Going out with a bang

As much as I wanted revenge, we didn't get it, and last night was our last game for... well, we're not sure how long. I have no idea when the rink's summer season is starting (and therefore when it will end), but I'm guessing we'll probably end up with an extremely long layover like last year. My prediction: Hawks are back on the ice in November. But who knows, we'll see.

We played an awesome two periods last night. Trouble is, a game is three periods long. And we came out flat in the first and, once again, went down 4-0 in the first frame. I'm not at all happy about the goals, either. Only one I can truly say I wouldn't be overly upset with. The others... two were breakaways where I bit on a fake and they went around me and put it behind me. The third was an embarrassing bomb from outside the blueline right off an offsides faceoff. For some reason I thought it was going wide of the net. Nope. By the time I realized my perception was off there wasn't anything I could do. Ugh. But I got my act together and employed the "false badass" response and my confidence didn't suffer. (The "false badass" is when you feel like a little puny nothing but you force your body language to broadcast confidence. For me, it means staying aggressive, not being passive. It's amazing how much it can fool your mind when you act like you're really confident. It also doesn't let the opponent or your team know that anything is bothering you.)

I think I played really well for the next two periods- we all did. There was one more goal, in the second period, that came during a goalmouth scramble. Someone was on my stick and I saw the puck bounce out to an opponent a few feet from the crease, and as soon as I saw that I let go of my stick and just threw a desperation dive in that direction. My Hasek impression notwithstanding, I didn't quite make it. We managed to put the puck behind their goalie twice, and even kept it in their zone in the last 5 minutes or so despite being down a man. Which was kind of my fault.

This one annoying gnat of a player was buzzing around my crease quite a bit, and with 5 minutes left in the third, he got a little too close for comfort. As I came across the crease I kind of "oops, accidentally on purpose" hooked his ankle with my stick blade. He didn't like that too much and turned around and slashed me. Unfortunately that's all my defenseman saw, so he returned the favor. And, naturally, he's the one who got caught. Off he went for four minutes. He was fuming... and he didn't even know it was me who had started it. Oops. Fortunately we managed to keep it in their zone for most of the penalty kill (I told you we played well).

But my big finale for the season, and the reason I'll have to keep my head up next time we play these guys, came with 30 seconds left. I was set up on my left post watching the play in the corner, and followed it as it went behind the net. When I came across to the other side, this little gnat was right there, backing in towards me. I slammed into him, gave him a good shot to the back, but he didn't budge. So I decided to make my message a little clearer- slipped the stick between his legs and pulled up. Hard. Even then, he didn't move, except for a little bit of caving in, so I did it again. That's when he squeezed hold of my stick with his legs, and that's what the ref called. I don't know if it was goalie interference, or holding the stick, because all I heard was him screaming at the ref "She got me in the nuts!" as he was being ushered away. He looked right at me, so I yelled back at him to stay out of my fucking crease.

Setting up for the ensuing face-off, I heard someone banging on the glass to my left. Ohhhh crap.... my parents were there. I'd invited them because it was a pretty early game and they hadn't seen us play in a while. I completely ignored them, until later when we got off the ice. I figured I was going to see the Disappointed Mom face. Hardly! She was practically giddy and was going "YEAH!!! That's my daughter!" Oh boy... see what watching hockey has turned you into, Mom? Even my Dad had a shit-eating grin on his face. They don't watch a whole lot of hockey, but even they could tell that dipshit got what he deserved. I'm well aware that I'm going to have to keep my head up but you know what? Bring it. I'm ready for ya.

Tired and happy

We skated again this morning, and it was one of those times when the teams were so uneven that one net was reallllly boring. Fortunately there were 3 of us, so we rotated. The other net was insane. I hopped into that net (unknowingly) right out of the gate and since I missed warmup, my legs were going "WHOAH!!! Hold on there. What exactly are you doing to us?!" Once I warmed up though I did ok. Except for the two dudes who just flat out owned me on breakaways. I bit every time. DAMMIT. I need to watch more video of Lundqvist in shootouts. That dude waits everyone out. I love breakaways/shootouts because of the mental challenge as well as the physical. Who's going to move first? What kind of fake is the skater going to throw at me and think I'll bite on? Fun stuff. Not today though. These two guys were fast and played me like a violin. Oh well. Live and learn.

