More Frustration

Another loss last night. This makes us 0-3 on the season. I didn't write about the last game but it was against a team who was "demoted" from the league above us and they'd been spanked 5-0 in their game before ours, so I guess they figured they needed to bring in an assload of ringers to make themselves feel better. We hung in there with them until the middle of the second, when a short bench and lots of penalties got the better of us. Final score was 7-2.

Last night we played the team that beat those guys 5-0 and I was expecting a thorough shellacking because I'd heard *they'd* brought in ringers too. Turns out it was just their usual team, and the game was actually pretty even skill wise. They had a guy who shouldn't really be there but then so do we. This time I felt I played pretty well. Two of the goals were on blatant blown coverages, which is really frustrating, but then I'm sure it's really frustrating for them when your goalie puts it in her own net too. (Thankfully I didn't do that last night. Much better angle on the stick.)

At any rate, yeah 2 goals were pretty impossible, but there were 2 on breakaway rushes that I should have had. I feel like if it's a breakaway, and it's just me and the other guy, I should make that save every time. And the other one was a weird bounce/fluke. So yep, that's 5 goals against. Not good, but still a hell of a lot better than 7 or 8. Would be nice to get a W soon though.

But to end on a positive note I'll bring you "Locker Room Tidbit of the Night". We have an 18 yr old on the team; his dad plays with us too, it's kind of cool. Unfortunately GoalieHusband loves to give this kid a hard time and rags on him like a younger brother. I told the kid now that he's 18 he can legally beat up GH. Anyway, after the game we'd just come back to the locker room and people were starting to peel their layers off, and one guy noticed that the kid was sitting there with his phone before he'd even taken any gear off.

Senator (that'll be his nickname here): Hey, look at Kid, he's already texting his girlfriend about his two goals.*

Guy Next to Me: He's 18. He's not texting, he's tweeting. Texting is sooooo 2009!

Indeed. So is blogging about your games probably.


*the comment was slightly different, about 1000 times more off color, so I cleaned it up a bit. the sentiment is the same.

That's How We Roll

First game in a few weeks last night as the Hawks took to the ice to defend our basement level league championship. I think everyone needed a little break, and the energy in the room was pretty good. The energy on the ice was even better- we were up 5-2 by the end of the 2nd period.

And.... that's when it all fell apart. I don't know what it is but we have a terrible time holding on to leads in the 3rd period. Lack of focus, probably, on all our parts. We played the 3rd period like we were up by 10, not three. I had a feeling it was going to slip away when at the bench before the 3rd, guys were saying "come on, we have a three goal lead". While I made a lot of what I feel were very good saves, especially the ones through traffic that I *just* got a look at and got to in time, I also didn't help the team out all that much by giving up two goals on what has become my absolute Achilles heel: an angled stick.

I've been racking my brain trying to figure out how to fix this. I was trained to hold the stick blade at an angle to the ice while in my stance. When I drop into the butterfly though, I have a habit of not bringing it flush against my pads (i.e. perpendicular to the ice), and the puck hits the blade or the shaft and goes winging off over my shoulder- sometimes right into the net. I know this frustrates my teammates- it frustrates the hell out of me. The only way I can think of to fix it is to take a zillion shots aimed right at the stick and just keep dropping down correctly over and over until it becomes muscle memory. Unfortunately I don't really think I have the opportunity (ice time) to do that. Maybe GoalieHusband and I can work on it in the basement using cat toys instead of pucks. The only thing that's going to make it better is repetition.

A teammate on the IR was there and took a slew of photos of the game, and looking through them afterwards I only cringed at about 60% of them. In the others I actually saw that I was doing some stuff right. Its really neat to have that perspective, so you know what little adjustments you need to make. So thanks, 44, for the shots.

And on a totally unrelated note, I discovered Practical Application for Yoga #432 today: Chair Pose is fantastic for hovering over public toilets and peeing. Doesn't even phase me to do that anymore. Somehow though, I don't think my instructor would be as excited to hear about that as she was to hear about how one of the breathing techniques got me through the last minute of our championship game. I might just tell her anyway.

