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Ill-tempered Mutant Sea Bass with Frickin' Laser Beams on their Heads |
Manager: Shawn
Date |
Time |
Team |
Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 8 | 10:50 | Practice | |
| Oct 15 | 11:20 | Practice | |
| Oct 22 | 9:40 | Team Savage | Tie 2-2 |
| Oct 29 | 12:00 | North Stars | Loss 4-1 |
| Nov 5 | 10:10 | The Hitmen | Loss 4-2 |
| Nov 12 | 10:50 | Practice | |
| Nov 19 | 12:00 | Practice | |
| Nov 26 | |||
| Dec 3 | 12:00 | Dress Blues | Loss 3-1 |
| Dec 10 | 11:20 | Brewers | Win 4-3 |
| Dec 17 | 10:50 | Ice Breakers | Win 11-4 |
October 8 - Practice
Crossover drills - Around the circles then stepping sideways on the blue line. I did well at this. Once upon a time, I saw a Rob Lowe movie (with Cynthia Gibb, yummy!) where they showed him running sideways on the ice. So I had gone over that in my mind in the past so the real thing came pretty easy.
Turning drills - Go around the circle, always facing the goal. I just couldn't get going backwards. At this point the coach took me off to the side for individual instruction. I wish Christy had taped more of that. But basically, I cant my skates inward. That drags me to a halt. I was completely unable to glide backwards. I also had my skates a bit to tight and it was really bothering me. I had to retie them. Near the end of practice I was able to move backwards alternating feet.
Passing drill - Shooter passes to the top of the circle and then loops out to the blue line and in to the center. Meanwhile, two players are passing back and forth across the circle. When the shooter comes free the pass goes to the shooter. If they passed to my stick I think I did okay. But the second pass invariably went at my feet. I'm not quick enough to move myself to the side, and I haven't got good enough balance to raise my top hand high enough to get the blade on it. I kept trying to stop it with the tip of the blade.
Forward drill - Center passes to one side. That guy goes to nearly the corner and the other wing goes to the far side of the net. The pass goes to either the center or the wing for the shot. I kept on being the guy going to the net, and my inability to stop was a problem. Once, I went around the goal, came back to the front thinking the shot would get in before I got there, but the pass was slow and I drifted into the crease. The coach thought he had to educate me on the crease rule. I let him know I was aware of it, I just can't stop. Starting Monday, I'm taking my roller blade pads and practicing that.
Slap shots - Find a spot on the wall and practice. I had my hands too close together, and wasn't holding my lower hand tight enough. It was stinging my high hand pretty badly. Scott Warren eventually came over and gave me some pointers.
Keep away - Pair off and try to control the puck. If your partner has the puck, try to take it away. The coach tried to pair us off by skating ability. My partner apparently didn't get it or something. I kept it for quite awhile and when I got tired he eventually got it from me. From that point on, we'd battle for a few seconds, I'd get tired and pull up. My partner would stand there looking at me. I couldn't get him to turn away and take off with the puck. Near the end of this the coach pulled me and the other guy aside and had us practice gliding on one foot. Basically, he was trying to teach us one of the basics, keep your feet moving. On decent ice, I find I can glide on one foot fairly well. Every time I've tried in public skate the ice makes me wobble so much I can't go more than a few feet.
Man, I suck. :-) I need lotsa hours of practice.
October 15 - Practice
I've been skating almost every night since last week. It has made a huge difference. I also had a lesson earlier this week. So now I know how to stop a little bit :-)
This week, we practiced some breakaway drills.
First, the coach threw a puck to the hash lines and we took it from there. Basically, he wanted to teach us how to read it off of the boards. I think I got all of mine on my stick or skate. I'm getting better at using my skate as an alternative. Now that I can glide for awhile on one skate.
Next, he had a defender start in front of the net, go pick up a puck behind the net, and then pass that to a wing at the hash marks. That didn't work at all. The defenders were all milling around behind the net gathering pucks and suddenly one would throw a puck out. The coach was getting annoyed when we didn't go earlier, but we couldn't tell which was going to throw a puck out.
