Silly Stick Time

We’ve missed our Thursday morning stick times the past two weeks. Even though I promptly curled back up under the covers after turning the 5 am alarm off, I wasn’t going to miss it this week.

As I got in the truck, I saw our “Sharks territory” sign. They sent a bunch out to people they can take pictures of them while on vacation. We got a few on our trip up to Seattle last weekend.

 

I’d forgotten to take the sign out of the truck. So it was back into the house to find the camera – if there are only the two of us on the ice, why not be a bit (okay, a lot) silly?

 

I remembered to put the camera in my gear bag, but I forgot the sign. by the time Keith mentioned it, we were already half dressed. I considered walking out to the truck wearing half my hockey gear but for some reason decided against it.

 

The ice was, once again, all ours. Not quite as perfect as some mornings; there were a few ruts here and there but they weren’t deep. We managed to ignore the camera for the majority of the hour. Did some transitions and I fell and smacked my head on the one I tried with speed. Doh! Then I fell and smacked my head again while doing crossovers. Double doh!

 

After that, I decided to just skate and not challenge myself. By the end of the hour, crossovers/lane changes were smooth on both sides, and right foot stops were beginning to feel “right” again. No huge leaps of improvement, but a good skate overall.

 

We couldn’t ignore the camera completely. All that ice and just the two of us… even without the Sharks sign, we managed to get more than a bit silly. 😀

The dropzone is having it’s annual party – the American Boogie – this weekend.  Four days of skydiving, four nights of partying.  I won’t be jumping but I will be heading out to visit (and drink) with friends. Good times!

Catching Edges

It was a long weekend. Had to make a trip up near Seattle to pick up a new toy. We drove 1300 miles in three days, and still made it home in time to rest a bit before hockey class last night. 

We’d managed to avoid the hottest day of the weekend by being out of town (it was well over 102 degrees throughout the area on Saturday), but it was still plenty hot Sunday. The ice was about what we expected after that much heat… it pretty much sucked. Ruts everywhere and soft enough that the pucks were sticking to it  

Caught my first edge on the snake drill and down I went. Crossovers are easy on the awesome ice at 6:00 in the morning at Vacaville. Not so much at 7:30 pm after a full day of usage at Skatetown. 

I was happy with my right foot stops for once – even with a bit of speed. And my transtions weren’t bad either, even once front to back with some speed. Have had mental blocks for both of those for months now so it felt really good to do them. 

Jeff had us working on the slick move involving almost stopping then skating backwards. I’ve been doing this fairly well leading with my right foot, but have been having issues leading with the left. He made us work on both and I managed one or two decent transitions leading with the left. And then as I was doing one with the right, I caught an edge in a rut and down I went, legs flailing in opposite directions as I hoped they didn’t cross themselves up underneath me. 

At this point I was beginning to wonder if I wasn’t too tired to be out there. But I soldiered on to the next drill – short passes all the way down the ice, ending with a shot on goal. First couple went okay, even with the sticky ice. Third time I went down hard on my left hip and I was reminded that my pants don’t really provide a whole lot of protection in that area.

Managed another run, in which the puck got stuck and I left it behind. The hip was not happy, so I skated over to the bench to get a drink and sit for a few minutes. I knew nothing was broken but sitting on that cheek wasn’t the hot tip. After five minutes or so, I decided to give up for the evening and went to get out of my gear.

After taking my stuff to the car, I got back in time to watch one of Keith’s shifts in the scrimmage. He was playing defense instead of his usual offense, and he did good. A couple nice plays and I could tell he was thinking about positioning.

We hung out for a beer after he was done, watching Blue Thunder play on rink 1 (which is conviently located on the other side of some windows by the snack bar) and chatting with some of the people from the class. Despite the owie, it was still a good evening of hockey.

As I type this, it’s two days later and the hip is much better. Haven’t even had to take any vitamin I (ibuprofen).

Catching Up (Hi Jack!)

 

Fifty percent of my readership has been giving me shit about not updating this blog. My apologies to both of them for the long delay.

