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.

Goalie Butt

I love the "goal-cams" the NHL uses during games. As a fan it's great to be able to see the precise moment the puck crosses the line - or doesn't - and see the exact sequence of events on replays. As a fledgling goalie, I love being able to see the masters at work close-up. One down side is the occasional moment when one of the regular cameras switches to the goal-cam during a stoppage in play, or when the puck is in the other zone. At those moments, you get an eye full of nothing less than goalie butt- made that much more enormous by the unreal amounts of padding in the pants. Goalie Husband always teases me that I love that shot, because I get to look at a man's butt so close up. I remind him that I can hardly see what the guy's butt actually looks like, under all that equipment.

What does this have to do with me? As I stated previously, I'm pretty much built like a string bean. Or, I was. With the exception of one period of time during a lengthy illness, I have been wearing the same size clothes throughout my adult life, even 10 years after college. I'm not bragging, I think it's just a matter of a hummingbird's metabolism. Now that I'm in my 30's I'm sure that will change some. But soon after I took up goaltending, and dove in headfirst by playing three (or sometimes four) games a week, for hours at a time, my leg, thigh and yes, my butt muscles naturally bulked up. This resulted in the extremely perplexing and potentially panic-inducing (for women) phenomenon of none of my pants or skirts fitting me anymore. It was a gradual thing, but noticeable. I started playing in March of 2006, and by fall of 2007 I was literally holding some of my pants together with safety pins, unable to button them at the top. I had to retire several skirts that clung to me just a wee bit too tightly for appropriate office attire. Worst of all, I had to go out and buy new clothes, in a bigger size. Oh, the trauma! I jest, actually. I doubt the casual observer even notices the difference, and it's obvious to me that it's not a case of me sitting around eating bon-bons and getting "fat", but just my body's natural reaction to all the strenuous activity. However, there are times when the female stereotypes apply to me (as much as I hate to admit it), and I do have a bit of a fixation on what I refer to as "my giant goalie butt". I try to keep this to a minimum and of course never talk about it around any of "the guys", because locker room talk is lewd enough as it is, without it being aimed at my enormous ass. (Said with tongue firmly in....errrr.... cheek).

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.

Mercy me! My first league game(s)

After playing with the women's group for only a few months, an opportunity arose for me to substitute for their regular goalie in their league game. Several of the gals (and a handful of guys) had a team in the rink's beginner level league. Let's call them the Clippers. One evening, Maria asked me if I was available to play in their Clippers game the next night, since the regular goalie couldn't do it. I accepted right away, not without nervous apprehension. I'd never played in a league before.

When I arrived at the rink the next night, I was in the restroom changing at the same time as another Clippers member, who I found to be quite candid to a newcomer about what turned out to be some internal problems. I mentioned that I was nervous, and she said not to worry, that I couldn't do any worse than their goalie had done in the last game. I asked what the score had been; she said 8-0. Ouch. Surely I could do better than that, I thought. Apparently the score wasn't the only problem. Evidently this goalie had taken her frustrations out on her teammates, which I came to understand was a regular occurrence.

By the time the game started I had forgotten all the locker room drama and was focused and ready to go. Right off the bat, I could tell I was in for a lot of work. The play was in our zone the entire time. Literally. The entire time. I made a lot of saves, sometimes second and third saves, but the goals just piled up. It's hard to defend against a forward line that camps out in front of you, completely unchallenged. By the middle of the second period, the score was 8-0 and the game was called for "mercy". Both teams wanted to keep playing though - why not, we had the time- so I agreed to stay out there and go until our time was up. I wasn't thrilled with the result, but at least it wasn't the first time (or the last) that it would happen to this team. In the locker room several people even commented that it was a much more pleasant "mercy kill" than the last one. I just kept my mouth shut. I wasn't there to compete with the other goalie or fuel any fires.

Some time after that, at our regular women's game, I ended up talking to the other goalie about it, purely by accident. She confided in me that she wasn't going to play with the team in the next season, because it was the same result all the time, and it was really having an effect on her confidence. I was glad to know it wasn't just me.

Unfortunately, I filled in for her one more time, and once again, I did all I could but we ended up "mercied" again. This time I was not so relaxed about it. It really got under my skin, actually. From the time of that first league game until the time I played my last game with the women several weeks later, my confidence took a huge nosedive. It took a little while- and another encounter with ice- before I was back to my old self again.

Joining the Ladies

I heard back from Maria right away; she emailed me describing what the "women's league" was all about. It wasn't a league in the typical sense, more like a group of women who got together to play every Sunday evening. I could pay up front for a whole season, or pay by game on a drop-in basis. Since I was chomping at the bit to get any experience I could, I signed up for the next season, which happened to be starting in a few weeks.

Playing with them was different than what I was used to with the guys outside. The biggest difference was we had a clock and a ref. I'd never had to deal with faceoffs before, and despite the fact that there were fans mounted above the nets, the period breaks were a welcome chance to cool off and get some water. But of course it was different playing with a group of women than it was playing with men. Stereotypes seemed to hold true; the women weren't as aggressive or show-boaty as the guys can be. I had been reticent to play on an all-female team because of some bad past experiences with a high school field hockey team, but they all seemed very nice right off the bat (hockey stick?).

It was good for me to experience playing with a different group of people, and the indoor league at that rink piqued my interest somewhat, though I wasn't sure I was ready for that, skill-wise. Fortunately or unfortunately, my opportunity to test those waters came sooner than I expected.

Scouting the Ladies

Oddly enough, not long after I witnessed the women's ice team in action, a newcomer to the outdoor rink mentioned to me that a local indoor roller rink had a women's team, and they were looking for a goalie. I was apprehensive, but he said based on what he'd seen of my play, I'd fit right in, skill-level wise. It took me a few weeks to get used to the idea, but Goalie Husband and I finally went on a scouting mission one Sunday evening.

I realized right away that the newcomer was right- it looked like I could handle the pace and skill with no problem. In fact the game looked quite a bit slower than what I'd gotten used to on the outdoor rink. The goalies that night were both guys, filling in. Despite Goalie Husband trying to convince me to go talk to the women after their game, I was too nervous, and we left without talking to anyone.

We went back the next week, however. Again I watched from the sidelines, and what I saw confirmed what I'd thought last week; that it would be a good fit for me. Somehow I summoned up enough nerve to go talk to the women in the locker room after the game. I was so nervous that I hardly remember the conversation, but they seemed nice, and the de-facto leader seemed glad to have another goalie. I gave her my information and left the rink ecstatic. I had pushed through my nervousness to take the next step in my very young "career"; playing for some kind of (albeit very loosely) organized team.