Blogging again... no really, for real this time

Twitter is pretty darn cool. I'm no technical whiz (as you can tell by the quality of this blog) but I finally signed up and wow what a hockey community on there! And quite the goalie community as a subset of that as well. I get pretty much all my hockey (I should say "goalie") news from there now, and have found some pretty cool sites as well. One of them, a blog, inspired me to get my ass in gear and write in here again. She's a goalie like me and a kick-ass writer, go check her out: MsConduct .

So yeah, I changed my name on here as well, because on Twitter I'm maalivahti, and there's already a "goalie gal" on there, and I'm sure she wouldn't want to be confused with me as she's like way cooler than I am.

I have been suffering from lack of ice time in the last week or so, as the Hawks' winter season is over (BECAUSE WE WON THE CHAMPIONSHIP, WOOOOO!), as is the season for the womens' team I've been filling in for. I'm left now with just open hockey sessions, which are really what keep my skills honed, since I'm going up against guys who are light years beyond my skill level. Usually I do pretty well and sometimes I actually kick a little ass. This week though, I just flat out sucked. Combination of no jump in the legs whatsoever and a bunch of college kids home on break. It did however mark the return to the ice of GoalieHusband (I'll still call him that even though I changed my name on here.) After 5 months off the ice healing from concussion issues, he's slowly getting himself back into the game. He's gone to a few clinics and yesterday came to open hockey with me. He played out of his mind. It was great to see. He also brought back a tidbit of bench conversation:

College Kid 1: Hey are you 21 yet?

College Kid 2: Yeah... I'm 22. Man it sucks. When you're turning 21 you have something to look forward to. Now I'm 22, and all I have to look forward to is you get a real job, get a wife, buy a house, have some kids... and then you die.

Wow, thanks for the perspective on life, kid!

Wussing out... sort of

I wanted nothing more than to go back to clinic this morning and show that coach he hadn't gotten the best of me last week. I really wanted to show up and be like "ok here I am, back for more." But I chickened out.

Here's my list of excuses:
#1- I couldn't breathe all day Saturday due to allergies and figured it would be the same on Sunday and didn't want to embarrass myself again by not being able to complete a drill without stopping in the middle. Ugh.
#2- I've had to get up early every day including Saturday and really just wanted to sleep in, dammit.
#3- Uhhh... that's pretty much all I've got. (Ok maybe I was a little scared to get my ass kicked again).

So as not to feel like a complete useless lump of laziness, I did do about 40 minutes of yoga when I got up. Note to self: You are much more flexible at the end of the day than you are when you just get out of bed. Yikes. Still, there are several poses that really open the hips and stretch out all those muscles so I'd like to do them on a more regular basis than once a week. Honestly, I'm surprised Tim Thomas is the only goalie doing yoga. It's such a perfect combination: flexibility, focus, mental discipline. What could be a better match for goaltending?

Telling perfect strangers to "suck it". Or: Texting gone awry

Since I have nothing better to write about during my period of hell on earth known as "not playing hockey", I figured I'd share a little story. (Yayyy! Story time!) Now, to really "get" this one I need to give you some backstory.

The year was 2006... during the course of watching a Rangers/Devils game, when the Rangers scored a goal, I gleefully texted my best friend "SUCK IT!!!", as was our custom. Or so I thought. I had in reality inadvertently sent the text message to the first person on my contacts list, who just so happened to be someone I didn't know very well; a fellow female hockey player I was just starting to establish a friendship with. Knowing she was (and still is) on the quiet side and certainly not prone to use of naughty language (I know, I know... she plays hockey... she should at least swear), I quickly sent a followup text "Sorry!!! That wasn't meant for you!" I thought she had my number programmed in her phone- she did not. So all she had was a text from a random stranger yelling at her to "suck it" and then a followup text which she later said didn't really seem to make her feel any less weird. Fortunately, there were no hard feelings and it has become our standard joke.

Fast-forward to last night, to GoalieHusband's fantasy hockey draft. This friend is in the league as well, and I had a separate chat window open to talk to her during the draft. Unfortunately my computer had other ideas. I had to log out of chat to actually do anything productive with my team, and so I sent her a quick text to let her know why I had to log out. Now.... she had recently moved. I could have sworn she said her cell number hadn't changed... (you see where this is going don't you). I immediately got a response back.

Her: who is this?

Me (feeling like being a smartass): its GoalieGal.... SUCK IT MARTY!!!