Life has been loads of fun since I last posted. April was a good month, despite the stupid Sharks and their less than hoped for performance in the playoffs. They even had the audacity to lose their last game on the evening of April 21st.

Which just happened to be mere hours after Keith and I took the big plunge. We jumped from an airplane with two good friends, finished the skydive with a few words on the ground in front of our families and we were married. 😀

Mr and Mrs 😀

 

The Pandora 3 on 3 league was SO MUCH FUN!! In the course of three evenings, I learned an amazing amount. By the last night, I could almost think and skate at the same time. Very basic skating and very limited thinking, but still. Progress!

And I loved playing with other women – they didn’t make it easy on me but they weren’t excessively aggressive like some of the guys in the class can be. The challenge of trying to defend against someone who is magnitudes better at the game than I am was awesome.

Unfortunately we have other plans for two of the five nights planned for summer, but I hope to be able to play one or two of them.

 

 

Class has been going well. We’ve progressed to doing far more hockey drills than skating drills; last night was pretty much all break out drills after our warmup drills. It’s interesting to watch the improvement in everybody’s skills, both skating and playing, over the past couple months. It is most visible in the scrimmages; there is much less “bunchy puck” and more position play. People are starting to go to where they need to be to make a play instead of going to the puck, and fewer defensemen are randomly becoming forwards..

I’ve decided to stick with defense, which works well since most of the boys want to be forwards. Got three shifts each in the last two scrimmages and was very happy with my overall play. Some nice keep ins in the offensive zone and a few nice plays in the defensive zone. And I’m thinking more about the game than I am about my skating while I’m out there – which is a long way from where I started!

We are down to one sticktime a week right now instead of the two that we’d like to do. The Thursday 6:15 am sticktime at Roseville has been our favorite; we like the morning workout, the ice is nice and it usually isn’t crowded. But then we discovered that Vacaville has one at 6:30 on Thursdays.

Vacaville is 15 minutes closer to the house, which means he can skate for an hour and still make it to work on time. So we checked it out two weeks ago.

We were the only people on the ice. Beautiful, fast, hard, dry, smooth ice. And it was all ours. Same thing happened last Thursday. Heaven!

My skating has improved quite a bit. Crossovers in both directions are now pretty much owned; lately I’ve been working on using them to “change lanes”, which is easier without a puck than with one but will be a handy tool to have in my toolbox. Left foot stops are done with speed, right foot stops… yeah, they’ll come back eventually. That cool move from forward to backward changing direction is coming along nicely.

 Next up – backwards crossovers!

 

 

Scrimmage!

It was a great week in hockey.

 

We made it to the 6:15 am stick time on Thursday. I really love the early morning ice and am beginning to love the early morning workout. Not to mention the relative lack of people who show up at that ungodly hour.

Crossovers are coming along nicely. Right turns are still tough, but to the left I was riding the edge on each foot for a bit before putting the other one down. Discovered that when I’m following someone around the circle I’m much smoother than when I’m alone around the circle. Assuming that focusing on something other than what my feet are doing is behind that. Sure felt good!

We ended the session with some sprints. Working up to ending our sticktimes with suicides, but for now red line to goal line was about enough.

The crappy weather on Saturday didn’t deter us from making the trek to Oakland to visit Hockey Xsport. He needed a new helmet and we both wanted some new socks and practice jerseys. I picked up a light blue jersey and matching socks, a couple rolls of tape and a mouthguard. He got a new Mission helmet with cage (on sale for $44), dark blue jersey and matching socks, more tape and a mouthguard. It’s always fun to wander around there drooling.

Sunday morning found me at the rink at 8:15, three dozen snickerdoodles in hand, ready to help out with Pandora’s 3 on 3 Iron Man tournament. The teams were playing for “all the cookies” – the prize turned out to be pretty cool. A grey jar with a screw on cup on top; one of the women hand painted the Pandora logo on the jar and we filled it with about 8 dozen cookies topped with more in the cup. It looked awesome!

