The Bridgton Academy Alumni Game

Though this is slightly off the topic of men's league, I feel like I have to write about it as it does at the very least relate to me, and to hockey...

Last weekend I took a drive that I haven't taken in fourteen years, to a place that I thought that I would probably never go to again.  Bridgton Academy, in North Bridgton, Maine.  

The motto of BA is "The year that makes the difference."  And I'll tell you something, for me, it did.  Both academically and athletically.  I know, without question that if it wasn't for my post graduate year there that I would have never been able to play college hockey, let alone get into college...  However, that is not the point of this post, what I want to write about is the Bridgton Academy Alumni game that I played in last Saturday.

The game was held at the Academy, though the closest thing that we had to a rink when I was there was a slab of cracked concrete surrounded by rapidly deteriorating boards and no glass.  About three years after my graduation, the school finally broke down and built a rink on campus, next to the football field and gymnasium.  The rink itself isn't anything special, though it is considerably better than a lot of the private school, and public rinks that I have played in. (Though it was a little dark for my tastes)  Plus, anything is better than having to dive, in a van, with your gear strapped into a plywood box on top of the roof of said van, I mean, fuck, we're talking about Maine, in February (and every other ice cold month of the winter) and the half hour drive to Hebron Academy just north of us made getting dressed for practice an uncomfortable experience.  Driving to somewhere like Vermont Academy was just plain cruel and unusual punishment.  Now the school is equipped with both a rink AND a coach bus...  Those lucky bastards.

Now Bridgton Academy is a different kind of private school...  First, it is the only all post graduate private school in the country.  Second, it is an all boys school in a very, very small town where it was absolutely forbidden of any of the academy students to "fraternize" with any of the local girls...  (Expulsion was the quick and immediate response for that.)  The school has been molding young minds for over two hundred years, so it is safe to say that they are doing something right.

Anyway, the on to the game itself.  Now, because of of the fact that it is school that exists entirely of post graduate students, unless a student from my graduating class '(96) showed up to play, the only people that I would know would be coaches and teachers.  Unfortunately, that was the case.  I was the only player from the Class of 1996 to make it to the game, but that did not in anyway take away from my enjoyment of the game itself.  It was basically like other charity/alumni games that I have played in, basically a glorified pick-up game with a ref and an announcer.  But god, it was fun.  There was a player there from the class of '58, there were a few more from the 70's, a couple from the 80's, but most of us came from a class in the 90's (reliving our glory years I guess).  And yeah, there were even a few whippersnappers that came from a class in this very new millennium.

There were some very solid players, and the game was relatively fast paced, and there were plenty of goals scored (we played twenty minute periods), indicated by the final score of 13-6 (and yes, we won).  I can honestly say that I felt like I was smiling the entire time I was playing.  It might have been the most fun that I have had while playing a "game," though calling it a game might be a bit of an overstatement...  But shit it was fun.  And it seemed like everyone else felt the same way, there were a lot of smiles out there on the ice, a lot of laughing, a lot of joking around.

After the game the Academy put out a nice spread in the student lounge for us, there was a tour of the new, and rather impressive Humanities building followed by a dinner back in the student lounge.  After dinner there was what amounted to a state of the school/hockey program address which took me back to all of those weekly chapel sessions listening to Coach Daily...  It was great to be back there, to see that even though there have been some huge changes (a hockey rink, the Humanities building), that for the most part, Bridgton Academy is exactly how I remember it.  The dinning hall, the dorms, the chapel...  Hell, it even started snowing while I was there...

I'm already looking forward to next years game...

Catching Up

I guess that I have a lot of catching up to do, so let me figure out where I should start here, hmmm...

My last post came after my last shutout out, so that's a gap of five games.  Collectively, we went 2-1-2.  (Jesus, I fucking hate ties, there is nothing worse than leaving points on the table.)  The Dennis team is playing really well, and all the guys have been making it to our games lately, which has given us some much needed consistency in a league that is a step up from the OMHL in terms of speed and skill level.  

Our best player has been playing like our best player, and the supporting cast around him has been equally good.  Some of the goals that the guys have been scoring lately would be highlight reel goals in any league.  In the games that we have won recently, our passing has been crisp and on target.  There is something about a perfect pass that's like a work of art, and when our first line gets the passing going (without sacrificing open shots) it's a nearly impossible line to defend.  Our second line on that DMHL team is a perfect second line, a grind it out, hustle the entire shift line.  That line makes it hard on other teams to really get anything going, they forecheck hard, take away passing lanes, and backcheck equally hard...  

Defensively we're solid, with one standout defenseman (I've said it a million times, and I'll probably say it a million more, I would take an entire team of guys just like D.O.), two very solid younger defenseman, and a slightly aging vet.  The good thing about our D is that they've been playing together since the beginning of last spring, which means as a group, we've all been playing together since last spring.  They know my tendencies, and I know theirs.  It's just like consistency up front for the forwards (who I barely pay attention to), I mean goalies and there defense really are a unit, and it's important to know how we'll play off of each other.

We've won two out of our last three in Dennis, and the loss was an incredibly close game, which was lost on a fluke goal.  We lost a faceoff in our zone on the left side, which was won on a clean draw back to the left wing, who had slid over behind the center, and managed to get a quick shot off, which I made the save on with my blocker...  The puck, somehow, went straight up in the air and we all lost track of its location, and when it came back down, it hit me in the back and went it the net.  It was a back breaker for us, and it really gave a lift to the other team.

In the first win of this five game stretch I got to stop a penalty shot.  God, I love penalty shots.  And I love stopping guys cold who get to take them.  It ended up being an important save, as we won that game by the narrowest of margins, 2-1.  It was a good game, and surprisingly not as chippy as I expected it to be since the last time that we played them there was a huge fight, I got run twice, and there was a ton of stick work going on throughout the game.  Like I said, this most recent game against them was definitely on the tame side.

Our second win came against the team that also gave us our loss in this three game stretch.  We had a short bench that night, and having played them all spring/summer/fall I was a little on the worried side about our chances.  I played well, and the boys buried all of their chances.  The second time around went a little differently, it was a back and forth game, we got up, they got up, we tied, and then the back breaker fluke goal.  Can't win them all right?

Now, in Orleans, things are going a little differently...  Two fucking horribly stupid ties.  I HATE TIES.  

AND

We lost our best player to a nasty foot injury, which occurred in the first tie when he took a shot off the laces on the top of his foot.  From what I understand, was so swollen it looked like he had a baseball under the skin on that foot.  Thankfully, nothing was broken, or even fractured.  However, a particular revelation reared it's ugly head about Jake being out of the line up.  We can't score without him.  At all.  From the point of his departure, which came in the first ten minutes of the first tie (in a game that we were winning 3-0 at the time of the injury) we have only managed two goals.  TWO GOALS.

Things are not shaping up in Orleans like I thought that they would at the start of the season.  We haven't had nearly enough consistency in our line up, and too many of the guys only skate once a week, making us, as a team, susceptible to running out of steam when we need it most, the last five minutes of any game.  Also, in the game that we lost Jake, most of the remaining players were in their forties, while our oppositions core was somewhere in their mid to late twenties.  They managed to tie the game with a minute and a half left.