Next, we practiced the offensive triangle. One wing into the corner, the other on the far crease, center at the high slot. Corner wing passes to the center who passes to the other wing. Our team needs much more practice passing. Most are either to the wrong side or ten feet off target.
There was another variation on this where we would pass it back to the point. But that didn't work very well. After one or two passes we don't know what he wants us to do with the puck.
I think the next was where a defender would take the puck to the blue line and two offenders would pick it up and try to score. We called Bruce a cheater because he didn't leave it at the line, he let it keep going past center ice. I think it was here that I messed up my ankle. I was trying to stop, lost my balance and caught a toe. It twisted my ankle kind of funny. I think I hyperextended it, or one tendon slid across another or something. I thought about going off the ice, but decided to play through it. It's not bad unless I twist it just wrong.
Apparently we were on the rink with the Hitmen. They looked really good to me. We'll see in a few weeks.
October 22 - Team Savage - Tie 2-2
Name |
Position |
Penalty Minutes |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Jacob | 1st Off Line, Right Wing | ||
| Drake Christensen | 2nd Off. Line , Left Wing | ||
| Scott Warren | 2nd Off. Line, Center | ||
| Bruce Allsop | 1st Def. Line, Right | 2 | |
| Andy Laska | 2nd Def. Line, Left | 2 |
Well, my first game didn't go as well as I had hoped. During warm-up I lost my balance and twisted my ankle again. Actually, this time I stressed the shin bone above the ankle. As long as I was skating straight ahead it was okay, but I really had to nurse it. That made made me a lot slower than I could have been.
The start of the game was late. The referee never showed up. We were about to start without one when either he finally did show up, or someone else that worked there jumped in. It's a good thing we had one, because it could have gotten ugly.
Scoo taped the game and we could hear that the fans were really upset by the play of #28 on the other team. He was playing pretty rough for I league. Andy contends that he was within the rules and the spirit of the game, but most of our team was pretty upset with him. At one point in the second period, he and Scott got into a tugging match and since Scott out-weighs him Scott won. #28 turned to the ref and complained and Scott said the ref's response was, "You've been in all the fights." Apparently the ref saw what had been going on the entire game and was only going to call the most egregious penalties against him.
Bruce played defense alongside Mini-Me. Andy filled in on defense with #5 because apparently someone didn't show up.
Andy said that he saw Bruce "pinching" a few times. When the puck was between Bruce and an opponent, Bruce would go for it, miss, and the opponent would get a break to the net. Andy says that Bruce should be a little less aggressive in the neutral zone. Also, Bruce is too intent on taking the puck away rather than simply poking it away. Also, there were a few times when Bruce went way up into the other team's zone and didn't come back out.
Bruce had two penalties. One, he said he saw two guys standing in the crease and he went to shove one into the other. Unfortunately, he did it by cross-checking the guy. Andy said he should have just messed with their sticks and one probably would have fallen. It sounded like the ref recommended to Bruce that he just skate up to the guy and keep on skating, but don't push out.
Altogether, I think we had four penalties. That really screwed up our lines as the coach picked guys to kill the penalty. I really didn't get a lot of ice time. The ref did miss one hooking call. Our guy had the advantage and the defender hooked him bad. Then our guy retaliated by hanging onto the defender's stick. The ref called our guy because he was so blatant. But the hook looked pretty blatant to us, too.
Andy was his usual scrambling self. Lots of skating through other peoples' sticks. He also had one nice shot on goal that started a cascade of rebounds that netted us our first goal. #7 was headed toward the net and he dumped off to Andy. Andy says he wishes the pass had been more crisp. As it was Andy got a nice shot on goal. It bounced out, someone else took a shot, it bounced out and past someone else, then Jacob took a shot and someone finally put away his rebound.
In the second period, Andy dove to block a shot, the guy pulled up and the ref called Andy for tripping. During that power play, we scored and Andy was dancing around in the penalty box. He even managed to piss off one of the players on the other team, who hit the glass.
