaven. Most of the play was in Switzerland's zone, and Swiss goalie Florence Schelling was absolutely killing it. My eyes were glued to her the entire time, hoping maybe some subtle thing would subconsciously soak into the Goaliebrain. She had 69 shots and stopped 64 of them, there certainly was ample opportunity for me to learn something. But as poised and confident and disciplined and skilled as they are, it's nice to hear they can be a little goofy too. It was during the game that the commentators mentioned that the teams dress at Shayba Arena, but practice at a different one, which they have to walk to. (I don't really get that... are there no locker rooms at the practice rink?)  Evidently the Swiss team was walking over for practice, and poor Florence Schelling was waddling along in her gear, when an Olympic volunteer took pity on her and gave her some assistance:

As if she was the first goalie to ever go for a ride on a luggage cart....

The Rage of the Seraphs

Pre-game music. It's heavy, driving, and pumps you up, right? Unless you're me. Listening to my pre-game mix, GoalieHusband just shakes his head. One thing I've discovered along the way is that there is only one prequisite for a good pre-game song: it has to speak to me. As a result, my pre-game mix is all over the place. I've got a few Disturbed songs on there, which is pretty normal. But that's where the resemblance to anyone else's pre-game mix ends. The rest of mine are songs that at some point, while driving to the rink have struck a chord with me (see what i did there?) and have resonated ever since. That's how I ended up with this song on my mix:


[Note: Rogue, I love ya, but I'm pretty sure the plural of "seraph" is "seraphim". Just sayin. Poetic license granted.]

One night on the way to the rink, it came up on my ipod, and I just felt like I was soaring. And in the game I felt like a creature that would unfurl huge wings and guard the net. So, on the mix it went. One night recently while carpooling with The Mayor and listening to my mix, I blurted out when this song came on "I love this song! It makes me feel like a flaming seraph with giant wings in front of my net!" This, as you might imagine, resulted in an awkward silence and then gales of laughter from The Mayor. Which spawned an entire imaginary conversation with a ref: "'Uhhhhh.... why is your goalie on fire?' 'Oh don't mind her, that's just her flaming seraphim'. 'Well can you tell her to knock it off, the ice is melting' "

That's what I get for using my outside voice. I'm even a little embarassed to be admitting something this goofy to the entire Interwebz, but I'll take one for the team, because it's at least midly entertaining. And you know what, bitches? That's the night I got the shutout. I guess I know what's getting painted on my mask, should I ever have money I don't know what to do with.

Beating the Eisbrechers

Knowing what a ice-time-whore I am, you know getting amped up for a game is never an issue. But when bragging rights are on the line, that just makes it even more fun. Our opponents on Saturday night were the Icebreakers (or as GoalieHusband calls them, the "Eisbrechers"*). One of their players is one who we've absorbed onto our tournament team, so we have a very friendly rivalry with them. They're also quite good, and I don't think we've beaten them in the past two years. All week I was looking forward to this game, and was determined to win.

There are some games I go into just feeling so confident and so "in the zone". I wish I could bottle that feeling and put it on the back of my net with my watter bottle. Saturday night was one of those games. The game was pretty even, but I came up with some big saves at key times to keep it that way. We scored first, getting an odd one that I couldn't see clearly but it was one I know the Icebreakers goalie rarely gives up and most certainly wanted back. I hung in there on my end, steadily turning away pucks. I think my best save was probably one that wouldn't even look that impressive to anyone on the bench. There was a lot of traffic in front, and I saw the release of the shot, and saw the puck coming at me end over end, but then it disappeared in the forest of players. Somehow I knew exactly where it would end up, dropped into a butterfly, and put it neatly into the corner with my stick. I love when I have that "spidey-sense" about a shot.

In the third period they tied it up, on a shot that I was set for, but bounced off lct29's calf. I was already going in one direction but reached out with my glove and tried to lean the opposite when when I saw it change direction. It was like a "NNNNOOOOOOOO!!!!" slow motion kind of moment, but I wasn't even close. Flipper felt awful about it, but as I told her, it turned out ok so no big deal. Even though I teased her for breaking my shutout.

At the final buzzer we were tied 1-1 and the refs conceded us a shootout. A five person shootout, no less! We haven't had much luck with those this season, but feeling as good as I felt, I knew I'd have my end of it covered, no problem. And I did. I flat out stuffed all four shooters. And on the other end, we scored twice (hence why I only saw 4 shooters, not 5). It was one of the most fun games I've played. Unfortunately for our bragging rights, the tournament-player wasn't there. And she's one of their best players. So I feel kind of personally that I can't really wear the feather of that win in my cap until we beat them with her and a few other players who didn't make it that night. Still, it was a blast. I love, love, love shootouts. I'll take one of those over overtime any day.