I helped a bit with registration, then slowly got the bbq area set up with Linda and Christy. Watched a bit of the tournament; if what I saw is any indicator, the 3 on 3 league is going to be so much fun!

Had to leave before the bbq and raffle because my son was passing through and offered to buy me lunch.

Had a bit of downtime in the afternoon while Keith was out working/jumping at the dropzone. A light dinner when he got home and back to the rink I went.

Arriving before 7pm is the hot tip for the most room in the locker room. We were dressed and out of there before it started to get crowded. Did some stretching and sat on the bench while the Zamboni did it’s thing. Noticed that the ice appeared a lot more rutted than it looked when I saw it at 8:15 am, before the 3 on 3.

It was only Jeff working with us as Brian and Eric were in San Jose with the Capital Thunder. They made the finals of the statewide tournament. After warming up, he put us through the now standard skating drills – push and glide, scooters, swizzles, stops – and added a couple runs backwards. Finished off the skating drills with the snake – starting in one corner, around each circle, around the center circle, around the two other circles, ending in a corner. A big line of people snaking around the rink. Lots of carnage along the way as people work on crossovers. That’s one of my favorite skating drills.

We had three goalies on the ice with us. Found out later over beers that one of them, Keith, took the class a couple years ago and just bought goalie gear so he’ll be joining us to learn his new position. One of the others was the teenager that was with us for our last class.

While we were waiting for what would be next, Jillian showed up on the bench and called me over. I’d won some stuff in the raffle! A really nice Blackhawks sweatshirt (it’s nice enough that I’ll wear it even though I’m not a Chicago fan), an NHL tshirt and a commemerative puck. Not a bad haul for a $5 investment.

Jeff broke us up into two groups, one at each end, and had us do some drills involving runs at the net. First we came up from the corners, one carryin the puck, cut across inside the blue line, drop pass, 2 on goalie run at the net. After a few runs at that, Jeff had us add a defenseman.

Wow, did I suck. Managed to pick up and drop the pass, but did a horrible job at defense. Gonna blame it on being tired…

We got to spend the last fifteen minutes scrimmaging, 6 on 6 (plus goalies). I played three shifts, all defense. Got to the corner ust in time to pick up and clear the puck when Bitsy got there a half second before me but overskated it.

And I took out Natasha. She had the puck, so I flat out tripped her. Dang near got a skate blade in the face mask for my trouble, too. We checked that we were both okay and then we both apologized. Never knew hockey could be such a great way to meet people, did ya? 😉

We’re going to have to be the first ones off the ice from now on. Either that or I’ll just go use the womens dressing room. There was no space to get undressed; Keith ended up using the middle of the floor and I was having to be very careful to not cut someone’s gear bag with my skate blades.

The beers were cold and the conversations were interesting later on though. Watched some of a bronze league game on rink 1 as I drank – there are a couple women from Pandora (including Jillian) on one of the teams that was playing.

Going to the 6:15 sticktime tomorrow morning, then it’s going to be a long week without ice time – no class on Sunday due to Easter. We do get to go to the last Sharks game of the year on Saturday night. We were hoping that it would be a game that wasn’t important so we could just enjoy it, but no. The Sharks have to do everything the hard way this season. They have to win their last two games to be sure of a playoff slot. And if they lose, the Kings get that slot. And of course both games are against the Kings. It should be an amazing game regardless of how it comes out on the scoreboard; I’m sure hoping that it’s LA’s skaters who will be playing golf next week and not the Sharks!

Oh, and that I’m the one who wins Dan Boyle’s jersey off his back. 😉

All Hockey, All Weekend Long

Life got in the way and we didn’t get on the ice at all last week. I kinda felt bad when I asked him if I could go to the Pandora practice Saturday evening while he was stuck working at the dropzone – but not bad enough to stay home when he encouraged me to go.

Once again I managed to string together several seconds of competency here and there amidst minutes of suckage. Pushed it a bit harder and really felt the edges on the first drill, which was almost a C cut on one foot, alternating. Builds a lot of speed – and looks really cool – if done correctly. Fell down doing a transition; managed to avoid hitting my head and got up laughing at myself. I used to be able to do those just fine!