There were several instances later in the game where we didn't have anyone on the net to try for the rebounds.
Scott had a couple of nice scoring attempts. Late in the game with only a few seconds left there was a shot on goal that Scott deflected and nearly got past the goalie in the upper right corner. He was robbed.
I was on the second line playing left wing with Scott at center and Chris at right wing. Chris also has trouble skating, so we had the weakest line by far. It turns out, Chris also doesn't know the rules. And he certainly doesn't know the strategies. During our first shift, he came all the way from the other side to battle with the puck in my corner. Scott was also there, so all three of us were tied up. I noticed it happening at the time, but didn't have my head about me enough to back out. It's good that Chris was being aggressive, but there was no reason he should have been that far out of position.
The second shift was even worse. We got the puck into their zone, then they cleared it to the neutral zone. I came out to our side of the line and our defense got the puck. I started screaming at Chris to clear the zone. It turned out, he didn't understand what I was saying because he didn't know the rules. It's hilarious watching me on the tape gesturing frantically trying to convey to him that he should skate across the line. If I were more confident on my skates I would have gone over to him and dragged him across the line. We had at least three or four opportunities that stalled because we were waiting for Chris to clear. Eventually, the other team went offside on the far side and Scott and I got a chance to explain the rule to him. I think now that he knows about it he'll do okay.
Overall, I did pretty badly. Because of my leg, I was really slow. On the tape, Christy and Mo commented on me "running" instead of skating. I think that was mostly me not being able to push off with both legs aggressively. Also, much of the time I didn't know where to be. Since I'm so slow, it's usually only luck that puts me in the play.
For example, once, just outside the other team's zone another guy beat me to the puck. Then, surprisingly, he completely missed it with his stick, leaving me this unbelievable present. Everyone else was down-ice, so it should have been just me and the goalie. What ended up happening was I dragged the puck a few feet into the zone and as I was winding up to throw it on net someone skated up behind me and took the puck away. As I remember it, I went to take the shot and there was no resistance because the puck was gone. I was way too far out, anyway, so it would have been stupid to take the shot. Unfortunately, Scoo missed that entire sequence on the tape. I really would have liked to see what I did and what the defender did.
One of our players showed up late for the game, maybe sometime during the second period. The coach started out working him into the first line. If I had thought about it, I would have let him take my place so I could rest my leg. That thought didn't occur to me until there was about five minutes left in the game. I'm planning on not skating at all this week, except maybe my class. Hopefully it'll heal up before next week. If it's still weak then I'm planning on sitting out the next game.
October 29 - North Stars - Loss 4-1
Name |
Position |
Goals |
Penalty Minutes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jacob | 1st Off Line, Right Wing | |||
| Drake Christensen | 2nd Off. Line , Left Wing | |||
| Scott Warren | 2nd Off. Line, Center | |||
| Andy Laska | 2nd Off. Line, Left | 1 | ||
| Bruce Allsop | 1st Def. Line, Right |
I damned near broke my ankle. More on that later.
A disappointing showing. As Scott said, this team was not three goals better than us. Our team simply got way too used to Mini-Me and the other guy taking the puck to the goal. Several times tonight, the defense had the puck and didn't know what to do with it. And the offense just stood around in our zone waiting for the defense to do something.
The other team scored early in the first period. I think in the first two minutes. Darren let one rebound and they flipped it over him.
Andy was complaining about our defense leaving people free in the slot and crease. I didn't really see that. I'm just not very experienced at reading positions from ice level. I wish I had brought my camera. My dad probably would have liked to tape it.
Andy came back quickly with our score. If I remember rightly, he had a break-away for a 1 on 0 with the goalie. The coach pointed out that during practice most of what the goalie was letting by was low and to his glove side. Andy listened and aimed there and that was the score.