Response: um.... my name is christopher. i think you have the wrong number.

Me: omg i'm sorry!

Response: its ok babe.... hope you connect with marty! ;)


My thoughts....
#1 EWWWW omgwtfbbq he did not just call me "BABE"
#2 EWWWW I want to throw up thinking about "connecting" with Marty.
#3 My friend is going to laugh her ass off when I tell her this.

She did. And she declared that it must indeed be hockey season now that the first "SUCK IT MARTY" text has been thrown down.

Let the season begin.

Hello? Is this thing on?

Jumpin' Jesus on a pogo stick, has it really been almost 8 months since I've posted here? I believe I let fear of people randomly happening across this blog and figuring out where I play paralyze me for a while there. Its not completely unfounded. But honestly.... its a really big world wide web. So back to public status the blog goes. (Do I hear much rejoicing? Yeah I didn't think so).

Since I've been off the ice for a month, the only thing I really have of any import to relate is my experience at clinic yesterday. I figured going to clinic would be a better way to skate the rust off than jumping right into open hockey with the super fast guys. I thought "oh I'll take some shots and get back into the game and be all set". Yeah. Not so much. I haven't had my ass kicked that hard since I was paying for it. (LESSONS, you perverts!!!)

I was standing around at the boards, watching the skaters do their skater thing, when one of the coaches beckoned to me. "Goalie!" he said, and waved me to center ice, where he set up a string of about 8 cones. Oh boy, I thought. This can't be good. He instructed me to do suicides.... and then asked if I knew what they were. Oh yes, I do. This GoalieBrain doesn't forget a thing like that. So I did them. And when I got to the final cone and thought I was done he said "Ok, do 3 up-and-downs". I think I really wished for his death at that point. But I did it. Barely. And then he made me do it again. And then he peppered me with shots. By the time the skaters were ready to do their drills that incorporated shots, I could barely stand up, much less make a save that looked like anything other than what it was- me just getting my body in the way however I could. But one thing kept me going. The coach told me I had good form. And after I talked to a friend who used to be a coach in the area, I felt even better. He said I should take that as high praise, because that particular guy doesn't say stuff like that often. So go me.

I might just go back next week for more abuse.

Adventures with technology

I've always been a behind-the-scenes sort of person. The stuff that goes on that we don't even notice, that makes things run smoothly, usually intrigues me. So I'm not surprised that the two times this week that my reaction to ending up in the scorekeeper's box twice this week, fiddling with the scoreboard, had me thinking "hey that was kind of neat".

The first instance was at open hockey at an unfamiliar rink a few nights ago. Why would one need to run a scoreboard at open hockey, you might ask. If there are three goalies, and no clock anywhere to be found, running the clock on the scoreboard provides the only way to keep track of time and know when to change fairly. Of course, it took a bit for us to figure that out. As warmups were wrapping up that night and I was hanging out by the boards watching the other two goalies take shots, one of the goalies gave me the "10 minutes" signal. I nodded, looked around.... then skated over to him.

Me: This might sound dumb, but where's the clock?

Him (pointing to a lit display on the other side of the rink): Right over there.

Me: (silence)

Him: That's an exit sign isn't it.

Me: Yeah...

It wasn't until about 5 minutes into play that he skated up to the bench and asked me if I knew how to run the scoreboard, having come up with the brilliant idea that we could use that clock to keep track of our shifts. I had no clue, but another guy on the bench said he'd used to work it and would go set it for us. Unfortunately, he didn't set it to just run straight time, he set it up for a 20-minute period. That was all well and good but had the unfortunate effect of setting off the "pavlov's dog" mechanism in all the skaters' brains when the horn went off 20 minutes later. Even though we'd only played for about 25 minutes, play came to a screeching halt.

Dopey Defenseman: Whoah. Is that it? We're done?

Me (from the net): Keep playing, we just set it to keep track of time.

DD: Ooohhhh....

Usually, the scoreboard dude would go over and reset the clock every 20 minutes when the horn sounded. However if he was on the ice at the time, whichever goalie wasn't playing would go into the box and try to figure it out. Goalies being quite a smart breed, I had confidence that it wouldn't take much. How hard could it be? Still it made for an amusing picture, seeing a goalie in the scorer's box, standing there staring at the board, poking at random buttons and looking up at the clock.