And last nights game wasn't any better, as it was another game that ended in a tie with a team that didn't resemble the team that took the ice the week before (in terms of the players on the bench).  And you could really see that last night, none of the passes were connecting, the guys looked a little confused out there actually, even running into each other. It didn't help that I played like a donkey myself.  Somehow, it the first period, I managed to kick the puck into the net while I was making every attempt possible to get out of the way of it.  As soon as it hit my skate I knew it was is...  It's one of those deals where you just have to get up, take a drink of water, and act about as nonchalant as you can humanly manage to.  I mean, shit, you don't what to ever let the other team see you get down, because if they do, if they pick up on it, you're dead.  You might as well head right straight into the locker room.  So I had a drink of water, squirted a little on my face, and tried, as manly as I could, to forget all about it.  Overall though, it was a good game, and ended 2-2.

So there you go, all caught up, for the time being.  Here are the numbers, 14-7-5, 2.38 GAA, 3 SO

Zeros

Ahhhh, shutouts.

Is there a greater achievement for a goaltender than getting a shutout in a men's league game, in a game generally devoid of any sort of defensive play?  (Well, truth be told, both of the teams that I play on are, for the most part, very solid defensively.)  Shutouts are generally few and far between, because, as it was once said, "Hockey is a slippery game, it's played on ice..."  the puck can take funny bounces, there are usually big hulking goons standing in front of me, attempting to obstruct my view, pucks deflect off of players, both friend and foe...  In fact, most goals don't go in clean, they go off something, or someone, because most goalies, if they can see it, they will stop it, myself included (most of the time).

I would have to say that this year I have been very fortunate, in twenty one games we have managed to shutout three teams.  A shutout is commonly thought of as a goaltending achievement, but it's not, it's a team achievement, no goalie could possibly ever shut another team down on his own.  You need your defense to be there to handle the occasional bad rebound, you need your forwards to back check...  In order to shut a team out, everything has to go just the right way, all the bounces, most of the calls, and you have to get away with some shit, or rather, you have to get lucky a few times.  (My father always used to tell me as a kid, "Goaltending is 90% skill, and 10% luck," but I tend to think that it might be more like 75/25)

For me, there has been a common thread linking all of the shutouts that I have been a part of this season.  In each of them I have played "big."  Now I don't mean that I was playing like an all-star, but rather "big" in the physical sense.  Also, I feel like on each of these particular nights, I have really been challenging shooters, which is easy to do when my defense is forcing them to take low percentage shots from the outside.  But again, when I play "big," when I challenge shooters and play the way I'm supposed to, the game slows down for me, it becomes easier.  I don't have to scramble, I don't have to put myself out of position to make saves...  I'm where I am supposed to be, and when I am playing like that it means that I am not leaving my opposition a lot to shoot at.  It's a good feeling...

Up until maybe a week ago, I was scuffling, three weeks of trying to figure out what the hell I was doing wrong, and as a goalie, that is a tough place to be in your head...  Self doubt and goaltending don't mix well.  So having last night go well, and feeling like I had a very solid chance for a shutout last wednesday night, I feel like I may have found a good grove again to be in.  The additional bonus of a shutout, aside from good mental heath for me, is that it says, very clearly, that the defense played collectively outstanding.  It picks everyone up and there is generally a carryover effect.  Hopefully it sticks with us a few games.

Anyway, here are the current stats  12-6-3, 2.43 GAA, 3 SO

A Little Off...

Being a goalie means being, well, a bit of a freak show.  A weirdo, an odd duck.  Nothing that a goalie could ever say could possibly get anyone to ever think otherwise.  And you know what, it's completely true.  

What kind of person volunteers to get in the way of six ounces of vulcanized rubber screaming at speeds somewhere between 50 and 80 miles an hour?  What kind of sick fucker does that?  

"Hey, you're going to fire that little black disc at my head?  Really?  WOW, that sounds like a great time, where do I sign up?"

It's just not normal.  Truth be told however, most kids (well, at least when I was a kid) didn't choose the position, it chose them.  For me, well, I didn't start playing hockey until I was twelve, although I had been on skates from the time that I was three.  Somewhere around that particular age it began to dawn on me that the kid that hid himself in the back of the classroom, sketching away, not paying particular attention to anything was never going to get a girl.  Period.  But the kids that were playing sports, yeah, the girls liked them...  

It seemed like a good idea to me, play hockey, get girls.  It started out simply enough, I wanted to be a defense man, I wanted the three "Gs,"  Girls, Goals, and Glory...  Hell of a plan, but my father was my first teams head coach, and as it goes with so many kids who end up being goalies, he didn't want to ask anyone else's kid to play goal, knowing full well that no other parent would go for that deal.  So I got the job, by default.  And I hated it, absolutely loathed it...  I was terrified the first couple of times, mortified that I was going to get hurt, end up a vegetable, eating my meals intravenously...  By the third time though I realized that it seemed virtually impossible for me to get hurt, with all of the classic (and borrowed) 1970's old school leather Cooper goalie gear on I was invincible...  (Clearly, this is when the "goalie psychosis" set in)

I fell for it, hook, line, and sinker...  The equipment, the opportunity to be out on the ice for the whole game, the ability to take a penalty but not have to serve it...  The occasional flashy glove save, and even the one "A" didn't seem to bother me, the ABUSE.  The timing must have been just right for me, and possibly the fact that I had no idea what the hell I was actually doing, but I was able to move quickly from the "In-House" program to the travel hockey program where I had the good fortune of skipping an entire age classification.  So at thirteen I was playing Bantams instead of PeeWees.  Talk about learning on the job.  We lost every single game that season except for out last one, we tied that one, and it has been the only tie of my life that has ever felt like a win.  That was hands down my favorite team.  We were the Bad News Bears of hockey, and you would have thought that after getting my ass handed to me every game that I would have come to the conclusion that this goaltending bullshit had to go...  Nope, not quite.

I got my first job that summer and saved all of my money to buy newer, fancier equipment.  Well, as fancy as my five dollars an hour could afford.  The first thing on my list was a new chest and arm protector, because the one that I had basically amounted to a quilt with sleeves, not a whole lot of protection there.  I bought a D&R CA, it was all white and offered light years more protection than the circa 1972 CA that I had been wearing to that point.  I also managed to scrape enough money together to buy a brand new Cooper GM9 blocker (all white, which was a big deal as goalie equipment had just begun the "color" trend, up until then you were stuck with the all brown leather classics...) because my previous blocker, which was used had several flaws, one, there was no palm whatsoever, and two, it reeked of cat piss.  The new GM9 was a huge improvement.  I managed to get my hands on a used pair of Vic leg pads (tan and black), the boxy ones like Tom Barasso used to wear, and a slightly used GM9 catching glove (tan and black).  

I started to get a little crazy at that point, pouring over hockey supply catalogs, checking out every single new piece of gear, dying to get my hands on it...  A couple of years after my first Bantam season I was facing much bigger guns at the high school level and needed to procure some equipment with an even higher standard of protection, so by my sophomore  year I had moved up the equipment ladder to the Vaughn Legacy series...  Holy crap, this was the stuff that guys like Andy Moog and Mike Richter were wearing...  I spent the entire summer saving to buy my first brand new pair of Vaughn Legacy 3000, 34" leg pads, (I had already bought the 1050 blocker, and had gotten the T2000 glove for christmas) and when they finally arrived I couldn't wait to get out on the ice with them.  They were black and white, and I can still remember how they smelled brand new out of the box.  They were perfect.  I was also one of the first goalies locally to get my hands on a "pro-style" goalie mask, which was HECC certified and allowable for use in youth and high school hockey.  It was made by Van Veldon...  It was a little ill fitting, and I wasn't thrilled with the HECC approved wire cage, but at least I had a cool looking mask...  