I will take some smug pride in one save though. There was this one small-ish guy who was very good, and he came down the left wing with the puck and went across the middle and I stayed right with him, and when he got to the right side and shot he had nothing but my chest to shoot at. I gobbled it right up and he went "Agghhhhh FUCK YOU!" Hahahahaha.... I love when I frustrate forwards. It doesn't happen very often, so I have to enjoy it when it does.

I'm really glad I've been able to get on the ice for the last two mornings because tomorrow night we have a rematch against the Drunk Punks. I cannot wait. Revenge is going to be so sweet. (Dear Team: Please participate in my plans for revenge by keeping your heads cool and not giving in to their stupidity. I promise to do the same. Thank you, The Goalie.)

Man, I love this!!!

I love my open hockey mornings. But sometimes I get a little apprehensive about them the day before and I don't even really know why. Yesterday I was kind of feeling like that, and of course that just feeds a downward spiral because it's like "ugh what if i suck?" and then it's "oh crap. i thought about sucking. therefore i am going to suck!" and then "aaaahh stop it! no negative thoughts allowed!" And around and around she goes. But a nice little surprise chat with goalie tweep @TheGoalieGuild buoyed my spirits and I ended up rocking out in the car on the way to the rink the next morning, just generally feeling excited to get on the ice. I played pretty well too. Not great, but decent. And anytime I started to get frustrated I would just remind myself: I am out here because I LOVE DOING THIS. That kind of helped.

It also helped that I stoned my coach (who was skating out) on 3 of 4 shots. BOO YAH. I mean come on, how fair is that? He knows all my weaknesses! He even tried to shove me around in the crease a little but I had none of that. Then Goalie Husband gave him a shove on his way out of the zone for good measure. I love when it's like that- laid back and fun.

It was a short session (90 minutes) and there were 2 other goalies, but one of them left early, so I ended up getting a decent amount of ice time. Afterwards I had an interesting experience in the ladies' room. After showering in a very disgusting locker room shower with little flies coming up out of the drain (no wonder the shower "didn't take"), I decided to drag all my beautifying paraphernalia into the ladies' room rather than stay in there with the bugs and the stink. While I was in there putting my face on, a young-ish girl (maybe 15 or 16?) in track pants and skates started talking to me.

Girl: Are you coaching today or are you working?

Me: Huh? Me?

Girl: Yeah. Are you working today?

Me: I don't work here... I was just on the other side playing.

Girl: Oh! You're the goalie!!!

I thought that was kind of cute. I'll just assume that she knows I'm the goalie because she was watching through the glass. Or because she saw my name on the list up front. Not because someone said something like "oh yeah there's this chick goalie who comes on Friday mornings and she's god-awful".

Wait, what was that about confidence? Oh yeah. I has it.

The bitch is back

Getting up at 6:30 on a Saturday morning to go play hockey takes dedication. And part of me wanted to roll back over and go to sleep, but I knew I just needed to get out there and play. And boy am I glad I did. It was one of those open hockey sessions that just make your whole being want to yell "YEAH!!!!!!!" The pace was fantastic, just enough skaters but not too many, and just really great feel to the game overall. I was the only goalie, so I got to skate the length of the ice every 10 minutes.

I was also absolutely, 100% in my zone. I was on fire. I felt great in every part of my game; skating, making saves, reading plays, mentally. Everything. It felt great. GoalieBrain took the reins for most of the game, which was fine with me. It's been a while since that complete goalie instinct just took over, and as I told GoalieHusband after the game, it was like "Where ya been, bitch?!" I knew exactly what to do and when to do it, without even thinking about it. I even made a few glove saves- on purpose! My glove hand is so atrocious that mostly I use my glove not so much as a purposeful catching device, but rather something that is on my hand that sometimes stops the puck, or sometimes ends up with the puck in it. But today there were three times when I actually meant to catch the puck with it, and catch it I did. Watched that fucker right into that little basket.

Did I screw up? Of course. But not nearly as much as I had been the last several open hockey sessions where I just felt like I couldn't do anything right. Mentally, this was exactly what I needed. There's another session tomorrow morning that we'll probably go to. And one on Monday too. A game like that just makes you want more and more. Gotta feed the beast.

PS - Completely forgot to mention the goalie clinic on the other ice surface. When I got there they were just getting started so I watched them for a bit. Four high-school aged guys moving smooth as silk and two itty bitty little goalies, falling all over the place. They were just doing skating when I was watching but it was so cool to see a bunch of goalies out there, all moving in unison. Hello, good omen. ;)

Level of frustration: rising

It's been a frustrating season in general, but Wednesday night's game was pretty much an encapsulation of everything that's really wearing me down about this league. We played against a team I'll call the Drunk Punks (a friend and I gave them that name, since they're all extremely young and all like to throw a few back before games). Several of the players on this team work at the rink. They also have a habit of calling in ringers on a regular basis. Yeah, everyone has 1 or 2 ringers. These guys, when they really want to wallop someone, call in the reinforcements. Funny how they're the only team in the league with a winning record eh?