*At GoalieHousehold, there exists quite a love of German industrial music. The band "Eisbrecher" is one of our favorites in that genre, and for some reason GoalieHusband can't seem to get the word "icebreaker" out without it turning into "Eisbrecher". I'm not sure if anyone on the team has even noticed it, or maybe they have and just pass it off as "one of those weird things Coach does". Regardless, here's the band's self-titled song off their self-titled album. Enjoy (and if you're curious about the lyrics there's a rough translation in the comments).

How To Speak Goalie (or at least how to understand yours)

By popular demand (ok, two requests), here are the results of the homework assignment I mentioned a few weeks back. As noted, I always assumed that everyone knew what I meant when I yell my clipped directives during a game, but it was brought to my attention this weekend that perhaps that's not the case. I'm pretty sure my D knows all my phrases and sayings and what I mean, but a back-checking forward might not necessarily know exactly what I'm trying to communicate. Apparently. This concept is foreign to me. I thought everyone spoke Goalie. Since that might not be the case, GoalieHusband asked me to come up with a list of things I say on the ice and intrepretations for them, and mention them at a team meeting we had before practice one night.

So here goes. Remember, I'm sure my D knows all this. This is mostly for forwards, so we'll keep it simple. *wink*

The self-explanatory:

"Man on!" (Alternately "On you!", "One on!"):  Pardon me. There is an opposing player approaching you who will likely try to remove the puck from your possession.

"On you! On you! Hard, hard, HARD!!": There is an opposing player approaching you at great speed, but I am not about to make the mistake of yelling "Hard on!" as I did once before. In a men's game.

"Time!": There is no one else near you, you may take your time deciding what you want to do with the puck. Stop and have a beer if you like.

"Little time!": Someone is approaching you, however you have a small amout of time before you get creamed.

"SCREEN!!!": You have a lovely ass but I don't need it in my face right now. MOVE.

The perhaps slightly less obvious:

"You got help!": I see that you and an opposing player are fighting for the puck along the boards, and wanted to inform you that one of your teammates is approaching and can lend you some assistance.

"Up high!": Please note that there is a player up towards the blue line who is wide open and may drift down towards the crease while I'm over here on the other side of the net.

"Back door!": YO!!! While I'm tracking the puck over on this post, there's a player camped out on the other post just waiting for a pass. (Contrary to post-game supposition on Sunday, my yelling "back door" does not mean I am 'presenting'. Just sayin'.)

"Two-One!, Three-Two!", etc.: The proportion of players crossing the blueline in comparsion to defenders skating back. Don't ever let me yell "THREE ONE!" more than once in a game. I do not like having to yell "THREE ONE!"

"HEADS UP!!!!": Perhaps this was not the most opportune time to make a line change, as the other team has the freakin puck and I am the only one out here wearing this jersey.


My on-ice communication pretty much consists of the above phrases, peppered here and there with some expletives when necessary. There's a whole other system of communication between me and my posts but that's different. No one needs to know about that except me and my posts, and I think we're doing just fine.

The chasm of GoalieBrain

Well, I played open hockey yesterday and the only person I gave nightmares to was myself. And maybe anyone playing in front of me. I had a pretty crappy outing but amazingly enough, I just sort of shrugged it off and didn't get down about it. I just felt like I couldn't get into my groove at all. As I mentioned on Twitter, the rink was playing god-awful music (who the heck gets pumped up to play hockey listening to "Cornflake Girl" and "Champagne Supernova"???). It's fine though. I guess that just means I'm saving my "A" game for the Hawks on Sunday night.

Speaking of Twitter, I guess I never realized how completely stream-of-consciousness my tweets are. (That's kind of the point, isn't it?) I'd say 99.9999% of my tweets are hockey related, and about 94% of those are goalie related. The other .00001% are probably rants about traffic or people being complete dillholes in general. But it wasn't until I got this response from a friend (blog reader known as "#14") that made me realize just how completely goalie-centric pretty much everything out of my twitter-mouth is. After randomly musing about the way Lundqvist reportedly has his skates cut, I got this IM from him: "You understand that reading your tweets is like walking directly into the chasm of the Goalie Brain, right?" Hmmm. He's right. So be it. It's honestly how my brain works. It's kind of like this: work thought - work thought - work thought - check twitter - work thought - work thought - OMG holy crap I just figured out something I was doing wrong on the ice!!! - work thought - work thought - Rask - Rask - Lundqvist - VarLAmov - work thought - Lehtonen - Rask - Kiprusoff - Rask - work thought.... etc. It's ok though, because on Twitter I've found a little cadre of people whose brains all work the same way. Mostly. Just substitute "Brust" for "Rask" in one person's case. Actually, substitute "Brust" for all of them. (hee hee hee).