I could go on and on about what I bought or received as a gift, what color it was, when I got it, but I need to get back to my original point, goalies are freak shows...  And like I said, for a host of different reasons, but the primary reason that I am such a nut job, I have to match the team that I am playing with, so I have two sets of  Bauer Supreme SE 2 all white, and an all black set.  The sets are identical in every way, leg pads, gloves, blockers...  I have two identical ITECH 960 goalie masks, one all white, and one with a design on it in blue (my OMHL team wears blue and white).  I have two pairs of goalie pants that I use regularly, one royal blue pair of ITECH pants, and one black pair of Vaughn pants and a John Brown 2100 chest and arm protector.

Now, I have more gear than that, two more Bauer gloves (black/red, black/blue), another Bauer blocker (black/red), an additional pair of Vaughn leg pads (white), another pair of Vaughn pants (red), and two more helmets (all black, and mostly red with a design) a Brian's CA, and a Sher-Wood CA.  I mention all of this stuff to illustrate a particular sickness that infects most goalies, the want and desire to match everything, all of the time.  Now there are some players who feel the same way, my father was like that, but for the most part, the don't seem to give a shit one way or the other...  Shit, I paint my goalie sticks to match the teams I play on...

Now if I was married, had kids, shit like that, I probably wouldn't be out buying up goalie equipment everywhere I looked, I wouldn't be painting my sticks to match my team colors...  But I am not married and I don't have any kids, so that means I get to do whatever the hell I want to do.  Part of me spends a lot of time trying to convince myself that I buy all of this shit because I am a "team first" guy.  I think the truth is, well, I just love goalie equipment, hell, if I could, I would open my own store selling hockey gear.  Think about it, that might just be the most perfect job in the world...  Sitting around, talking about hockey, playing with new gear, testing out new sticks, sharpening skates all day...  I hope that is what heaven is like when I finally shit the bed.

Anyway, yeah, I'm a fucking wing nut, fine, I can live with that, I'm a goalie.  I'm supposed to be crazy and a little weird.

So here are the stats after 20 GP, 11-6-3, 2.55 GAA, 2 SO...

Overconfidence is a Killer

So lately, it seems as though something, collectively is off, way off, for both teams.  Strangely it almost seems like overconfidence.  Very concerning to me.  If there was on thing that I learned during my very short lived poker career, never, EVER, underestimate anyone at anytime.  It always leads to big, pathetic, wildly embarrassing loses (and sometimes ties).

Now, in the DHML, we've been pretty consistent with our lines over the last five to six weeks, everyone has been healthy...  We've been able to roll over some of the lesser teams, as we should, but now I feel like because of a few weeks of having a "soft" schedule that the boys seem to think that they can walk all over every other team in the league, which is NEVER the case when you have one defense man who is over 50, and another that just got back onto the ice this past spring after a ten year absence...  Defense is paramount to being successful, and without it, we are at best, average.  And that goes for both teams...  Average.  

Fuck average.  The thought of that, the idea of being average pisses me off to no end.  WHo the fuck wants to be average?  Ok, I get that it's just men's league, shit, we're paying to play, no one is getting paid, none of us are superstars, but come on, you never lose the want, that desire to win, to compete.  That's why we're out there, not for fun, not for exercise, to compete, to go out there and kick the shit out of the team that your playing, to win.  I cannot stand when someone says to me that it's just a game.  Go eat shit. I've been playing hockey for twenty years, and not for fun, I play because I have a desire and a need to compete.  People who know me even only peripherally know this about me.  I hate losing.  Only losers are ok with losing, I do not fall into that category.  The "loser" category.

Two games ago there was a play where an opposing player absolutely undressed everyone on my team, including myself, and after the play was over, and the goal was scored one of my defense men was laughing about it.  I wanted to kill him. Laughing really.  That guy just embarrassed you and you're laughing about it.  I don't have any desire to play with guys like that.  None.  I'll tell you what, there is a team in the league that has no wins, and probably won't win a game all year, go fucking play with them.  You want to laugh about getting your ass handed to you, well, you'll have plenty of opportunities to do so playing for those bums.  Yuck it up over there.  I don't need defense men like that in front of me, the game is hard enough as it is.

Again, this all goes back to my competitive nature...  Now some people have a hard time accepting that about me.  That's their problem.  Not mine.  Winning is fun, I smile when I win, the world is all rainbows and sunshine when I win, and when I lose, stay the fuck away from me.  There has never been a time that I have taken the ice and thought "We're fucked, there is no way we're going to win..."  I ALWAYS EXPECT TO WIN.  ALWAYS.  Don't show up if you don't think that you're going to win, seriously, do me a favor, stay at home sitting on your couch watching television eating junk.  OR, go play for the team that blows cock, hey, at least you had "fun" and there is always beer after.

I seem to have gotten slightly off track, but only slightly.  I was talking about both teams going into games being over confident, and you're probably thinking, "Didn't this asshole just say that he ALWAYS expects to win?"  Yes, I did, now, there is a difference between being overconfident, and just plain expecting to win...  I expect to win because I always leave it all out on the ice.  I will do whatever it takes for my team to win, giving them all I have to give and a little extra if I have to.  That is why I always expect to win, because I know that I am never out there dogging it, I can't, I'm the fucking goalie for fuck's sake.  I believe 100% in the old "A good goalie makes all the saves that he's supposed to make, and some of the ones that he has no business making..."  So in order to make the semi-impossible saves, I have to give every last ounce of whatever I've got in the tank that night.  And I always do.

So after 19 games, I am collectively 10-6-3, with a 2.53 GAA, and 2 SO.  

Back on track...

It's been roughly a month since I last made a blog entry so I thought that it might be time for an update. 

In the last month my combined record between the two teams that I play for has been less than sparkling...  3-3-2, with a robust 3.13 GAA, and 1 SO.  So yeah, I had a couple of absolutely terrible games, and I even made some attempt within the confines of my simple little brain to make an excuse for my poor performances in the early going of that stretch, like "I was sick, which screwed up my timing," or "My D was hanging me out to dry..."  Bullshit like that.  The fact of the matter is, as a goaltender, my job is to stop the puck.  Simple.  Make ALL of the saves that I am supposed to make, and some of the saves that I have no business making.  

Get that?  I am supposed to make saves, not excuses.

Now, aside from games, and poor play, and a boatload of excuses, I have actually managed to complete my second set of equipment...  I now have two completely identical sets of gear, one which is all black, and one which is all white.  This makes me happy, if I got hit by a bus tomorrow, and died, I would die a happy guy for two reasons, one being the equipment, and the other being that my overall GAA is currently under 3.00 for the season after 17 games.  Anyway, back to the gear, identical...  This was not an easy task for several reasons, one, my absurdly anal nature which makes it impossible for me to settle for less than exactly what I want.  Also, I had to chase down gear that has been out of production for the last two years, and it had to be in near new condition.  I will say this though, it was worth the effort.  The Bauer SE2 line was, in my opinion, perfectly made for a goaltender who plays somewhere in between the current butterfly style and the mid-nineties butterfly style (Think Roy, Brodeur, and maybe even Moog).  The glove has the perfect break, and the blocker has the palm set back more toward the wrist and slightly off center, which aids in my ability to handle the puck.  Plus the shit is super light weight... 

So to date, my cumulative record is 9-5-3, 2.65 GAA, 2 SO.  

All of those expectations...