One thing we noticed when Andy was charging in was he was attracting two or three defenders to him. We tried to set up some plays to take advantage of that. He has trouble cutting to the center in those cases, so he tended to go behind the net. Our first idea was for him to fling the puck on around the boards and I'd catch it on the other side and feed it to Scott in the middle. The shift we might have tried that, I had a guy on me, a good skater, so it likely wouldn't have worked. Later, Andy and Scott talked about Andy dumping it to Scott sooner, before he ends up behind the net. I don't think any opportunities presented themselves, though.
After our score, we played them pretty even. We spent a lot of time in their end, especially my line. Andy's scrambling really buys us a lot of pucks.
Bruce is still pinching. And so are the other defensemen. The other team had a several breakaways during the game. Bruce is fast enough that he caught up with them a couple of times.
The last three goals were late in the game. By that time, we were simply being out-skated. We didn't have the stamina they did.
I played above my game tonight. I'm still way too slow. If there's a break in either direction I'm left following the play. On defense, I usually stayed well outside the hash marks. I had a lot of trouble clearing the zone. But if we got a break, usually by Andy, my position meant that I wasn't too terribly far back.
I spent most of the first shift off my skates. At one point I was in the corner with two defenders. I was trying to keep it from them and center it, but there just no way from that position. They eventually got it free. At the other end of the ice I lost my feet by the net. When I got back to the bench the coach was worried about my ankle. It was still a little tender from the injury two weeks ago, but I didn't notice it while playing.
I don't think I made any concious passes. Pretty much every time I got the puck I would just fling it. One time, in our zone, I did a backhand fling against the wall, thinking I had the point man right behind me. It turned out I was farther from the blue line than I thought and farther from the opponent than I thought. The puck simply bounced off the wall right in front of the the other guy.
I did manage to dump the puck in a few times. And I had one shot, but it went five feet wide to the left. I also charged the crease once, but the goalie covered that one. Scott was ahead of me, so he probably would have gotten any rebound anyway. I also leaned into a few guys without falling. I felt like I was moving better, but I still glide too much.
Scott had one minor injury that stopped play. Apparently he landed funny on his arm and the shoulder took the shock. He was able to come back the next shift. Darren said he had three near-injuries. One was a skate to the head, another was a stick, and then I guess someone tackled him at one point and took him down hard.
My ankle. I was feeling really good, and there were five minutes left in the third period. Myself and an opponent were chasing down a loose puck in the corner in our zone. He and I tangled up and I think my stick got jammed in the ice and caught my toe, twisting my ankle hard with my weight plus the other guy's coming down on it. For a split second I thought I might have broken it. A couple of people had to help me off the ice, because I couldn't put weight on it at all. Luckily, it's just a minor sprain. Andy says that real athletes can sometimes come back into the same game with this sort of injury. I don't see how. It's three hours later, and I still can't put all of my weight on it.
The other player was cool about the whole thing. Apparently he looked really guilty while I was lying there on the ice. I yelled pretty loud when I went down and I think it scared everyone. After the game, I couldn't skate out to shake hands. He came over to the bench, I think just to see if I was holding a grudge. I told him, "Hey, it was both of us." Meaing that we were both playing an aggressive, but fair game. I really couldn't tell for sure, but I don't think he took a cheap shot. It was my own clumsiness that got my stick tangled with my foot.
November 5 - The Hitmen - Loss 4-2
Name |
Position |
Goals |
Penalty Minutes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jacob | 1st Off Line, Right Wing | |||
| Drake Christensen | 2nd Off. Line , Left Wing | |||
| Scott Warren | 2nd Off. Line, Center | |||
| Andy Laska | 3rd Off. Line, Center | |||
| Bruce Allsop | Injured Reserve |
Well, as I suspected from the practice we had next to these guys, they can really skate. At least half of them were as fast as Mini-Me. And it turns out they play great position, they can pass, and they know who to pass to. They're about on par with the Dress Blues. In other words, they don't really belong in I league.
The coach chose tonight's centers with the idea that they'd come back hard for defence. Mini-Me played, so he was one. Andy was another, since he scrambles so hard for the puck and keeps his head up and looks around. And Scott and another guy traded each shift so that they could spell each other.