Right from the get-go it was pretty awful. For the first 6-8 minutes we all played like we had our heads up our asses. We went down 4-0 in that span of time, and I started it off with a humiliatingly soft 5-hole goal. (I'm still not sure what happened there. I saw the guy in the high slot, all alone, with the puck, knew he was going to shoot, but something about the shot surprised me. I think I was expecting high and fast and he shot low and slow. Regardless- ugh.) The other 3... well I feel I probably should have had them but they were kind of a team effort. Fortunately we scored 2 goals at the end of the period. Going to the bench down 4-2 is a lot different than 4-0.

The second period we found our legs, and kicked some ass. Four more goals on our side and one on theirs brought the score to 6-5 with us in the lead. But that's also when everything fell apart. The Drunk Punks are probably all working with a mental age of about 13, and they play like it. Running guys, stickwork, tripping, you name it. Granted, we were giving it right back to them. The refs were pretty lenient. But it just kept escalating, and when one of our best players took a misconduct for going after someone after being sent to the box for roughing, all hell broke loose. It culminated at the end of the period, when one particularly hated Avery-esque douchebag blatantly fired a puck right at me AFTER the buzzer. I chased after him, swearing, and tried to trip him, and backed off when I saw the ref say "I got it, I got it", and then a few team-mates swarmed in on him.

The bench was a nuthouse. Senator yelled for everyone to "STFU for 20 seconds" and lo and behold, it worked. Though the third period was still pretty violatile, it didn't have the powder keg feeling of the end of the second. Unfortunately we pissed away our lead and lost 8-6. The third period brought several breakaways, and I do not fault the team for that, because the guys flying in on me were C level players at the very least.

My frustration, as it has been all season, is two-fold. First, the ringer issue. There's nothing at all we can do about that, so we have to either accept it or go elsewhere. And as we learned when we did go elsewhere, it's pretty much the same other places too. (I would venture to guess it's worse here with the Drunk Punks because they can get away with more, being rink employees). The other issue is the way the team completely unravels. It doesn't take much to get us off our game, and when we're off, we're OFF. The thing that really gets me about this last game is we know these guys, we know they play like that, and should expect it. There was one time we played them, two or three seasons ago, when we collectively just didn't let any of their crap get to us. And we dominated. I was actually standing in my net, laughing at their antics as they just rolled off our backs.

We had that game. We had that game and we gave it to them on a silver platter, with plenty of extra gravy on the side. They know exactly how to work us. What drives me nuts is that you'd think we'd know that and not let it get us off our game. We are the ones who give them the power to drive us to distraction- if we don't give them that power, they have nothing. (Well, nothing besides a bunch of ringers. But even against that lineup we came back to lead after being down 4-0, so yes they are beatable.)

Actually I lied. My frustration is three-fold. I'm really frustrated with myself too. Giving up 8 goals a game sucks the big hairy one. Hard. Yeah, the skill level is completely unpredictable, with the ringer factor. Yeah, there's a lot of guys being left wide open. But no matter how many excuses you provide, it still comes down to the fact that the puck is in the back of the net an awful lot, and I'm supposed to keep it out. Of those average 8 goals a game I'd say 2-3 are ones that I really know I should have had. And that frustrates the hell out of me. I spent all day yesterday moping and feeling like my confidence was shattered, but now I'm just pissed off and I want to get back out there again. And again. And again. Until I get it right.

We're off for the summer, due to everyone's vacations and summer events. Thankfully though, that wasn't the last game we'll play until the fall. We have at least one more game, since we got into the "playoffs" after all. I sure hope it doesn't leave as shitty a taste in my mouth as the last one. In fact, we might even play the Drunk Punks. And knocking them out would feel really, really good.

Good thing I don't care what people think of me

Oh wait... I do. But in the gym, eh who cares. People already look at me funny for my bright fuschia Vibram "Five-Fingers" shoes. And I'm sure the myofascial release I've been doing on the foam rollers looks really funny to the people on the treadmills right next to the mats. (I've decided though, that doing the groin muscles is just way too awkward and I won't do those in public). So hey, why not add to the spectacle by doing butterfly slides across the floor.