On the training front, things are moving along nicely. I'm wrapping up Week Two and find myself a little anxious to get going on Week Three, because the exercise sets are going to change up a little. I peeked ahead at the schedule and saw "Core 2" on some days instead of "Core 1". Woo hoo! Something different! The only thing that's bothering me a little is fitting the schedule into my regular work/hockey schedule. For example, every Wednesday night I have practice at 10pm, which means I'm not home and curled up in bed until 12:30 at the earliest. Sorry but there's no way I'm getting up 4 1/2 hours later to work out. (I have to be up at 5 to work out in order to get to work on time). So Thursdays are out. Then this week on Friday morning I got up early to go play open hockey. So no training on Friday morning either. But it's not like I sat on my ass and did nothing - I was on the ice for an hour and a half. I've resolved it this way: some days on the schedule are just core and flexibility. Some are speed or strength AND core and flexibility. I make sure that I get in all the days with all three so I'm not missing anything. I hope that'll be ok. I just keep reminding myself that something is better than nothing, so if I'm missing a core/flexibility-only day here or there, at least I'm still doing a heck of a lot more to improve myself than I was before I started this. Sleep is important. If I don't sleep, I get sick, and then I can't work out (or play!) at all.

And now that I've really rambled, I doubt there's anyone still reading this. It amazes me that people even want to read this in the first place, since if Twitter is walking into the chasm of GoalieBrain, this has to be complete immersion. Probably only other goalies can stand it, and even then only the obsessive ones. But that's how my brain works... I have to pour stuff out or it rattles around in there and drives me nuts. So thanks for reading, if you've made it this far.

Abandoned

The team is 0-2 on the young season so far, and while our last loss was a team effort, I felt that I in particular had a poor game. It started with a goal basically off the opening faceoff, where an opponent walked in, got me to bite on a deke, and put it effortlessly around me. The D probably should have had him, but I should have been more prepared for the shot as well. Things did get better though, and I did play well in some spots, but I’m not happy with any of the goals really. One was a screen that I had absolutely no clue on, but other than that, I should have had the others. I’m not here to beat myself up over that though (I spent most of Monday night doing that already and now I’m over it), but to report a curious incident in the third period.

I had a really good focus going, especially at one point in the second on a shorthanded breakaway of sorts where I just got the “no f-in’ way, man” feeling and totally challenged and turned away the shot, but strangely, in the third period it was gone. I was doing fine until for some reason I missed a delayed penalty in the other end. It wasn’t until I heard the bench screaming to get my attention that I realized what was going on. I hauled ass to the bench, but got there just as the other team got the puck and the ref blew the play dead. I heard one of my teammates grouse about me not having my head in the game, which I totally deserved. But when I got back to the net I felt strangely exposed. My focus was totally gone. I could practically hear the wind echoing through my empty head. No Andrei, singing to me in Russian. GoalieBrain? Nowhere to be found. Not a peep from Steve. I could feel it happening (my loss of focus) but try as I might, I couldn’t get it back. Though we were already down 1 goal at that point, I feel partially responsible for the 3 that followed, being that I wasn’t in my zone. It rattled me- the fact that I could lose focus like that and not get it back. So now I have to find a trick to summon all those voices back into my head when they decide to bail on me. My pledge to my team: that will NOT happen again. You can count on it.

Hmmmm…. Why is it that I’m more concerned about admitting that I lost focus, than admitting that NOT having voices in my head was a problem?

Back in the saddle...errrr... net?

Ok, new year, new resolve to actually start writing this thing again. I found that I kind of missed it. Last night when I came home from my game and was telling GoalieHusband all about it, I even told him what I was going to blog about. So I guess my muse has returned.

Unfortunately, the hockey gods weren't as kind. Last night was our first game in our new season, our second season in "lower D", and we played a team that we've beaten before. We went up 2-0 in the first period actually, but they ended up tying it on two quick goals and from there it kind of unravelled. By the beginning of the 3rd period we were behind 5-3 and despite the score I just KNEW we could come back, given our history and tenacity. And I said so at the bench before the period started. We battled back and managed to tie it 5-5 with about 3 minutes left in the game, and managed to attack their end and sustain their attack on ours - until 12 seconds left when they scored. Damn, that hurt. I felt responsible, because it was a clean shot from the wing and had I had a better angle on it, I'd have made that save with ease. So, not the best start to the season on my part, though I did make some pretty good saves to keep us in it a few times. Still.... with 12 seconds left that's a huge downer.

