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...
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