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Game two was this afternoon.  We played one of the house teams (NEWHL is the sponsor of the tournament), a team we’d played (and beat!) in Fitchburg a couple of months ago. Today we weren’t quite so lucky, and ended up losing a completely even match 0-1. FWIW, the one goal wasn’t even scored by the NEWHL team - it was one that we accidentally knocked in on our goaltender. Argh. Defender’s worst feeling, and goodness knows that I’ve scored several on our goaltender this year.

That said, the game was so good. It was tough, it was physical, the refs called appropriate penalties (and one that was kind of stupid - oh well, can’t win them all!), and we played a strong game. Some things I particularly enjoyed:

• Defending Marcia (who plays with both teams, and elected to skate with NEWHL this tournament, the big doody-head) really well.  I held her up a lot down on our left defensive side.  She got a few shots off, but nothing went in, and I know I annoyed her a fair amount when she didn’t have the puck.
• Playing back with STP. I love playing with all the defenders on this team, but rarely (anymore) get paired with Blue-Line Nancy. Coach Steph has taken to pairing STP and me in back lately, and we’re getting really good at reading each other. Today was no exception. I know that if I’m following the puckhandler, she’ll step in and cover for me, and vice versa. Same thing when we’re trying to keep the puck in our offensive zone - whoever steps in, the other person drops back. I don’t think they had one successful fast-break against us this game, despite several attempts.
• Watching Amy play center. Center is a position she’s well suited for (i.e. gotta be everywhere all the time) and she plays it with abandon. It’s fun to watch her (not that I’m biased or anything…)
• Knowing that we played an incredibly good game, and that if the universe were fair, we’d have tied 0-0. Stupid universe!

More tonight - we play the North Shore Panthers C team, and it’s going to be another tough game. Let’s hope we can pull it out and beat them!

No action photos in this post, I’m so sorry. Fortunately, one player’s husband was there taking photos, so perhaps I’ll borrow some from him and post them later.

SO! This weekend is the fifth annual April Showers hockey tournament in Concord, MA. We’re playing at our practice rink, which I admit is kind of fun. It’s not the nicest rink in the world, but it’s ours and the familiarity of place probably fed into last night’s win.

When we signed up, we asked to be placed in the D division, the division in which we compete regularly. Apparently that division filled up pretty quickly, so we got bumped to the C/D division. We were nervous, but another team from our league (the Storm Chasers) was placed there, and we drew them in first-round play last night. We’ve played them before, and have tied a couple of times, and lost a couple of times - always by 0-1 or 1-2 sorts of scores.

Last night, though, the tables turned. With our regular Black Ice team (i.e. no ringers) we got out there, hustled like it was no one’s business, and shut them down. What a blast! Some highlights:

• Coach Steph gave an awesome pre-game pep talk, focusing on the phrase, “when I get the puck, I’m going to…”, crashing the net when someone shoots, and making smart passes to clear the puck from the zone.
• Jonesy crashed the net after Tracey’s drive to the goal, picked up the rebound, and stuffed it in.
• Jonesy (again) made an awesome play keeping the puck in our zone. She passed to Lib, who took a moment, looked up, anticipated Amy going to the high slot, and passed it right to her. Amy caught the puck right at the best point for her shot, and hurled that thing into the net. SWEET!
• Everything seemed to really click for Denise, who was a.) always open and b.) always in the right spot.
• We sang the Black Ice team song in the locker room after the game (to the tune of “These are a few of my favorite things…”) Yes, we have a team song, and it’s even two verses long!
• There was a long discussion of why we won, and I think we settled on a couple of things: first, we earned it by playing hard and tough, and second, some people were wearing lucky clothing that they hadn’t in a while. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard about lucky clothing in my life as I did last night.

Today we’ve got two more games. I’m hoping we can keep our intensity up and try to make it to the finals on Sunday afternoon. What a blast we’ve had so far! Love our team, love the Black Ice!

From Amanda and others: here are 5 non-library blogs I read. These are all blogs by people I actually know in real life.

Life in the Pink by Cyn. She’s a wicked smart computer genius in a PhD program at UCSD. I met her through Phillyknitters. She knits, cooks vegan food (she’s got a blog for that), programs, builds robots, and makes really funny observations on the life she leads.

GeekyMom by Laura. In her non-GM life, she’s an instructional design professional at at small college in the Philadelphia area. Interestingly enough, she’s in a PhD program too. She blogs off and on about her family (GeekyBoy and GeekyGirl, along with Mr. Geeky), work/life balance, how she does what she does (with a tendency towards Allen’s GTD system), and life in higher education.

Bostonbeerman by Jim Olson, who not only does amazingly cool things with the Davis Museum at Wellesley College, but also runs a couple of really cool beer appreciation courses throughout the year. Who wouldn’t like a blog about beer?

Bekka by Rebecca who I know from the ACRL Women’s Studies Section. One of the things I love about her blog is that she actually does all the kinds of things I think about doing - both craft-related and otherwise.