I did a lot of laughing at myself. At one point, Randy noticed and commented “at least you’re still having fun!” To which I agreed heartily. I’m having so much fun sucking at this; every time I’m on the ice I learn something, get a good workout and laugh a lot.

We broke up into two groups again; there were five of us working with Randy. He asked what we wanted to work on and the consensus seemed to be crossovers. Front and back. I passed on the back crossovers again, choosing to work on speed going backwards. I started to feel left foot over right (right turn) front crossovers though, and right over left was a bit smoother than last week. Small improvements, but improvements none the less.

After some skating, he had us stand around a faceoff circle and do one touch passes to each other. That was fun – and challenging! We did really good… until he added in the skating around the circle and passing to each other part. We weren’t quite as capable at that!

We also worked on shooting, with an emphasis on trying to elevate the puck. I didn’t get it to elevate, but I did hit the spot I wanted to hit a few times. Sure wish we had a place at home to practice shooting.

Pandora is hosting a cross ice 3 on 3 tournament on April 1st and a 6 week cross ice 3 on 3 league starting the week after. Since most of the women there plan to take part, we did a few minutes of 3 on 3 scrimmage at the end of practice.

SO much fun! With 1/3 of the ice space, the pace is fast and furious. I made a few nice defensive plays (used my body to angle a forward away from the net, lifted a stick and got the puck out of our zone with a tape to tape pass) and a couple not so good ones (don’t go off the ice when the other team is heading toward your goal, dumbass).

Keith was heading home from the dropzone when I texted him from the locker room. He suggested that I stay for a beer and I’m glad I did. The conversations covered a variety of topics, but what stuck in my mind were the comments that the experienced women were making about playing with guys. One woman has had multiple concussions due to the actions of overzealous male players. The original Pandora team had issues with male teams getting physical with them (especially after Pandora had beaten them in a previous game).

Hockey is an aggressive and dangerous sport, but I was hoping to play without another major injury. In my Pollyanna world, everybody wants to play without anybody getting injured. But apparently not everybody cares if others get injured. I’ve already become a bit leery of playing with guys after seeing some of the bronze league games. Hearing from women who are good at this say that they don’t like playing with guys has me thinking hard about wanting to play in the co-ed league.

Jillian said that there are almost enough interested women to put together a four team, 5 on 5 full ice “league of our own” though. The teams would be a mix of experience levels (no “ringer” teams) and the focus would be on competing, yes, but also on fun and learning and getting out there playing hockey. I’m stoked on this idea, and I hope that it can happen soon! I’ll be getting the word out to all the women in the class for sure.

While I was a bit tired Sunday morning the muscles weren’t sore. Surprising considering how hard I worked them Saturday night. I was wondering how the body was going to handle skating two nights in a row so Sunday was spent storing up energy (IOW, watching hockey in our pj’s).

Arrived early enough to be one of the first in the locker room and subsequently one of the first on the bench waiting for the Zamboni to finish up. Got some stretching in and spent the last minute or so sitting on the boards. No, I didn’t hop off when it was time; I gingerly set my skates on the ice like I was anticipating a fall.

I didn’t fall then, but I did later. Started with more skating drills – scooters, one foot glides, swizzles, stopping, even an attempt at touching one knee to the ice and getting back up. And then we were all lined up against the boards and Jeff told us to race around the outside of the rink.

Chaos. Bodies colliding into bodies, falling down and sliding across the ice into other skaters feet… I stayed to the inside and avoided contact, all the while marveling at how aggressive nearly everyone was being.

Broke up into groups and we started with Brian again. This week he had us learning front crossovers. Started with turning to the left; nearly everyone – even the very much beginners – managed at least one step and everyone remembered to keep their knees bent. I managed to get all the way around the faceoff circle without a stutter step.

Then we tried the other direction. And I didn’t do bad – yes, I was stutter stepping a bit and yes I did fall down once but I also felt what it’s supposed to feel like (for a second anyway). With a bit more time spent on one foot riding the edges since I first tried this, I’m beginning to think that I really will OWN crossovers one day.