On Monday night we played the Advanced Embroidery Eagles team, and it was a fucking great game.  The best game that we have played this season.  

The Eagles lived up to my expectation of what kind of team I though that they were.  They were fast, they moved the puck well, and have solid defense and goaltending.  Their forwards were smart and screened me well and often.  They used their points often and seemed to have a solid power play unit (they managed to go 1 for 1 on the PP).

We managed to put a pretty damn good game together ourselves though, we had our full compliment of players (for a change) and as long as we continue to have everyone show up consistently, we (in my opinion) can only continue to get better.  Our lines have changed up a little bit as we moved one of our forwards (who had always played defense up until three years ago) back to help shore up our defense.  He's been back there for the last two games, and its helping, a lot.  Danny has speed (he can rush the puck when he has to), good hands, quick feet (an import attribute for a defense man) and an extremely high hockey I.Q.  Seldom does he ever do something foolish, and he never makes panicked reactions in our zone.  He is the kind of player that, from my stand point, puts me at ease, and allows me to truly focus on the puck/play in front of me because I never feel like I have to cheat to make up for a defense man that I don't completely trust.  For our first few games we only really had three true defense man, meaning that were were always throwing someone into the fire on D who wasn't totally comfortable with the position.  Moving Danny back on D makes us a very solid team defensively, giving us two very good defensive pairings.  

Our offensive players have always been very talented, so moving Danny back doesn't really hurt us up front, and now, he becomes a threat from the blue line, where I think he is much more comfortable.  Our first line is, in my opinion, as good as any other line in the league, and our second line is no joke either.  We have a team who understands how to grind out a win, we don't have guys who are prima donnas that won't go into the corners and muck it up for the puck.  They will, and they do, and when they go in the corners, they usually come out with the puck, and because of that kind of play we managed to score the first two goals (well, sort of, the first two goals were lasers that found there way just under the crossbar on glove side).

Like I said before, the Eagles scored on the power play, although it was kind of a bullshit/lucky goal.  With about thirty seconds left in the PP, one of their forwards fired a shot from the left wing boards that barely missed the net, but managed to ricochet off the end boards behind the net out front on the opposite side to the other winger who fired the puck, I managed to get a piece of it, but not enough, and that made it  2-1.  We picked up another goal off of some solid work in front of the net, and with about six minutes left in the game they scored again off of some of their own solid work in front of me.    

I felt good though about my play overall, despite the two goals, because as I said from the start, those guys lived up to my expectations as to just how good they are.  They were definitely relentless, they took a lot of shots, several of which came through screens.  I started using my height to my advantage in the last couple of weeks though, so instead of trying to look through the screens by getting down in the butterfly and looking through a tangle of legs for the puck, I have been looking over them, allowing me to maintain my focus on the puck, and it also allows me to see what other aspects of the play are developing... 

The game ended with us on top 3-2, getting us a game over .500, putting our record at 3-2-1 in 6 games, and putting my GAA 2.50.  We play Shepley's next week at 10 PM Monday night...

Supremacy...

On Wednesday night in Orleans we played Top Gun, and before the game I would be willing to bet that on both teams (because I know that we were) guys were looking at this game as the game that would establish who the best team in the league was at this very early part of the season. 

On the first shift of the night, a little less than thirty seconds into the game we struck first.  Jake busted over the blue line and rifled a shot toward the net that their goalie got a piece of, but somehow dropped at his feet where Jake, who was following his own play, tucked the puck past in for the first tally of the night.  Here's the funny thing about that, I had no idea that we scored, I actually thought that the opposing goaltender had actually caught the puck initially, so I had turned around to grab a drink from my water bottle.  I missed the face off following the goal as well...  I have to say, that is the first time that I have ever missed my team scoring a goal during a game.  

Jake had an unbelievable night, he scored all of our goals, back checked his ass off and all he got to show for his hustle was a black eye.  While cutting through the middle of the ice in the defensive zone, and putting move after move on just about every one of Top Guns players that were on the ice at the time, one of them decided to throw a hip check at Jake, which threw him for a loop, literally.  He ended up landing on his head, which dazed the fuck out of him.  After the game he kept asking us what happened, that he couldn't remember anything about the incident...  He needed help getting back to the bench because he couldn't keep his legs under him...  

Now here is the thing about throwing a check like that in a league like ours.  It's bullshit.  Plain and simple, you just don't do it.  Most of the guys don't wear shoulder pads because it is a no checking league, a little contact yes, but a check like the one that Jake took, no.  A guy doesn't expect to be hit like that for obvious reasons, so when it does happen, the results are usually devastating...  Jake missed roughly the next ten minutes of the game, and by the time that we all managed to get ourselves out of the locker room he had a black eye.  Now, don't get me wrong, I like a physical game, but that hit crossed a line.  I can guarantee that the next time that we play them, the guy that threw the hit better have his head on a swivel, because payback is a bitch.

I know that I have said it before about this years Summit team, but shit, we are a complete team.  There are no holes, no weak links.  The guys played a complete game again Wednesday night, though I did see a few more shots than I did the previous game.  That Top Gun team can play, and overall, they are a pretty young team, so they have the legs to keep coming at you...  They did manage to score one on a two on one, it was actually a nice goal, a bang-bang play, firing the puck high on my stick side...  At the time, that goal closed the gap to 2-1, but the boys came right back to put us ahead by two a few minutes later off of a scrum in front of the net...

When the dust settled, it was 4-1 good guys, running our record up to 3-0-0.  My GAA in the OMHL is 1.33, with 1 SO.  Overall this winter, 5-2-1 with a 2.25 GAA and 1 SO.

Our next game in the OMHL is against the Land Ho at 8PM...  Should be a good one.

Doggin' It...

We played our second game of the season against the Black Dog monday night, and shit, that is one hell of a fucking team.  They do everything right, everything.

Anyway, we not only had our full compliment of players, we actually had 13 guys monday night, which works, but almost everyone bitches about it.  (Now honestly, that irritated the shit out of me and here's why;  The guys that bitch the loudest about it are the guys that are the least reliable in terms of showing up, on game night, so seriously, shut the fuck up or show up consistently)  I will say this bout having 13 guys monday night, at the end of the night, the guys that were tired, (and most of them were) were grateful that there was an extra line on the bench to pick up the slack and a few shifts.  And it's not like that extra line was made up of guys grabbed off the street to fill sweaters, it was a line of guys who can play.  If it wasn't for that extra line, we would have run out of gas with ten to fifteen minutes to go in that game and would have gotten ourselves laughed out of the rink. They would have slaughtered us.

That being said however, we still lost, and it wasn't a pretty game overall, but we hung with them the entire game.  We just, as a team, line by line, didn't have it together.  Guys were missing passes where there were clear passing lanes, passing up opportunities to shoot (you don't shoot, you don't score, you don't score, you can't win...  It's a simple fundamental principal).  And honestly, I think that the extra bodies screwed everyone up just a bit...  It seemed to both help us, and hurt us.  

Two of those extra bodies the the brothers from the team that I play with in Orleans.  They were a little surprised with the speed and tempo of the game, but of course for their first game in the DMHL, we happened to be playing (who I happen to believe, and who most people consider) the best team in the league.  There really isn't another team in the league that is on the same level with the Black Dog, a distant second would more than likely be Advance Embroidery... (who we have the pleasure of playing next Monday night), I would say, that from what I have seen so far, that a lot of the teams are relatively close in terms of overall skill level.

I seem to be straying from the topic at hand, the actual game.

