Growing pains

I knew, as soon as I answered that insistent voice deep inside that demanded I get onto the ice, that I would have a hard decision to make at some point. I put it off as long as I could, but I think the time has come where I have to face the fact that I need to choose between roller hockey and ice hockey.

On Thursday night, I played outdoor roller hockey for the first time in about three weeks. I was really looking forward to it, because there are several people that play pretty much strictly roller, who I haven't seen in a while because I've been playing so much ice. When I first started playing ice, I said I would still play in our Sunday morning roller games, because I like the group and the atmosphere so much. And at that point, I either didn't play as much ice, or wasn't as comfortable on it, and switching back and forth posed no problem. But on Thursday night it became very clear to me that trying to do both will only hurt my game in both in the long run.

After three weeks away from wheels and cement, my body forgot the physics of the situation, and that wheels don't slide sideways across cement like a skate blade does on ice. I'd have a skater bearing down on me, and I would instinctively try to push my foot to the side- only, nothing would happen. Except for the puck going past me and into the net. Just moving around in the crease in general felt so awkward. It's interesting that I'd been thinking to myself even days before "I want to get to the point on ice where I'm as comfortable as I am on wheels". Well, I suppose I have gotten to that point without even realizing it. Because I felt like a fish out of water on Thursday.

A lot of our ice guys came out for the roller game, and though they had a bit of adjusting to do, by all accounts they really enjoyed it. Not so much for me. I face the very real possibility of getting hurt trying to do something I'd do on ice, on the pavement. The differences between roller and ice are so much more pronounced for a goalie.

So now I have to face the fact that I will probably be drifting away from the roller group. I hate that it's happening, but I feel like it has to be either one or the other for me. I will try another roller game and see how it goes, but I think this is not an uncommon decision to have to make. I was advised by several people on a hockey message board that going back and forth just doesn't work. At first I thought they were wrong- I wasn't having any problem with it! But now I have to grudgingly admit that they were right. I'll miss the guys at the outdoor rink. I'm sure I'll show up now and then, but it's certainly not going to be a weekly thing like it had been for me.

Sometimes you just have to cut your losses

(Written 6/23/07)

I've always said (to myself, not that anyone else could hear me mutter behind my mask) that I would never quit a pick-up game because I was sucking. What I did last night comes close to that, though there were mitigating circumstances.

Desperate for some hockey after playing only on Monday this week, I went to a local rink for some open ice hockey on Friday night. I'd been to that rink before for open hockey on a Saturday night, and I was in way over my head skillwise. Still, I stuck it out, because that's how you learn. There were 3 other goalies that night, so I rotated 20 minutes in and 20 minutes out with a goalie on my side. This gave me a break from the confidence-shattering shots and the skaters a break from a crappy goalie. As much as I know I was nowhere near the level of play that night, I did enjoy myself for the most part, and by the end of the night I was holding my own.

The difference last night was the attitude of the players. Not towards me in particular, just in general. After an hour and a half, the ice was shitty and the attitudes just as bad. I decided to pack it in when I rotated out for a break. There were two other goalies, so I wasn't leaving my side without a goalie. And there was about 40 minutes left to play- I'm sure my replacement was happy to play all 40 of those minutes, he was quite good. The play had started getting awfully chippy, physically. I noticed on more than one occasion deliberate attempts to trip or otherwise entangle, all on the part of one or two guys on the dark team. But the thing that disgusted me the most was one of those same guys mocking a newer skater. One of the guys on the white team is new to ice and hasn't quite got his stride down yet. He skates with his ankles bent inwards (disaster waiting to happen, there) and sort of runs more than skates. He's new. He'll learn. Honestly he probably didn't belong there last night and neither did I, but he was there and that's no reason for him to be mocked. We're all adults, aren't we? (Apparently not). This fucknut on the dark team stole the puck from him and skated in towards the goalie, with the new guy in pursuit. The asshole actually changed his skating stride in an imitation of the new guy's stride. He got a shot off, and some people laughed, but I distinctly heard a few people call him an asshole. Good.

That left a real bad taste in my mouth, and when I got back out on the ice and was in the net with the constant 2-on-0's and odd-man rushes, the puck went past me more times than not. These guys had some insanely powerful slapshots, which my left inner thigh can attest to with a deep bruise the size of a puck (and growing). I think they were just too quick for me. And the ice by that time resembled the quality of the ice we played on outdoors after an hour or so- about a half inch of "snow" covering just about all of it. Not to mention the deep ruts in the crease. All those things together made me decide to just call it a night.