Eric had us do more swizzles, one foot turns and stopping. A good leg workout. Just wish he would provide a bit of coaching along with setting up the drills.

Jeff introduced puck handling with some stationary dribbling and a few runs around a cone and at the goal. I thought I was doing better at skating a puck toward the net than what I did there. I’m going to blame the fact that it was the end of the session and I was tired. Yeah. That’s it.

There were no league games (new season starts next weekend) so the snack bar was closed, which interfered with our plan to have a beer and meet some more people. Instead we loaded the gear up and headed home.

While facebooking, I got a message from Jillian asking if I was in for the 3 on 3 league. Told her I wasn’t but possibly could be if they needed a body and didn’t care about my noviceness. How big was my smile this morning when I opened facebook to find a message from her asking me to play part of the games on her team!

I’m so excited. I get to play hockey with people who are better than me. I’m going to learn so much!

The body handled two nights of skating better than I expected.  I feel about like I did after the first classes last year; sore muscles but nothing unbearable.  Glad I’m not skating today, though.

Just Like Starting Over

Sunday was a long day. An impromptu trip to the Central Valley for the weekend found us arriving home around noon. He then went to the dropzone to video a tandem while I tried to get at least something done around the house. A short nap and a light dinner later, it was almost time to go.

Close enough. Arrived at the rink at 6:30. Picked up our skates at the pro shop, then picked up our free practice jersey (part of the class). We were hoping to catch part of the Bronze league champioship game, but it started at 6:45 and we decided to go get ready in case we could get on the ice early.

Good idea that was, and one that will be repeated. There are two dressing rooms available for the class to use, and as we later found out there are over 30 people in the class. The one we chose wasn’t crowded at this point, but it was beginning to be when we were walking out. A very different story at the end of the class though.

Did a few stretches, then we went over to sit on the bench and watch the Zamboni go by. Over the next 15 minutes we were joined by a good number of people. Finally it was time; Jeff threw a bagful of pucks on the ice and off we went.

They let us skate around with pucks for around ten minutes. It was pretty obvious to me that they were assessing our skating skills. I was pleased to see that we aren’t the worst skaters on the ice, and that there seem to be very few absolute beginners (ie where we were last year). We aren’t the only ones repeating; there are at least a couple people from the last class doing it again. And I counted at least 5 women out there.

The instructors are the same as last time; Jeff and Brian, with Brian’s son Eric helping out. It was nice to be recognized as Jeff called roll. After my name, he said “she can tell you all about injuries” 😉 Brian gave Keith a “welcome back” when his name was called.

Started with the whole class doing skating drills board to board. Back to the basics – push and glide, snowplow stops, scooters, swizzles, knee slides, supermans. Happy with my performance on everything except one foot swizzles and gliding on my left foot. Managed to get back up with momentum from the knee slide. Not much momentum, but more than I had left when I got up from the superman.

I was snow plowing to stop for the first drills, but by the end of the class I was starting to do hockey stops leading with my left foot. Which is strange for two reasons. One, the left is the broken one; I should be aftraid to use it like that, but it feels right. Two – before I broke, my right foot stops were way better than my left, and now I’m nervous as can be about them. Wierd how fear works sometimes.

We broke up into three groups to work different stations. We started with Brian, who had us doing glide turns around cones. Edge work, yay! I was really happy with my first run, not so much with my second or third.

Next was more work on scooters and swizzles with Eric. He set us up a good drill – scooter to the cone, turn, swizzle to another cone, turn, swizzle to another cone, turn, scooter back to the boards. Put some extra effort into doing scooters gliding on the left foot.

Last station was more stopping with Jeff. He’s already starting us on the beginnings of the hockey stop, which he didn’t do until the 2nd or 3rd week last time. Hoping that measn this class is a bit more advanced than we were so we can be doing more advanced stuff by September.

Put a lot of focus on staying low in a proper hockey position as I was doing the drills. I could tell this by the joy exuding from my quads and the fact that my lower back didn’t hurt at the end of the class.