Like I said before, we didn't have it, we made bad choices in our defensive zone, and even worse choices in our offensive zone.  Bad pass after bad pass, after passing up a good shooting opportunity to make yet another bad pass which would create a turnover that would give the opposition a clean scoring chance.  We did a terrible job of getting the puck out of our end, a terrible job of clearing the front of the net and taking (it's a no check league, not a no contact league) the body on their forwards as we spent all night letting them walk right in uncontested for a clean scoring opportunity.  I had a lot of work monday night, saw a lot of shots...  Games like that are both good and bad.  Good because I love all of that action, and it's easier to get into the zone when you are playing in a game where you are getting shelled, but bad because it means that we are doing a lot of things wrong at both ends of the ice.

They scored first in a screen shot that I never got to see, and then again on a broken play in front of the net off a rebound (the fourth or fifth rebound from a barrage of shots, none of which I could manage to get a glove on to get a whistle...)  We managed to get one back, shortly after their second goal, but they managed to pick up their third goal on yet another perfectly placed screen shot that just ticked off the inside of the right post and into the net...  The good news is that we scored the next two (and also had one called back) to tie the game, but on another poor defensive zone play where we did not manage to clear our own zone, move the puck forward and make some sort of transition into something that resembled an offensive threat, which ultimately resulted in a goal for the bad guys.

The final was 4-3, and even though I spent this entire blog bitching about what a bad game it was on our part, overall, it was a good, fast, hard game, we gave everything that we had to give.  Whatever the guys had in the tank, they gave it, and left it all out there on the ice.  I was happy with the effort, but unhappy with our end result.  I'm usually a very sore loser, but because I feel like I played one of my better games, the loss was a little easier to swallow.

We play Advanced Embroidery next monday night at 10.  The loss last night runs our record to 2-2-1 in the DMHL, and my overall record to 4-2-1, with a 2.41 GAA with 1 SO.

Perfection

So we played our second game of the very young season in the OMHL against the Chiefs, a perennial powerhouse.  Now, I don't want to get ahead of myself, but I REALLY like how we look after our first two games.  Our first game was a grudge match, plain and simple, we wanted to kick the shit out of those bastards after the bullshit from the summer, we wanted to remind them that they won't have the same success over this season that they had over the summer season. (The Jailhouse lost again last night just in case anyone was wondering...)  Every single player in our locker room, to a man, before the puck dropped last week wanted to crush them, give them a lesson in humility...  And we did.

Enough about last week.

This week, against the Chiefs, we were perfect.  Absolutely perfect.  The guys played their hearts out in front of me, they forechecked, back-checked, they were tenacious, they dug in the corners, they blocked shots, and made all of the right plays.  Smart, heads-up hockey, from buzzer to buzzer.  I think that I may have seen ten shots, maybe less.  Our defense was absolutely flawless, impenetrable.  The guys were amazing last night out there on the ice in the defensive end.

As for our offense, it is fucking clicking.  The line of Jake, Rob, and Josh dominated.  They were relentless, they cycled well down low, threading passes to each other with amazing precision.  Even our defense got in on the act with a nice goal, and some very nice assists.  One goal in particular stands out to me, Jeff, playing D on the right side was about ten feet inside the blue line when he received a pass, and with pressure from the opposition mounting, threaded an amazing pass to Josh, who one-timed a quick little snap shot past the Chiefs goaltender, everything about that play was perfect microcosm of how the game went for us last night.  We were short a man last night, and had to move one of our regular D up front, and he scored twice, right now, everything is clicking for us.

Like I said before, it's early in the season, incredibly early, but I like the look of our team very much, and we are basically the same team, minus two players, that played all summer together.  The guys are comfortable with each other, they play off of each other perfectly, and they are getting to the point where they know where everyone is going to be on the ice.  The D knows when they can slide down from the point and take a chance on potting one, and the guys up front recognize those situations, and are able to get the puck to the right place at the right time for our defense men.  

You can feel the excitement among the guys, everyone seems to know their role, and everyone, so far, has excelled at his respective roll.  The mood in the locker room pre-game is always light, and we're always joking around, staying loose before we head out to the bench.  But the guys clearly know when to bear down and get serious, and in the first two games, they've been very "details" oriented.  We have depth at every position, in fact, we haven't even seen a few of the guys that are on our roster play yet, a 23 year old defense man, and a 40 year old veteran forward, who are expected to be regular players for us.

Right now I am full of optimism and excitement, I like how things are shaping up for us, and I love how the guys are playing right now, but how could I not, we're 2-0-0, and have scored 14 goals, with only 3 goals scored against us... 

Like I said though, it's early.

It wasn't pretty but...

We had our fourth game of the season in the DMHL, and even though we won, it was ugly, and at times a little embarrassing.  I really can't figure that team out over there, but my best guess is that we completely lack an "identity" (due to the lack of sponsorship/team jerseys = team unity maybe).  Well, that and the fact that we almost never have the same line up week to week, which made an attempt to correct by trying to get the Brothers playing for us.  I was voted down on that point for last week, but we'll see about this week coming up because we're going to be playing the Black Dog team, (defending league champs) and we can't be short for that game, because we won't be able to play and ugly game and pull out a win like we did this past Monday night.

We played Northern Lumber the other night, who have improved somewhat since the summer.  I think that a lot of us (all of us) looked at this game as a "bye," that we could just phone it in and we'd still be fine...  We jumped right out of the gate with two quick goals and then seemed to ease off a bit, and as soon as we did they turned up the heat on us.  At about the halfway point of the game, maybe a little past that, the score was tied two all.  

The first of their two goals really fucking pissed me off, it was a broken play coming out of the corner of the right wing boards that I was able to make a couple of decent saves on, well until my center, who is a fucking grinder and hustles the entire time he's out on the ice for every single shift he takes, back-checked the just barely loose, almost tied up by me, puck into the net.  He has two goals in two games against me.  Not cool.  I can't remember the second goal, which means it was a good goal on their part, that they earned it, otherwise it would have pissed me off and stuck out in my mind.

We turned the pressure back up immediately though and scored two quick ones.  We had a little defensive brain fart and gave up a breakaway where I found myself in no-mans-land...  I was caught in between charging out at the puck, which was about ten steps ahead of my opponent, and holding my ground.  Hindsight being 20/20, I should have buried the little fucker, because he ended up scoring stick side.  He made it look about as easy as taking a piss in the snow...  

From that point on, the game was pretty even, they pulled their goalie in the last minute, but couldn't win a face-off, which essentially gave us the win.

So in the DMHL, we are 2-1-1, with 13 goals for, and 10 against, giving me a GAA of  2.50, (with an overall record of 3-1-1 and a GAA of 2.60 including the OMHL).  I'm happy, but I feel like, at least in Dennis, we can do more, be a better team, but to do that, we need to be more consistent, and play hard for 50 minutes, not 40...

WInter Wonderland...

So the winter men's league season is underway, and between the two teams that I play for we are 2-1-1, and even though it's early, I can very happily say that in four games my GAA is a tidy 2.50.  Like I said though, it's early, so I'd better savor it now because there is a very good chance that it is not going to stay that low.

The two teams that I play on basically skate year round.  Most of us have no down time, giving us an early advantage when the winter leagues start back up again.  In our first four games, we haven't had any cupcakes, that's for sure.  We played the Tony Kent Men's League Champions our first game back, the runner up our second game, a solid Chapin's team our third game, and in the Orleans Men's League, our first game was against the Summer League Champions (that game turned out to be a bit of a laugher though, welcome to winter league).  So like I said, we've seen some very solid competition early, and if both teams keep playing the way that we have been early we could end up in a very good position at the end of the season.