The Ice Hockey Escapades by Lori Hylan-Cho (who I don’t really know in real life, but I do know about half of the team she played with this year, so that’s got to count for something.) Are you at all surprised that I read the blog of a woman who is out of college who plays hockey on a team that I used to play on? No, no, you are not surprised by that one bit. I love that she takes tons of photos and videos at games (someday I’ll be that in shape, that I can not DIE on the bench after my shift and can instead take photos) but even more than that, I love that she has documented all of her experiences playing hockey to date. One day last fall I think I read the whole blog from start to finish. Yes, I do love me some hockey, and I particularly like reading about people kind of like me who play hockey.

What about you who are librarians? What five non-library blogs do you read? And you who aren’t librarians - what are your five?

If I were Jewish, right now I’d pull out the saying “Oy vey!” But since I’m not, I’ll stick with the tried and true Scandinavian “Uff da!”

Why, you ask?  Well, today we scrimmaged one of the teams in our league (we both had a bye week) up at their really nice rink in Nashua, NH.  Numbers weren’t in our favor today, as we had 9 skaters and a goalie.  They had probably 15 skaters, which meant they were a lot fresher than us by the time the third period rolled around.

So we ended up playing 2 lines of offense and rotating 3 of us back at defense.  Amy, Lib, and WES were one line, Tracey, LisaO, and Marcia were the other.  Blue-line Nancy, STP, and I played in the back (until the third period when Marcia dropped back and STP moved to wing).

The first period we were completely dominant - they managed to score once, but the rest of the period we were cranking down in their end.  Lynn said that she wouldn’t have minded the game staying like that, even though it would have been boring for her back in net.  The second period, they brought their defenders up to offense, and they kind of turned it on.  One girl was really fast, but for the most part, we kept her contained.  I got a few good poke checks in on their fast breaks, and broke up more than a few of them.  To go along with that, of course, that girl blew past me twice, scoring both times. *grumble* The first time, I was trying like hell to stop her, and I hooked her around the ankles as she got her shot off.  The refs didn’t call it, since it was just a scrimmage. She went crashing into the boards, I followed her apologizing profusely, the net got knocked off, two of our players ended up on top of our goalie, and she bloody well scored anyway.  GAH. Oh well.  All in good fun.

Our timing on defense was a little off in the third period, so there were a few times when each of us ended up on the ice for far too long.  I think I played the last 4 minutes straight - and if reports are right, I hauled ass for most of the time.  Coach told me it was the best game she’s seen me play, Amy dubbed me the MVP (of a 0-5 loss? Oh well), and I got my choice of beers in the locker room post-game. But really, we all played incredibly well. Too bad the scoreboard didn’t reflect that.

So after the game, I didn’t feel very well - thought my stomach was going to protest the 4 minutes of sprinting. However I managed to keep it all together, we all ended up at the local 99 for dinner and drinks, and I fell sound asleep on the way home. I’ve been napping since then, and think it’s time for a bath (I smell), a wee bit of food, and bed.

Can’t believe we only have a couple weeks left of our season.  I’m so sad - whatever am I going to do on Monday nights until summer league starts? This season has given me some much-needed structure to my life, I adore the folks on the team, and not going to practice and games twice a week is going to be weird.

• Sidney Crosby is amazing. He just helped Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Sabres in the overtime shoot-out.  What a shot!

• BC made it to the women’s Frozen Four!  I’m really excited for them.  Someday there will be a cable channel devoted to women’s college hockey, and I will be one of the first subscribers.  Lake Placid is just a little too far to drive this weekend

• I’m trying to accumulate a list of college/university computing groups who have blogs.  Unlike in the library community, which has the lovely blogwithoutalibrary.net listing, I can’t seem to find a listing of those sorts of blogs.  Any help, anyone out there?

• Hi Mom!

• Maggie got into a porcupine last week.  Fortunately, she realized instantly that she needed to get the hell AWAY from the thing, and only ended up with 5 needles hanging out of her face.  I wasn’t around; Amy got to deal with the little dog getting herself into injury situation without me once again.  (The other times she’s gotten run over by a truck and sliced open her upper lip. Fortunately, no serious damage either time. Dog of Steel.)

• I’ve been reading again.  I highly recommend Dark at the Roots: A Memoir (a book that will make you treasure your lovely, loving, not-even-remotely-that-dysfunctional childhood) and The Long Run (a book that will ALSO make most people treasure their childhoods).  Love the advance reader’s copies that I can pick up at library conferences… Fun stuff!

• My life is consumed with three things: reading, work, and hockey.  WHAT HAPPENED TO KNITTING???? I miss knitting, but can’t seem to figure out how to get back into it. Silly hockey obsession!

• Speaking of hockey, my team is almost done with our season.  We’ve not done as well as we should; we’re one of those teams that tends to play at the level of whatever team we’re playing, for better or worse.  Fortunately, we’ve got a tournament in a couple of weeks where we’ve been placed up a division.  We should get the living daylights knocked out of us, but we’re going to have fun!  A few of use from our team have hooked up with another team and are going to a tournament in Vermont in April, and I just got word of a possible May tournament as well… and then there’s hockey camp at Dartmouth this summer (seriously.) and the power skating clinic in August that I’ve already signed up for.  Did I mention that this is a bit of an obsession?  Can you tell?

• Last weekend in MN, I watched about 15 games of hockey with my dad.  The Wild, the Gophers, and more high school state tournament hockey than you can shake a stick at.  OFFICIALLY OBSESSED. Which reminds me, I need to get my skates sharpened tomorrow.

That is all.