Made the mistake of not being the first ones off the ice, and paid for that when we got to the locker room and couldn’t even get to our gear bags. I got a bit pushy and kinda forced my way into the corner around a teenager (not sure what they were doing in the room assigned to an adult class, but anyway). Peeled my gear off and stuffed it in the bag as quick as I could, then got out of there so Keith could have some room to do the same. From now one it’s either be first off the ice, or hang out for 10 minutes chatting before taking our gear off.

Spent a good hour hanging out after class, chatting with Jeff and meeting a few people from the class. One of the women, Bitsy, seems really awesome. She’s a marathon runner with three little kids. Her 6 year old is playing hockey and he told her that she should too, so she is.

On a gear note, I really noticed the sharpened blades. The edges seemed much crisper and easier to ride. I’m also loving the fit of my skates. They get a bit more comfortable every time I use them

On The Edges

The angry nerve in my neck took a few days, but it had mostly gotten over it by Wednesday morning.  Perfect timing, as we planned to make the early stick time at Skatetown this morning.

If only the 6:15 am stick time didn’t come with a 4:30 am wakeup. Oh sure, I could roll out of bed at 5:15, load the gear and go but I much prefer having 45 minutes or so to wake up before leaving the house. I beat the alarm this morning and had time to enjoy a bowl of oatmeal with my coffee and facebook before getting dressed and loading the car.

I’ve mentioned this before – the ice is really nice at that hour. Dry and fast and cold. We shared it with 10 or so other people, including a goalie. As usual, most of them were way better than we are.

My focus for the morning was edges, with a secondary emphasis on staying low. Spent a bit of time doing crossovers around a circle, focusing on staying low and really riding the edge of one skate before putting the other one down. Very happy with my progress to the left (right foot over left crossover). The steps were much smoother than they were on Saturday. I can spend more time on the right foot (inside edge) than the left (outside edge), but it’s coming along.  Crossovers in the other direction… well, it’s good that we’re starting with basic skills again on Sunday.

Also spent time gliding on one foot, shifting my weight so I was going from edge to edge or riding (mostly the inside) edge, turning. Again, the right foot is much stronger than the left, which surprises me not. and reminds me that I need to spend more time working on left leg only balance exercises.

Did a lot more backwards skating than I have since getting back on the ice. Got some speed going around a circle and going down the boards; love the feeling of going fast backwards! The breeze up the pants is a nice bonus.

Of course we had to do some sexy stuff. Spent about half of our time skating with pucks, passing (skating front/back and cross ice while skating) and making runs at the goal. One of the guys on the ice told me that I’m holding my stick too close (elbows in too tight) – I hadn’t even noticed it, and made a point to keep it out further for the rest of the hour. Which helped my puck handling and passing. It’s random tips like this that make being on the ice with people who know what they are doing so valuable to me at this point.

The emphasis on staying low, the additional time spent going backwards and the amount of time spent skating as opposed to gliding combined to leave me with sore quads at the end of the hour. It’s two hours later as I type this and they are still letting me know how much fun they had.

Dropped our skates off to be sharpened as we left the rink. We have about 10 skates on them; no clue if they really need to be sharpened but it doesn’t cost much. We’ll pick them up when we get to the rink for the first class on Sunday.

Oh, and my Sharks are sucking.  Worried that they won’t make the playoffs… that hasn’t happened since I started watching hockey.  I don’t think I want to know what it’s like either.  😦

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Quidditch and Face Planting

Keith came with me to the Pandora practice Saturday evening. We showed up early enough to get registered for the learn to play class that starts next Sunday. We were numbers 21 and 22 and they hadn’t even done the free intro class yet; looks like it will be another full class. Very excited about starting at the beginning again. Time spent now working on basic skating will pay off in the future… and judging by my skating on Saturday night, that time will be well spent.