The Orleans team has it's roster pretty well set, we lost two guys to retirement, but picked up three guys in their early/mid twenties, which adds to an already solid team that made it to both the winter and the summer league finals.  The Dennis team however is a bit of a work in progress...  There has been some talk about adding a pair of brothers (from the team that I play for in Orleans) to our Dennis team.  I am of the opinion that the addition of the pair will make that team very, very dangerous, and will help to cement our lines, bringing a familiarity and consistency to games.  

Also, we're looking for some serious sponsorship for the Dennis team, as I think that we're all tired of looking like a bunch of bums.  Only half of the guys have jerseys that match, no one has matching socks and most nights we have to wear those stupid fucking yellow pennies because we don't match to begin with, so why not make us look even more ridiculous?  Anyway, we've been working on a few different things sponsorship-wise.  Hopefully something will pan out soon.

Next week, it's a ten o'clock game against Northern Lumber on monday, and a nine o'clock game Wednesday against the Chiefs...  Both games should be good tilts.

Rest

Rest.

That's what I thought that I was going to be getting in these next few weeks, with the gap between the summer and winter leagues.  However, it looks like that won't be the case.  My phone started ringing yesterday with guys asking me to play for them in their leagues, in their playoff games.  I have a hard time saying "no" when it comes to hockey, I always have, and I always will.

I will manage to get some rest though.  I won't be playing five straight days anytime in the near future (or at least in the next two weeks).  I need the rest, desperately.  Yesterday morning everything hurt, everything ached...  Perhaps that's just my bodies way of reminding me that I really am not as young as I think I am.  I recognize that I can't do all of the things that I could do when I was younger and just expect to bounce back right away, "Five straight days of hockey, no fucking problem..."  I wish that was still the case.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not half dead over here, but I'm not sure if I am half alive either...

The funny part about trying to get a little rest is, well, I hate it.  Yeah.  I fucking hate not playing hockey.  When I don't play I feel like something is missing from my day.  I hate not being in a rink, going through all of my absurd pre-game rituals and superstitions...  I miss competing, I miss that camaraderie among the guys, giving each other shit endlessly...  I realize though, that I do in fact need the rest, my body is screaming at me to take a few extra days off.  I hear it, and I will, but there is a funny thing that happens when you get older, it takes longer to get back into the swing of things.  The more time I take off, the longer it will take for me to get back into that grove again...

Just the same though, I do need the rest, but I'll be honest, I can't fucking wait to get back into it once the winter league gets going again.  

You win some, you lose some...

Well, it was, hmmm, what was it exactly?  

A good game?  No.  A bad game?  No.

I was dirty, it was chippy, their mouths were non stop, and they proved that they are hands down, the team with the least amount of class in ANY league that I have ever played in.  The end of the game turned into a bench clear with about forty seconds to go, and in an effort to prove what little class they had, they started yelling at our fans in the stands.

Seriously.  Yelling at mothers, girlfriends, sisters...  Classless.  One of their players actually picked up the puck and threw it at one of our wingers.  Who the fuck does that?  Classless. They weren't even going to line up and shake hands, as has been the custom for decades in hockey.  They have one player on that team that I respect, I called him over to shake his hand, and it was then that they realized that they should in fact line up and shake hands.  When the goaltender from the losing team is the first guy, in the middle of a bench clearing tussle (because it wasn't a brawl) to extend his hand and say, "Good game," that's when you know that its time to man up, to stop being a bunch of little punks and return the afore mentioned sentiment.  

(For people who know me, for my teammates, for the players on the teams that I compete against, they know that I am fiercely competitive and may just be one of the biggest sore losers on the planet.  I accept that about myself, I hate to fucking lose, at anything, to anyone. Ever.  For me, when someone says, "It's just a game, and that I shouldn't care about losing" needs to fuck off.  There is only one kind of person in the world that is ok with losing.  A loser.)  

Just the same, I love the game of hockey, I respect the game of hockey and its traditions.  The line, the hand shake, it's one of hockey's greatest.  You spend an hour kicking the shit out of each other, and then, at the end, you line up, and shake hands, and say "good game" whether you want to or not.  At the end of a game like that I'd rather line up and tell them all to fuck off and punch them all in the teeth sure, but that's not our team, that's not the way that we play.  So we manned up, we shook the hand of the team that beat us, because when that final buzzer sounds, that's what you do.  And we did.

So we didn't win.  I wanted to sure, our team wanted to, but we didn't pull it out last night.  

Winter League starts in 3 weeks...   

Overtime

We won.

The first round of the playoffs are over, and they ended in a rather stunning fashion.

It might have been one of the best games played in that rink all summer.  It was a tight, hard fought contest from start to finish.  About thirty seconds, maybe a little more than that, forty five maybe, we scored the first goal.  Four minutes later they scored on a breakaway that I thought that I had, but it just skipped off my glove into the net.  They scored the second goal on a tipped shot, through a screen from the point on the right wing boards.  We tied it up a few minutes later, only to have the lead slip away again when they broke in on a two on one and scored on a bang-bang play, high on the stick side...  I know that it doesn't sound good at this point, but not to worry.  The first ended 3-2 for the bad guys.

We managed to tie the game on a brilliant singular effort that may have easily been one of the nicest goals that I witnessed all summer.  Jake, one of our centers, cut across the bottom of the right wing circle, turned two defense men inside out, and then leaning forward, shot across his body and over the shoulder of the opposing goaltender.  

The game ended tied 3-3, bring us to overtime.  Now, there is nothing better than sudden death, win or go home overtime.  While we were waiting for the overtime period to begin, I kept reminding the guys to stay loose, stay relaxed.  

Thirty seconds in to the overtime the game ended on an absolutely filthy wrap around goal.  Jubilation ensued.

So that's it, we won, and now we are in the finals, and will be playing my least favorite team, the Jailhouse.  The whinny little fuckers with their D1 players...  It will be a very difficult team to beat, but their goaltender and defense can be victimized if we pressure them as we should and isolate their key player.

So, Friday night, at 8 p.m. in Orleans, at the Charles Moore Arena, we'll be playing our second championship game of the year, as we we in the winter league championship game also.  We've been there, and yeah, it's just another men's league game, but for us, it does mean something, this is why you play organized sports, for the bragging rights, because that's all you'll come out of the season with.  That, and the camaraderie of your teammates, that bond, those friendships.  That's what getting this far, battling through the season, through single elimination playoff game that winds up in overtime, and coming out on top wins you, friendships that are unbreakable, almost like family...

Bearing down

In three days, the OMHL playoffs for the summer season begin.

We found out who our opponent will be last friday afternoon.  There was a bit of confusion as three teams tied for second place in terms of points. When we left the rink wednesday night after our win over the Jailhouse, we were under the impression that we would be playing them again this wednesday night in the first round of the playoffs.  With the three way tie however, that changed.  Now we'll be playing the team known as Top Gun.  They're a good young team, with a very solid goaltender.  

To tell you the truth, I was very happy to hear that was who our first round opponent was going to be, because I honestly don't want to see that Jailhouse team again unless I absolutely have to, which would be in the Championship game, provided that we both make it that far.  I like the first round match-ups though, and with the experience on our team, I like our chances.  Our guys have all been there before, and a lot of them played in competitive college hockey programs...  So a few men's league playoff games won't phase them.  Now some of the younger teams might get a case of nerves pre-game, I've seen it myself a few times, and with a team with our experience, it works in our favor.  