But I didn't come here to beat myself up. Two things happened in the game that I found rather amusing and I figured I'd share. Firstly; my butt-save. Mid-way through the first period I still hadn't faced any shots, when a guy came down the right wing pretty much all alone and walked in for the shot. I stood my ground and waited until he was pretty close to block it, and unfortunately although I got it with my stick, the puck rode up my paddle and I felt it bounce off my back. I immediately went down and put my glove behind me, hoping to stop the puck from slithering over the line. The whistle blew, and I heard people saying "is it in?" "where is it?". The ref came over and told me to stay still, then turn around. I did, slowly, expecting to see the puck sitting right on the goal line, but it was nowhere to be seen. "Its in your pants," he said, and plucked it out of a sort of pocket my jersey had made in the top of my pants, which had stuck out. He laughed and shook his head "That's the first time I've ever seen that," he said as he went to set up for the faceoff. Silly ref. Haven't you ever seen a former bellydancer make a butt-save before?

Secondly... it's getting a little crowded in my head. I've told you about the song that runs through my head, keeping ThinkingBrain occupied during games. And I've told you about GoalieBrain, who shows up now and then and barks commands at me that I didn't realize I knew. Well now I have another companion. This one's a little less imaginary than the others, considering its a voice I know well. Let me backtrack. Back in our roller hockey days, we had one guy from behind the former Iron Curtain who used to yell "HELP YOU! HELP YOU!" to let teammates know he was open behind them, or coming for support. Combine that with the fact that recently I've been changing my thinking when seeing an oncoming shooter (especially on a breakaway) from the negative "you are NOT going to score this goal" to the more positive "I'm going to STUFF you"... and you get what happened last night. In comes a guy on a semi-breakaway. I hear Steve shouting "STUFF YOU! STUFF YOU!" in my head. This happened more than once.

Happily, I can report that I made the save each time I had Steve yelling in my head. I'm not sure what will happen when he gets in a fight with Andrei, who's singing along the entire time in Russian. Probably GoalieBrain will tell them both to shut the f*ck up and whack them with her stick.

...and I belch, too

I had a kick-ass game at open hockey today. I mean, I was in the zone. I was so in the zone that The Goaliebrain talked to me. It's been a while since I've heard from her. (Him? It? Does it matter?) See, I do my best to keep my regular brain busy/sedated while I play. If it wakes up it starts causing trouble. Either it over-analyzes what's going on, starts in with the negative self-talk, or just wanders off to places that have nothing whatsoever to do with the game and are just distracting. Like how you'd spell "Gretzky" in Cyrillic. I shit you not, that's what I was thinking about for a few minutes today when I was distracted. (In case you're curious, it would be: грэцки)

I use music/repetitive lyrics to lull my regular brain into sedation. It's during these times that The Goaliebrain talks to me. Most of the time she tells the muscles what to do without me hearing her. But today she was like a little drill sergeant in my head. I love it when that happens. It means I know what I'm doing. I had an opposing player a few feet in front of me (out of poke check range, but pretty close) all alone with the puck. I don't remember the exact play that lead up to that but I think he got it from a pass, because I just got into position in front of him as he received the puck. Goaliebrain barked at me "Blocking butterfly! There's no time!" Boom. Down I went into a nice tight butterfly and the shot bounced harmlessly off me and I smothered it. It's different than thinking. I didn't think "Ok, I don't have enough time to read the shot off the stick and he's real close in, so a blocking butterfly would be best here". Its like it came from somewhere else, but still inside me- instant knowledge.

So, I was really rolling. (There was a brief period where I did my best impression of a sieve and no its wasn't when I was spelling Gretzky's name in my head). Apparently I impressed one particular defenseman. He was quite the chatterbox. At one point one of his buddies on the opposing team semi-whiffed a shot and I stopped it easily. He said to me, loud enough for his buddy to hear "Tell him that the girls in your women's league have better shots than that." To which I responded, with mock (mostly) testiness; "I don't play on the women's league."

After that we had a few other short and friendly exchanges. It was after I gave esteemed reader and commenter "#48" a few good shoves from behind for being in my crease, that this guy came over, cleared him out, and then turned to me and told me I was a hockey player's dream woman, being out there and hustling like that.

D-man: Do you drink beer too?

Me: Hell yeah.

D-man: Damn. If I get divorced will you marry me?

Me: I'm already married.

D-man: Ok. If we both get divorced will you marry me?

I figure, sure.... if he can put up with The Goaliebrain.