Got dressed and went rinkside to get some stretching in. There was a high school age guys game scheduled right after our practice; the local traveling team, the Capitol Thunder, against a traveling team from Oakland. Most of the local team was milling about outside the locker rooms. Very impressed with the appearance of all of these young men; they were clean cut and dressed in matching warmups – with collared shirts and ties even. And they didn’t point and laugh when they saw me flailing on the ice a few minutes later.

Me flailing on the ice

Our coach for the evening, Randy, whistled us together after a few minutes warm up. I’d already noticed him on the ice, not only because he’s a guy but because he is one of the most fluid and natural skaters I’ve seen. It’s like walking or maybe even breathing to him. I soon found that his coaching skills are fantastic too.

The theme for the night would be edgy. We spent a lot of time on our edges, right from the very first drill. Flashes of adequacy surrounded by some good effort and a lot of laughing at myself… I’ll get there.

I was feeling pretty good when we started doing transitions. I even went at it with speed, front to back… and then I face planted. Cage hit ice and I felt tingly all the way to my fingertips. Oh joy. Took a deep breath, got up and skated slowly back to the line. After a few minutes, the only lingering effects seemed to be some random wierd pain in my hands. No blood, nothing broken, no need to leave the ice. If you’re gonna be tough, you better be stupid!

Knee slides were one of my favorite things to do in the class. Randy took ’em one step further and had us go to one knee, then back up, then down on the other knee. Which would be one hell of a quad workout if I could only keep the skate on the ice straight so I don’t end up falling over. I almost managed it once, after Randy skated over to give me some tips. Giggling the whole way. (me, not him. If he was, he hides it well ;-)).

He then had us do what I’m going to call the Quidditch drill (apologies to non-Harry Potter fans). We skated halfway down the ice then put our sticks between our legs, sat down and tried to ride our sticks as far as we could. O. M. G. We were all laughing. Some even made it almost all the way top the end, but most of us ended up on our butts.

Water break.

 After doing a few more skating drills as a group, we then broke up into two groups – the good players went to one end to do more advanced drills while the five or six of us that are less skilled worked on more skating and a bit of passing with Randy.

Randy working with one of the other women

He had us doing front crossovers around the circle, but he emphasized spending time on each foot before putting the other one down. That and staying low. And for a bit there I was really feeling it. Yeah, there were still plenty of stutter steps, but fewer than in the past.

Then we went at it backwards. He said that once we picked up speed we should try the back crossover. I got plenty of speed – so much fun to zip around the circle backwards! – but didn’t find the courage to try the crossover. Yet. I’ll get there. For I will own crossovers, front and back. Soon.

We did some stationary passing practice, forehand and backhand. Very happy with my forehand passing and receiving, and the backhand is coming along as well. The time we spent playing with the junior sticks and the Green Biscuit when we couldn’t skate paid off, and shows me that we should be doing more of it.

Lined up for passing drill

Had just enough time to run a passing drill before the scrimmage time. This one was a pair, passing between them, turning at the blue line and doing a one on one back to the goal. The girl I paired up with was good; we made good passes and then I managed to poke it away from her once on the way back.

And then we scrimmaged. Too much fun. I played two shifts, all defense, and focused on positioning in the defense zone. Bashed the puck away a couple times, had some “incidental contact” and managed to plan ahead and be in the right place to take away the wrap around when she came around behind the net. Drills are fun and practicing is good, but there really isn’t anything quite like playing the game – and I have still yet to play an actual game!

My hands were getting pretty sore by the end of the hour. Got undressed and met up with Keith, expecting to stop by the pro shop to leave the skates to be sharpened. But the pro shop was already closed. I told him about the head butt I gave to the ice and how it was getting somewhat uncomfortable. But when he suggested Five Guys burgers and fries for dinner, well, it wasn’t hurting that bad…

By 7:30 pm, I was not a happy camper. Managed to get good sleep though, and Sunday was a bit better. This morning I’m typing without too much discomfort, which is better than yesterday. I think I angered a nerve in my neck when I face planted. Much ice, ibuprofen and rest and I’ll be back to my regular programming in a few days. Lesson learned? Don’t faceplant!!