So for the next few days I'll be thinking about how their guys play, where they like to shoot, what their moves are, their preferences in our zone.  It's like I said, they are a good young team, and they've got all the moves.  The thing about them is that they play like a team, they don't have any standout players and the stick together, and stick up for each other.  They'll be a tough team to beat, but we're all looking forward to the challenge of playing them.  If we play our game, play smart and hard, and bear down every shift of that game, we'll be fine.  If we don't bear down, we're fucked, plain and simple.

Tough vs Dirty

We had our last regular season game of the OMHL summer session last night.  It was interesting to say the least.  Now, I thought about giving an overview of the game, as I would regularly do, but there is a little something else that is on my mind about our opponent from last night...

The team that we played is full of punks and cry babies.  I have never heard a team bitch and gripe as much as they do. With every whistle from the ref came screeching and whining about the call, or non-call for that matter.  I honestly wish that they (the refs) use the zero tolerance policy as it is spelled out.  Which is basically, "Open your fucking mouth in my direction and sit down for a minute and a half."  Seriously.  These fucking clowns need to shut the fuck up.  I'm tired of it, my teammates are tired of it, all of the other teams in the league are tired of it.  

The part that really kills me about these clowns is that they are a one trick pony.  They've got a kid on the team that is currently a starting first line winger for Northeastern University.  The nights that he shows up, he controls the game, and the nights that he doesn't show up, forget it, those retards couldn't find the opposing teams goal with a fucking map and a sherpa to guide them there...  Like I said, one trick pony.  

Last night was our third time facing them, with our previous two games not only ending up in the loss column, (for us) but also ending in a may-lay both times, because not only do they whine like a three year old kid that just had his lollypop taken away, they are, hands down, the dirtiest team in the league.  Now, there is a difference between being dirty, and being tough.   A tough team will get into it with you face to face, a tough team plays hard, but clean, and always to the whistle. They'll play with honor and dignity, and they are not afraid to take their medicine when it's their turn to take it.  Now a dirty team, well, that is just a team full of spineless rats, a team full of shitheads that will hit you when you're not looking, spear you the minute the refs turn their heads, they'll try to kick your skates out from under you, and when it comes time for them to have to take a little of that very same medicine, they bitch and whine about it like a couple of girls from Kentucky fighting over the last prom dress at the local Wal-Mart. 

Now, we are a tough team, we play hard, but we don't take any shit, and if you feel the need to square up with one of us, be ready, because we won't be fucking playing around.  The team we played last night, dirty little fairies.  A bunch of rats and cock suckers.  I'm tired of it, our team was tired of it, and we let them know it last night with the beating that we handed them.  It was a big win for us in a lot of ways, first, they had their full compliment of players, which includes the one trick pony.  Second, they beat us the previous two times that we played them.  Third we were down 2-0, and 3-1 early, but came back to win 7-5. (Although we should have won 6-3, but with 2 minutes left they pulled their goalie and went for broke, they got it to within one, but we managed an empty netter to seal the deal.)  Was the game chippy, hell yeah it was, but that is how games like that, against teams like those tend to go.  We decided early on not to take any shit from them, and we didn't

I would have to say that about four minutes into the game, I may have, um, accidentally set the tone for the game from that point on.  I went behind the goal to play the puck, and in an attempt to fire it high off the glass and out of the zone I accidentally caught one of their wingers in the throat with my stick.  I have to say this, it was an unpleasant sound.  Hollow.  Anyway, he's a little guy, possibly a borderline "little person," and when he came down the on the forecheck, he came in low.  Honestly, I never even saw him, and when I went to clear the puck out my follow through hit him right in the throat.  Whatever.  Big fucking deal.  It's not like I killed him, and like I said, it was an accident.  I've been hit in the throat a few times myself, and let me tell you, it's not much fun.  That being said though, I had an awfully hard time mustering up any remorse or even the slightest bit of guilt for it, and if you're wondering why it's because it was an accident.  Yep, I slept like a baby last night.  It's not my fault the kid is 5'2", or whatever ridiculously pathetic height he actually is.  I thought it was cute though, when we were going through the handshake line, that he felt the need to call me a "winner," to which I could only respond, "Well, yeah actually, tonight I am..."  Little prick.

It felt good to beat them, and it felt even better knowing that they blew it.  

So next week playoffs for the OMHL start, and just like in Dennis, it will be a one and done format, so if we fuck up, we're out, and if we don't, we keep playing.  

Playoffs, PLAYOFFS!?!?!?

So we had our playoff game for the Dennis Men's League last night...

I picked a bad night to play my worst hockey of the summer.  There is no doubt in my mind that had someone rolled a beach ball at me, it would have gone in.  In a word, I was "terrible."  I thought that the guys played great, they had a ton of chances at the offensive end of the ice, but were a little snake bit.  Four of five posts, a crossbar, and a goalie that WAS making the SAVES he was supposed to make.

I'm not going to sit here and try to come up with excuses about why I played so badly, or what went wrong, the fact is, I played horribly.  I let my team down, fortunately though, they didn't seem to care all that much.  Also, there was a little extracurricular activity with about three and a half minutes to go (we were tied at the time), but the penalties that we received put us down a man for the remainder of the game.  They scored twice in those last few minutes and that was that.

Anyway, I am going to put it out of my mind.  It happened, it's over, time to move on to the next game.  No sense losing sleep over it.

Two a days...?

So I managed to get to the rink yesterday afternoon to give those suspenders a try.  I like them.  They didn't take nearly as long to get used to as I thought that they would, HOWEVER, there was some, uh, chaffing.  You have to understand that I am one of the few players out there (that up until yesterday afternoon)  don't wear an undershirt beneath my gear.  I tried it once, but I get too hot, it makes me crazy.  Here's the thing about the suspenders, I like them enough to actually start wearing something under my gear, because like I said before, I can do without the chaffing.

So I picked up an Under Armor sleeveless compression shirt, which I promptly tried out at a 9:50 NESMHL game at Bavis in Rockland.  

I didn't expect to play a second time yesterday, but when I got off the ice in Orleans at a little after 4 p.m. I had a text message asking me (begging really) if I could skate at 9:50 that night.  Normally, I would have said no thanks, especially considering that I knew that I would be working  today (something that almost never happens on a Saturday).  However, me being me, it's almost impossible for me to say no to a request which involves me playing hockey, especially for this particular team in that particular league.  

Now, the team that asked me to skate for them is a solid team, it has a few grizzled veterans, a couple of young guys, and a few guys right in the middle, age wise anyhow, but all of them can play, and play smart.  They made the game easy for me last night, I swear I only saw five shots in the first period.  There is a funny thing that happens when a team skates with a goaltender that they don't normally skate with and aren't used to having behind them.  They play with a lot more defensive tenacity.  I would say that it takes about a period and a half for that to wear off, for both the goaltender, and the players to get comfortable with each other.  Hell, trust takes time, they need to trust me, and I need to trust them.  Over the long term, I'd say it takes roughly three to five full games to really understand how to play with each other.  There is without question a learning curve.  Anyhow, we were able to score in the first 15 seconds of that period, giving us a 1-0 lead heading into the second.