I'm torn about going back. I know that's how I flew up the learning curve in our inline games- playing against guys much better than me. You learn pretty fast in those situations. But I don't want to be the one everyone laughs at, or wonders what the heck is she doing here, or groans when they see her behind them in the net. On the other hand, if I'm persistent, I might actually learn something. It definitely was interesting watching one of the other goalies; he was obviously a much higher skilled player and it was evident in how quick he was on his feet and in general. I think he was there the time I played on a Saturday too. So if I do go back I'm sure I can learn by watching him as well. I just have to learn to ignore the assholes.

The Hawks take flight

During the same period of time that I was going back and forth with the goalie coach dude, a friend of a friend organized ice time at a rink not far from us, which turned out to be quite a nice rink. It had big, spacious locker rooms, and seating for around 3,000 on the main ice surface. As my first exposure to a large rink on smooth indoor ice, it took some getting used to. I felt out of position any time I came out of my net a little- I discovered I'd been using the boards at the rink for visual cues as to my location in relation to the net, and with a larger surface I had to re-calibrate the cues in my brain. This group played a few times, which allowed me to get a little more used to being on skates, and being on a larger rink.


As luck would have it, Goalie Husband's best friend told us about a "beginner's league" at another rink not far from us. He said a friend of his played there. Intrigued, I went to the website and did some digging. Sure enough, they had an "Adult Beginners League", and were at the tail end of their winter season. Giddy with excitement, I emailed the contact on the site and asked about the details. Within the next day GoalieHusband and I were signed up for the spring season, and passed the word on to two other people we played with. Through word of mouth, a few of the other people at the outdoor rink heard about it and decided to join as well. Unbeknownst to me, when they signed up, they requested to be on our team. The director of the league started calling us "Team Smith". (No, Smith is not really our last name. Come on, this is the Internet.)


As I intimated a few posts ago, I was growing dissatisfied with the women's indoor roller league. Our season there ended just before the ice season was about to begin, and that gave me a way to not sign up for the following season without ruffling any feathers. One of the other people I'd spoken to about the beginner's ice league was a girl I'd become friendly with in the women's league- she was on the same wavelength as me in terms of the vibe in the group. She'd started playing with me and the rest of "the guys" at the outdoor rink, and was interested in trying ice as well, so she signed up with the rest of us. I think it would have happened anyway, but the women's league ended up disbanding without the two of us... numbers had been getting lower and lower each week and I think that was the final blow. I feel somewhat badly about that, but I'm sure it would have happened anyway.

Fortunately, the director chose the path of good taste and didn't name us "Team Smith" after all. Our group constituted about 8 people, and with about another 8 we formed a team that was named the "Hawks". Our inaugural season was a Cinderella story. From the first game, where we got blown out 8-3 (I was sick and couldn't play, so at least that one wasn't on my personal record!), the team gradually gelled and improved each week until by the end of the season not only were we not getting blown out, we were actually winning games! The icing (ha ha!) on the cake was coming into the playoffs as the 6th-seeded team (out of 8) and ultimately beating the 2nd-place team for the "bronze". We stood around in the parking lot for about two hours, drinking beer and grinning ear to ear, and planning for the next season. All of our members except one signed up for the summer season... and he pledged to be back in the fall. Happy to be able to remain together as a team, we headed into the summer season with an eye on continuing to improve.

Seduced by ice - Part II

It was a very warm fall and beginning of winter. Our outdoor games were able to continue well into December without any ill effects from the weather. There was even a game one evening in late November or early December when it was about 60 degrees! No one was complaining about global warming then.

By January though, we were hurled headlong into a typical winter for our area, and the rink that the town had lined with plastic and filled with water eventually froze over. One Sunday morning, we showed up sleepy-eyed and groggy-headed, to find a town employee walking around on the ice and... oh my goodness.... what did he just do? Turn the sign to "Skating Allowed"!?! Out came the cell phones. We called everyone who wasn't there yet and told them to turn around and grab their ice skates- we were going to play outdoor winter hockey like the Canadians do.