 

You Can Play

A long and busy weekend. Didn’t make it to the rink on Saturday; Blue Thunder’s game was at 10 pm, not 10 am. Good thing we noticed before we drove out there. Sunday was spent at the dropzone teaching a basic canopy skills course, which involves quite a bit of walking and multiple trips up and down stairs. We thought about making the Monday evening stick time at Iceland, but both of us were still a bit too tired when he got home from work. Setting the alarm tonight so we can make a 6:15 am skate at Skatetown tomorrow, then I’m off to the Sierra foothills for a few days of enjoying the views and the company on a friend’s amazing property.

Today I found yet another reason that I love the sport of hockey – the You Can Play Project. Go check out the video on their home page. It’s okay, I’ll wait here for you.

Pretty cool, isn’t it? I’m straight and always have been, but as a tomboy who preferred jeans and Tonkas over dresses and dolls and then worked in male-dominated industries, there have always been people who assume I am a lesbian (or “at least bisexual”). I have a bit of an idea as to what my gay, lesbian and bi friends have to deal with in their daily lives, but I can’t imagine what it is like having to keep it a secret that you are in love with someone. Seeing professional hockey players stand up and say they don’t care about sexual orientation when it comes to their teammates is awesome.

And this project isn’t just about professional hockey, or even just professional sports. It’s about every locker room, every dugout, every bench, every field, regardless of the age or overall skill of the players.  I posted a link on my facebook page and was really happy when Jillian, the “leader” of Pandora, posted that she took the Captain’s Challenge. Makes me even more stoked to be a part of Pandora.

Speaking of which, another Pandora practice is coming up on Saturday evening. Keith may even come to watch (take pictures?) and get us registered for the learn to play class.

Have I mentioned lately how happy I am to be back on skates? 😀

Random Thoughts

Ah… the joys of being a middle aged female. I sometimes think it was better for everyone for me to have PMS for a few days a month, because when the internal thermostat goes haywire and the insomnia kicks in, it’s like PMS on steriods. Got no sleep on Tuesday night and very little on Wednesday night; after Tuesday’s bitch attack at stick time, there was no way I was going to get on the ice with anybody – it just wouldn’t be fair to them. He was still a bit physically sore from Tuesday so we decided to blow off the Thursday morning stick time that we’d been planning to hit.

The decision has been made – both of us will be taking the learn to play class that starts this month. Looking forward to it, partly for the reinforcement of the basic skating skills I learned last year, partly for the new stuff I still have to learn and partly for the weekly workout. I always left the ice sweaty and worn out after class; they work us much harder than we work ourselves at stick times.

In doing some reading on conditioning and strength building for hockey, I found an exercise that will help build quads and improve one foot balance. It’s fairly simple – stand on one foot, bent knee, hips back, chest up; when the knee of the other leg touches the calf of the leg you are standing on, you’re there. Then have a friend poke you – not hard, not trying to push you over, just enough to make you have to work to maintain your balance. The coach that suggested this said to start with 10 seconds on each leg and work up from there to 30 seconds on each leg.

This one is tough! I can do just about 10 seconds on each leg right now, without anyone poking at me. I’ve added it (sans poking) to the toe lifts and knee bends that I’m already doing to rebuild muscle in my left leg. I’m sure my neighbors think I’m insane when they see me on the porch, balancing on one foot like a heron.

I’ve also started spending some time holding my stick. Out at 90 degrees from my body. With one arm, extended. For a minute at a time. Feel the burn.

Also found some tips on nutrition. As a lifelong lover of chocolate, the suggestion that chocolate milk is the perfect recovery drink after a workout is almost like being told I can have ice cream for breakfast. Will be stocking up on that, especially for after class (before beers). Still trying to figure out a few good pre-skate meals, both breakfast (early am stick times) and dinner.

Heading out to Skatetown tomorrow to watch Blue Thunder in their first playoff game and get signed up for the class. And then we spend all day Sunday at the dropzone, teaching a canopy control course.

It’s only Friday and I’m already jonesing to be on the ice. It’s going to be a long weekend.