The second period saw the pace pick up quite a bit.  Both teams started pouring it on.  My opposition managed to get one past me about halfway through the second on a very nice bang-bang play.  The right winger was able to move the puck into the zone and set up down low just below the goal line, my left defenseman moved in, but the winger was able to swiftly pass the puck into the slot were the center was waiting (and more than likely drooling) to fire the puck into a (almost) wide open net.  I still feel that I should have been able to better anticipate the pass out of the corner and make the save, but just the same, it was a nice shot.  We managed to score again about a minute and a half later, and then again with less than ten seconds left in the period, giving us a 3-1 lead headed into the third.

The third period saw a big role reversal, because as far as I could see, the first two periods we carried the play.  In the third, those bastards on the other team came out looking for blood.  They spent the vast majority of the period "hanging" guys on our blue line, trying to, and in some cases, accomplishing the "home run pass" sending the cherry picking douche bag unfettered into our zone.  It only happened twice before we started putting someone on the hanger, which made it difficult for them to connect with those home run passes...  Fortunately, having a two goal cushion in the third period allowed us to sit back a little and play defense.  The opposition did manage to score a second goal with about seven minutes left in the third off what I would consider a TERRIBLE rebound on my part.  Jesus, I fucking hate giving up bad rebounds.  I also hate getting scored on.  Anyway, we scored again about a minute later, and then one more time with about three and a half to go in the final period.  

Add it up, and we won 5-2.  I like winning, actually, I fucking love winning, but I am never thrilled with an hour and ten minute ride home at 11:30 at night when I have to work the next morning.  Was it worth it?  Fuck, of course it was worth it, it was a chance for me to get on the ice, and it was the sixth time in as many days.  

Suspended for $8.60

I didn't play hockey last night, which as ridiculous as it sounds, makes me go crazy with boredom...  I feel like I have nothing to do, I have no need for my afternoon nap, no reason to go through my ritualistic/wildly neurotic bag packing/unpacking.  Worst of all, I have no reason to be at the rink (and no, don't worry, I didn't go to the rink last night).  

I did however buy suspenders yesterday for my goalie pants, because lately, since I bought a new (and thankfully much more protective and bigger) chest and arm protector, I've had some issues with the fit of my pants.  I know that I have mentioned more than once my neurotic tendencies in regard to preparing for hockey games,  but when it comes to my equipment, holy shit.  I swear there is something wrong with me.  I have gone through three chest protectors, four pairs of pants, five gloves, four blockers, five sets of leg pads, and have tried out at least ten different sticks, and three masks...  All in the last ten months.  Yes, in less than a year I have gone through that much gear.  

I have happily however found just the right fit with just about everything that I use most often, but the pants, those God damned pants.  I actually love the shape of the pant, and the level of protection (there was actually too much padding internally around the thighs, so I had to cut a lot of it out as it restricted my mobility), but the fit at the waste is an issue.  I'm a slight guy, I don't have a gut, I haven't reached the point where I could give a shit about my appearance, I'm not going to lie, I'm vain as hell, in fact, my vanity is the reason (partially) that I have so much equipment.  I like my equipment to match the colors of the team that I am playing with.  Simple right, and a little retarded/possibly gay.  You wouldn't believe the shit that I catch in the locker room from guys about my gear.

(Oh, yeah, I'm going to use the word "retarded" and if you don't like it, piss off, and, I use the word "gay."  So all of you politically correct retards out there can piss off and stop being gay about it and get over it).

Digression, sorry, the fit of the pants, right.  They have a nylon belt that you can cinch up to get them tight around the waste, but after a year of trying to deal with the poor fit I broke down and bought some suspenders.  I have always sworn that I wouldn't wear them, and to this point I never have.  Mostly because I am concerned about my mobility, and I am not thrilled about having the straps on my shoulders (I don't wear a tee shirt, or Under Armor like most guys do under their gear.  Again, 20 years of wearing your gear a certain way will make you hesitant about making a change.) but I figured that I would give them a try.  Hell, they were only $8.60, I figured I could take a chance on them...

So I am going to try them out this at 3 this afternoon. I need to play today, borderline HAVE to play.  If I don't, I will more than likely have to go four days without playing, and I haven't done that in over a month, since the weekend of the fourth of  July.  Oh, and did I mention that playoffs for the Dennis Summer Men's League start on Monday?  So there is no fucking way that I am going to go four days without playing, and is also why I am going to try out the suspenders today at a stick session as opposed to Monday, in a playoff game.

Exciting shit right, suspenders for goalie pants...?  At least I wasn't writing about trying to find the perfect goalie cup...

Happy beer drinking winners...

I got to the rink early, as I do every wednesday night, sharpened some skates, got loose, talked to the guys who play the game before us for a bit before I made it into our locker room to begin my somewhat superstitious, and the undeniably ritualistic process of getting dressed for our game.

I start by emptying out the contents of my goalie bag, hanging my chest and arm protector on the wall, and then hanging my game jersey next to it.  I tuck my goalie pants under the locker room bench, place my skates, glove, blocker, and other miscellaneous items on either side of me on the bench...  This process, the emptying out of my bag allows me to one, relax a little, and two, figure out if I left anything at home.  (Which I have done once or twice, I don't even want to talk about the time that I left my skates at home...)  I'm a bit of a neurotic freak show when it comes to getting dressed.  I put everything on in the same order every single time that I get dressed, without fail.  Compression shorts, sanitary socks, hockey socks, cup, goalie pants, right skate, left skate, right pad, left pad...  I tape my left thumb and index finger, and then tape my right index finger.  Then I watch about ten minutes of the game that is being played just before ours.   

I head back into the locker room about a minute before the game ends, put on my chest and arm protector and jersey, and then head out to the bench as the zamboni begins to make its first pass on the ice.  This affords me a solid eleven minutes to stretch myself out.  

Last night, my pre game went exactly that way.  I knew however that we'd be short at least two regulars, so I had made a few calls during the afternoon to fill in some of the gaps, and it's amazing to me how the simple addition of two exceptional players made such a huge difference.  One of the players (Alex) wore the "C" at St. Michael's College in VT, and the other (Devon) played for, and also wore the "C" at Williams College.  Both guys are in their mid to late twenties, so they're not like the young pups that we play against, but their collective experience trumps youth.  They seemed to have a calming affect on our regulars, we ran around less, passes seemed a little more crisp, and we were able to cycle the puck considerably better, which resulted in a more scoring chances than we are used to having.  It payed dividends, we managed to score six goals last night, a feat that we have not accomplished since our first game of the summer session.

Now, for my part, I felt better, more in tune.  My legs, my feet, my arms, my hands, well, they all worked in unison.  I was making the saves that I should have been making, and some saves that I had no business making.  Their first goal came off a ridiculous scramble in front of the net, they managed five or six shots in what felt like an eternity (though it was probably only about thirty to forty five seconds) before they were able to poke it in.  The second goal was an amazing shot through a screen that just caught the inside corner of the goal post and went in, had it been a quarter inch to the left it would have bounced of the post to the corner boards.  LIke I said, it was a perfect shot.  The third goal, yeah, well, I own that one.  It was a partial breakaway, and I let up on it a bit, I thought my defenseman had him cold, and even if he didn't I recognized out of the corner of my eye that my second defenseman was about to be Johnny on the spot.  I was wrong.  He beat us all and fired the puck past my outstretched leg.

Like I said though, we managed six, and if you do the math, that means that we won by three.  Now, I don't give a shit if we win by three, ten, or one, all I care about is winning (and not playing like a donkey in the process), because when we win, I'm happy.  The guys are happy, and beer always tastes better when you are a happy winner...