I had a brainstorm while thinking about making my push stronger. I can't take all the credit, @revcon had a video with something similar, so that's what inspired me. I figured hey, why not kneel on one knee, and put a slide plate under the other foot, and push that leg out and back, to build up the muscle that does that on the ice. Also I can practice bringing my foot close in to my leg each time. It was pretty cool, but I think I'd get more out of it if I could somehow put a weight on the slide plate, but I don't think that will work. I have ankle weights at home, I think I'll try those.

And then I went... heeeyyyyyy waitaminnit! If I put another slide plate under my foot, I can push to the side with my other leg! Just like a butterfly slide! I did a few to each side, and I think that is definitely something I'm going to add to my list of exercises to do. I really should hold my hands in glove/stick position when I do this (maybe with dumbells?). But come on that would look REALLY weird.

(This post brought to you by the fact that my office has no a/c and it's 90* out already, so I flat out refuse to work. I'd leave but I have to wait for the building guy to get here and figure out what the problem is. Woo hoo Monday!)

Fun with the old guys, and: an epiphany

Friday morning open was great. Not only did I skate my tail off (2 straight hours on the ice, SAWEEET), but a bunch of guys I haven't played with in a long time showed up. These guys usually play at another rink but occasionally come to this one. About 2 years ago they were there all the time, and I loved playing with them. They're all very good, most of them play about 4 times a week, and a few have been at pretty high levels at some point or another. But the thing I like about them is that although they take it pretty seriously (always keep score and play til one team gets 5 goals and then reset), they're also pretty laid back. This group has the feel of my old outdoor roller group- everyone ragging on each other and playing each other hard but not dirty (ok THAT sounded dirty), and just overall a great atmosphere. And though I suck compared to them, and 2 years ago I REALLY sucked compared to them, they've never made me feel like shit. So here's to the McKaye guys. (Plus they have a few Russians. And everyone knows I like Russians.)

Given that atmosphere, I was able to relax and just play, not feeling humiliated like I did a month or so ago with all those college kids out there. I didn't play all that great (started out pretty decent but then switched sides to the No-D-Side and that was pretty frustrating), but I figured something out. And that's always good. Now the trick is to figure out how to fix it. Now comes the pretty boring (to non-goalies) technical goalie talk. You plain old skaters can just skip this if you want.

I discovered that I have instinctively been "cheating" on some lateral movements. For some reason, I only to this to the right side. Let's say I'm at the top left corner of my crease, and I have to get over super-quick all the way to the top right corner. (Like you have to do if you have no D. Which is how I figured this out.) If the pass is far enough out I'll just t-push over, no problem. But if it's close in, I end up doing kind of a combination push/butterfly-slide to get over, regardless of how high the puck is going to be. Which puts me at two disadvantages: 1) I'm already down on the ice so it's real easy to flick the puck right over my shoulder, and 2) I never bring that trailing leg close enough to the leading leg to seal up the 5-hole as I'm sliding across.

So, why do I do this instead of some quick shuffles? Because GoalieBrain knows that I'm too slow to get over if I do that, and this is the fastest way for me to get where I need to be. Push, slide. It's worked great for me in the women's league because as a general rule, they don't get the puck up high. So bam, flash, I'm there, and it looks like I made an awesome save. I get away with it sometimes in the men's league, but I get caught a lot on the gaping 5-hole mid-slide. So somehow, I have to come up with a way to be quicker and stronger with my shuffles. Should I be able to go across the whole crease on one shuffle? Or is two acceptable? (Not sure how many it actually takes, I'll have to check next time). Do I need to strengthen my legs more, to get that push? Or do I just need to do it over and over and over to get faster? (I think it's probably option 2). Also, how do I get myself to bring my trailing leg in as I'm sliding? I think I leave it out because then I'm covering more space, but in reality, because I'm not flexible enough to do a split, there's a big hole right there in the middle. And the guys I play with definitely have the aim to put it right through there. (Yeah yeah, again, dirty sounding. It's hockey. Deal.)

I think I need to noodle this around in my brain a bit more until I figure it out. I'm sure repetition to increase muscle memory would be the answer but I don't have that kind of access to ice time (nor do I have the discipline to kick my own ass the way it would have to be kicked to get this done). I think there might be something I can try in the gym, at least for the strength on the push. Bringing the trailing leg over- that's just going to have to be an adjustment that's made on the ice over time I guess. But yay for identifying a problem. That's the first step to fixing it.