The group that morning consisted of mostly people who had never played on ice, or had played on ice so long ago it almost didn't count, but there were a handful of guys who actually preferred ice and played on a semi regular basis. But because most of us were new to this experience, it lent a giddy air to the morning. I discovered instantly why goalies prefer ice to roller- lateral movement is a cinch on blades. Not only that but when you drop down, you can use your momentum to keep moving to the side if need be. At least, if you can control yourself. Otherwise you end up sliding halfway to the boards.

I was elated to finally be playing on ice. Just standing still and listening to the sound of 10 pairs of skates carving up the ice made me wildly happy. I was an instant convert. Throughout the next two months, we met about twice a week in addition to Sunday mornings, and most of the time we were able to play on the ice. Much like our dedication in the summer, coming out to play even in 90-degree heat, we were there whether it was 27 degrees or 7. Some of those nights I seriously questioned my sanity. But it really wasn't all that bad once the game got going.

That was all I needed to push me to making playing on ice - indoors, regularly- a reality. I decided the best way to go about it was to get some training first, then see about finding a beginners league I could join. I called all of the rinks in the area, asking about lessons or clinics, but all of them were geared towards kids. (Again I encountered the "...and how old is your son?" response to my query about lessons). Finally though, I managed to find a guy who had recently started up a goaltending "school" at a rink about a half hour from me. After quite a bit of back and forth, for about two months, I finally was able to stop by for a lesson. I was woefully behind the other two goalies there in terms of skill, but I listened closely and worked my butt off and really got a lot out of it. I haven't gone back since then, and it's been a few months, but I do plan to go back again when I get a little more stable on my skates.

Seduced by Ice - Part I

One Friday evening in early June, Goalie Husband and I were trying to come up with something to do to occupy the time suddenly left open by the end of the NHL season. Since our minds were on hockey, we came up with the idea of going ice skating. We called our teammate and buddy #14, and decided to meet at a local rink for public skating. It had been a long time since any of us had been on ice skates, so we figured it would be entertaining at the very least.

Goalie Husband and I arrived at the rink about 10 minutes early, and discovered that there was a game going on the first ice surface. I immediately planted myself at the viewing window at the end of the ice surface, to watch the goalie. But as soon as I saw tell-tale ponytails hanging out of the backs of helmets, my interest piqued considerably. It turned out it was a women's hockey tournament, with teams from all over the country. Since we were standing around waiting anyway, we decided to go in and watch from the inside, in a spot where #14 would see us when he arrived. Conveniently, that spot turned out to be just to the right of the home team's goalie.

I remember him arriving, and us moving to seats in the bleachers, but I don't remember actually being part of the decision to stay and watch the game instead of skating on the other surface. I just remember being totally transfixed. You'd have thought it was the first hockey game I ever watched in person. While that wasn't the case, it was the first game I'd been to that was so... accessible. There it was, right in front of me, women my age, playing hockey! I don't remember if there was any conversation going on between the three of us. I just remember watching so intently that I actually stood up to watch them as they left the ice to return to the locker rooms. "No, you can't go with them," #14 quipped.

I had the same assumptions about playing on ice that I had about playing at all; I'd love to do it, but there were too many reasons why I couldn't. But watching that game ignited a fire in me that started a slow burn. I wanted to play on ice. I had to figure out how to do it, and I knew it would take a while to transition, but that was where my heart was. Any time we'd ever gone into a rink for a public skate, or any reason at all, I felt the yearning to play like a pain in my chest. I always assumed it was too late for me to start, too expensive, etc. It was for everyone else except me. But after a few months of getting a taste of the sport on wheels, I wanted to go that one step further and have the slick surface of ice beneath my feet.

For the rest of the week it was all I thought about. Eventually practicality took over and I realized that I would have to be patient- I would play on ice someday, but there were too many things to consider to jump into it instantly. The biggest hurdle was my equipment. My leg pads were so torn and shoddy from playing on pavement that they'd soak up water instantly and be unbearably heavy (and home to hosts of molds and mildews). My glove and blocker weren't solid enough to stand up to ice pucks. And I didn't have goalie skates. So the first step would be to gradually re-outfit myself with some ice quality gear. Then I'd have to find a way to learn the trade all over again. But once I decided I could/would do it, and just accepted that it would take time, I was fine. By now I was playing two or three roller games a week, scrambling up the learning curve and enjoying every minute of it. The ice would still be there when I was ready, it wasn't going anywhere.