We spent most of the game in our end of the ice. These guys were really good at dump passes and pushing it back to the point. So they got a lot of shots on goal. They also had a lot of break-aways. In situations where two of our players would run into each other, they had one guy dink it up in front of the other and set it up beautifully for him to charge down the ice.
Our second goal was a lot of fun. A weak clear from our end was online to the other goal. Mini-Me and one of the wings were chasing it. The goalie had forever to fling the puck to the side, but he must have mishandled his stick because he blew it. The puck ended up between his feet, but because of his pads he couldn't see it. Our wing charged up and poked it in.
Andy had a lot of trouble on his line. He had Chris on his left wing, and he still doesn't know the game. Chris probably has better skating technique than me, but he doesn't know how to play his position, and he skates around with one hand on his stick most of the time. He chased the puck into Andy's area of the ice over and over. He'd run into Andy, or just get in his way. Meanwhile, the other wing never bothered to look up for a pass. Between those two, the only time that line put on a credible scoring opportunity was when Andy had a chance to skate it in.
Andy had one break-away where he got behind the defense and the opponent just tackled him. The ref called the penalty, but I don't think we scored on it.
Jacob is really impressing me with his skating and stick handling. He's also getting more aggressive. Several times he stole the puck from someone in the offensive zone and passed it to the open man. He's on his way to becoming a good player. He already skates better than most of the team.
Scott spent a lot of the game trying to see how far the ref would let him retaliate. The other team was poking at Darin several times after the whistle was blown. Scott would skate up and run into one of them. He never got called, but a couple were awfully late.
There was one time Scott hustled down to the other end after a puck even though the defenseman had it behind the net. The opponent ended up losing the puck against the boards and Scott stole it from him. We managed to turn that into one scoring opportunity, but I think they cleared it right after that.
Scott also did a pretty good job on the face-offs. I think he won almost half of them. Unfortunately, if the puck went my way I wasn't fast enough to catch it. On one face-off, I guess at center ice, he tangled with the other player and trapped his stick. The puck went a couple of feet behind the other player. Another present. I picked it up and tried to skate in, but as usual I was too slow. They converged on me before the line. So I tried to dump it in for my teammates to chase and ended up fanning on it. That made me lose my balance, I slid into the zone, and then the puck followed me in a touched me for an offside. That was disappointing.
Earlier in the game a defender flipped the puck high to clear it. It wasn't moving very fast and it gave me time to think about knocking it down with my hand. I got a finger on it, but didn't slow it down any. Another time, I was following the puck into the zone where the defender had it almost back at the goal line. I was moving my stick back and forth trying to guess which way he'd pass it and he flipped it over my stick. I almost knocked it down with my forearm. Instead, the caromed right to one of their players streaking down the ice for a quick score.
I touched the puck a few more times, but basically I was just a moving obstacle. Even when I tried to play the defender when they were in our zone, he usually got the puck at least twenty feet away from me. This guy could skate, so there was no way I was going to get close enough to bother him much. About the only thing I could do was cut off a few degrees of his available passing arc.
Other than that, I didn't get any shots on goal, I don't think I ever moved in on the crease, and I didn't make any passes. Andy and a couple of other people were complimenting me, saying they thought I did better this game. I really felt more competitive last game.
Oh, and I managed to go injury-free this game. One fall did twist my ankle slightly, but not very bad.
Rosy did catch a couple of instances where even my clumsy hustle got me the puck. I don't think Bruce caught any. His camera work sucked, bad. Most of the time he was taping peoples heads with no ice visible, or empty ice way behind the play. He complained about the tripod, but I never had any trouble with it. He did have good comentary, though.
November 12 - Practice
Some basic skating drills.
November 19 - Practice
The coach didn't want to hang around for a midnight practice. He left about a quarter till and then half the team showed up. We talked the goalie from the previous practice into staying. We were taking shots and were considering talking the other team into scrimmaging. Then the coach from the other side of the previous session noticed we were without a coach and he hung around and ran us through some drills. A couple of his players joined us, too.
First it was simple stuff, like take a puck and learn to stop at the sound of the whistle, practice getting up from a prone position.
Then, he starting running offense vs defense. First it was 2 on 1 then 2 on 2, then he joined in on the defense and it was 2 on 3. So we reformed our lines and made it 3 on 3. He's an incredible skater, so he was basically just weaving around creating havoc and making life difficult for the offense.
Most of the team enjoyed doing that. But I'm not sure we really learned much. We didn't learn position and we didn't learn the transition, our two weakest areas.
And, once again I twisted my ankle. This time, during the first drill. So the entire rest of the practice I had to favor that leg. It's really getting annoying.
November 26 - No game, no practice
December 3 - Dress Blues - Loss 3-1
I took off all of Thanksgiving week, plus all of this week to try to give my ankle an opportunity to heal. For some reason, it's hurting longer than the earlier injuries. Besides, I knew this game would be a slaughter, so I decided I didn't want to risk it on a game where I would feel so overmatched.
That put me up in the observer's area with Mo for a midnight game. There were few others up there. One person who was there was a fan for the Dress Blues. As I taped the game I was pointing out to Mo how well the Dress Blues skated and positioned themselves. They were obviously much better than an I league team should be. This was annoying the Dress Blues fan.
From where we sat, it didn't look like there was enough hustle on the ice. Bruce and Andy thought that they were doing much better than before. One serious problem was we couldn't seem to clear the puck. Weak throws would slide lazily toward the blue line where the other defenders would usually easily keep it in. Part of that was their positioning.
Also, our team still has a problem when deciding what to do when they get the puck. The defense gets it in the corner, there's an opponent standing along the boards, one of our players farther along the boards, and then their defender at point. Our defender doesn't have anyone to pass to and no obvious route to skate to. So he stands there and gets swarmed, or flings it toward our winger and it gets picked off.
Mini-Me managed to score the first goal. They answered within a minute or two. Then they got a couple in the third period.
December 10 - Brewers - Win 4-3
Woo hoo! Our first win of the season.
Bruce, Andy, Christy and I came from the Stars game. We were lucky there wasn't any overtime. As it was we only had a couple minutes to spare.
Everyone was complaining about the surface of the ice. When they finished resurfacing the ice the water took forever to freeze. With us skating on it during that time the ice got really churned up. Since I didn't get to handle the puck at all I didn't notice.
Between the first and second period I got a chance to comment on what we've seen in the videos. I mentioned how people get the puck and then just stand there. We started telling people to skate fast when they get the puck. And I think it sank in. We had a lot of people going forward with the puck. We even had a few breakaways by people other than Andy or Mini-Me.
We had a lot of people show up for this game. We had enough for three full offense and three full defense lines. The way the coach handled it, he put Chris as an extra defender and me in as an extra wing. I don't know about Chris, but I didn't like that. I only got in every fifth or sixth shift.
For example, at the beginning of the game all three lines went out as normal. Then, I got put in as part of the third line for their second shift. Then I'd sat out for an entire set of shifts and got put into I think the second line. And so on. I'd sit for a few shifts and then start begging for someone to sit out a shift so I could go in. With that many lines nobody was getting really tired, so nobody needed to sit out for a rest. Early in the game there was a mixup due to both me screwing up lines, and a penalty. So I did get one extra shift that was earlier than usual. But in the end I think I only got on the ice five or six times. Probably less than ten minutes total.
I think I only touched the puck one time. In the third period a lazy shot was coming toward me short of the blue line and I was able to backhand it out. I know I didn't look before throwing the puck, but I think I remember being pretty sure there was nobody between me and the line. Other than that, my biggest accomplishments were when I fell down by the puck and used my feet to mess with the other team's sticks. I did that two or three times.
There was one time I was playing right wing and the puck went behind the net. I think both defenders went after it. I saw someone, I think one of their defenders, charge the net. I followed him, but couldn't catch up in time to mess with his stick. He made a goal just before I got there.
I was able to nearly keep up with the plays moving from one end of the ice to the other. The speed drills Bruce had us doing helped. I'm still clumsy and slow, but I'm doing a little better there.
Since I didn't hurt my ankle I'm going to play some pick-up this coming week. I need a lot more ice and stick time in order to improve.
December 17 - Ice Breakers - Win 11-4
Well, that was an exclamation point to the end of the season.
During the game we learned that their goalie was the only person on the team willing to buy the pads. And that she was a beginning skater. And, she was playing injured. I got the impression that she started the game with a knee injury. She was in way over her head. After the first few goals it was obvious that she was completely demoralized.
Mini-Me played. I don't know if he wanted to pad his stats or what. Based on the standings we knew going in that this was going to be an easy game. I think he scored on each of his first four shifts.
Darin, normally our goalie, also played offense. He was tired of playing in the goal, and this was a good game for our backup to play. I had heard that he was a good skater. I don't think he's as good a Mini-Me, but he's probably better than anyone else on the team. He played center on the third line with me and Jacob.
We spent most of the game down in their end of the ice. I think most of the reason was Mini-Me and Darin. They're fast enough and nimble enough that they could chase down a lot of pucks that got loose before the other team had a chance to throw them out. Our point men were still playing too far back and often couldn't get to the line in time to stop pucks headed their way.
Chris is still having trouble with offsides. He's doing better, but there were still two instances where he either didn't clear or didn't hold up for the puck.
There were so many scores it's impossible to remember them all. Mini-Me ended up with six, I think. At the beginning of the third period he scored two goals only 30 seconds apart. Andy got one that we're pretty sure didn't show up on the scoreboard.
Scott had his first hat trick. For his third, he went across the line along the left boards and threw a backhand as a centering pass. He threw it too far forward and it went at the near post of the goal. It was a slow puck and the goalie saw it easily. Instead of just putting her stick down she swiped at the puck and missed it. It snuck between her skate and the post. This was goal number 9 or 10 and you could tell she was thoroughly disgusted with herself.
At around this point, with about five minutes left in the game, our coach suggested calling the game. He was afraid that she was going to get hurt. We probably should have, but we didn't.
One goal against us, our goalie said that he saw one of their players coming at him and he threw the puck down-ice to the other side. He completely missed the other opponent coming from that direction. It almost looked like a pass right to the guy.
Most of the people on our team were annoyed with one player on the other team. He was a big guy and was playing a lot rougher than the rules for I league allow. Shoot, he was doing things that would be considered illegal in a professional game. He was boarding people, tripping and cross-checking. Finally, in the third period Darin was starting a break-away and this guy went and blatently hit Darin on the chin with his elbow. I was looking down-ice and didn't see it happen. The refs saw it and ended up throwing the guy out of the game.
I thought I was skating pretty well this game. And then I saw the videotape. Man, I still suck. I move very slowly and am very stiff and off-balance. I also still run too much. And I can't do a real hockey stop.
I did get to touch the puck a few times. And near the end of the game I had an assist. Several times during the game I heard Bruce calling for the puck at the point. I was in the corner with the puck pretty much by myself. I back-handed it to Bruce who back-handed it to Mini-Me who scored. That one was a legitimate score, too. On the tape it's clear that two people were crossing in front of the goal at just that moment, completely screening the goalie.
So, we'll see what happens next season. I'm still taking lessons, so hopefully I'll continue to improve. Andy has chosen not to play next season in order to have time to improve his skating. We'll miss our over-caffienated squirrel.
| Nov-Dec '00 | 3-2? | Decepticons | The season of the Big Fight |
| Aug-Oct '00 | 4-2 | Decepticons | |
| May-July '00 | 6-0 | Absolute Zero | It was great watching the team improve |
| Jan-Feb '00 | 4-2 | Sea Bass | I gained a lot of confidence |
| Nov-Dec '99 | 2-3-1 | Sea Bass | My first season |
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