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After a couple of weeks of thinking about it and riding, I’ve finally named my bike. Dipsea won out, for a variety of reasons.

That said, Zephyr was an EXCEEDINGLY close second. If my ride to work was smoother, she might have ended up with that name. There’s a few parts of my ride that are really bumpy, though, and Zephyr just wasn’t working on those parts.

So she’s Dipsea.

“Hi, I’m Megan, and this is my bike Dipsea.”

“No, not Megan. Megan, like vegan.”

“No, not Dipsy, Dipsea.”

Hey - it works for me.

I love my bike. I rode to work 3-4 days a week the past 3 weeks, which puts me at 22 miles so far - 22 more than I’ve biked in the past 2 years!

I also love hockey. We’ve got a hockey scrimmage tomorrow afternoon and a game on Sunday night. The scrimmage should be good - we’re going to Nashua NH play the Panthers. They’re a good team, but I think we’re going to surprise them this time around. The game on Sunday (at 9:50 at night!) is against one of the newer teams in the league - the Cougars D - so it should be interesting. We played their higher-level team in the tournament last weekend (Cougars mostly C but a couple of D) and they spanked us pretty bad. It should be interesting to see how their lower-level teams plays. I’m hoping we can figure out a way to do some geocaching with the dogs before we had to our scrimmage tomorrow.

Here’s our team (the Ice Vaders) from the Darcy tournament last weekend. Pay no attention to the crazy ears on the girl in front second from the left. None whatsoever.

Oh! Lots of photos from 2 of our 3 games (fortunately, the one we won and the one that was close..) - against the Westchester Wildcats D and against the North Shore Panthers. There are a lot of photos of me in the Westchester game (we’re in dark jerseys - I’m #17, in blue pants), and a lot of Amy in the second (we’re NOT in pink jerseys - she’s #11 and wearing black, red, and white striped socks.)

Must figure out a way to take more photos of games this year. Perhaps it’s time to recruit a student or two, pay them a bit of $$, and drag them along to a few games. Hmmm…. interesting to consider.

Your life was much too short. Thanks for all the stories.

Rest in peace.

It was another weekend filled with hockey, hockey, and more hockey at the 6th annual Darcy Edmonds Memorial Tournament. It wasn’t QUITE as much hockey as possible, given our results during the first three games and the fact that our regular-season team doesn’t have a league game this weekend, but still. Lots of hockey.

Anyhow. Wendell of the Storm Chasers put together another tournament team comprised of Black Icers, Storm Chasers, and a couple of other folks. It was pretty similar to the team we brought to the Champlain Shootout in April. This time we actually discussed our team name beforehand, and came up with the Ice Vaders. Someone was lobbying hard for “Libby is Number One” but she got outvoted.

Game One: Friday night, 6:10 p.m., vs. Cougars, final 0-5.

Needless to say, we weren’t at the top of our game on Friday night. We had a few folks show up late, had a hard time getting our lines together, and didn’t play our positions in the least. The net result on the scoreboard reflected our difficulties. Move on, my friends, move on. (I was a -3 during that game, meaning I was on-ice for 3 of their goals - argh.)

Game Two: Saturday, 11:40 a.m., vs. Westchester NY Wildcats D, final 5-4.

Oh my! We really got our act together Saturday afternoon! The power line of WES, Amy, and Kathy combined for all 5 of our goals - WES scored 2, Kathy scored 2, and Amy scored 1. All of them had at least 1 assist, and WES would have gotten a true hat trick if someone hadn’t been standing in the crease when she put the puck in the net. Ahem.

Defensively we also played a lot better. For a while we were running 3 D . Unfortunately we were dying of exhaustion by the beginning of the second period, so Wendell dropped back for that period. (Silly forwards got to see what it was like to run 3 people in 2 positions for a period… HA!) Third period we went back to 2 forward lines and 3 D, and it worked well.

A few penalties got called in this tough game - there was a big kerfluffle in the third period about whether or not the short-handed team could ice the puck without having it called back or not. In MA, you can’t do that, but in the rest of the nation (under USAHockey rules) you can. BUT during tournaments in MA, either the MA or USAHockey rules can be enforced. This tournament was being run under USAHockey rules, but the ref whistled an icing on Westchester while they were shorthanded. They were ticked - rightly so - and fortunately we didn’t score on the face-off.

Anyway, it was the best game of our series, and winning was so so sweet. Amy was on fire. Her puckhandling has improved a ton over the summer. WES is making huge strides in her game too - playing really well positionally. I just love watching her get better - and on the transition out of our defensive zone it’s nice to be able to pass the puck ahead of her and know she’ll get to it. Plus, her board game (which was always strong) was stellar this entire tournament. WES-love!

I was on the ice for 3 of our goals and 2 of theirs, for a+1 on the game and a -2 on the tournament for me. (FWIW, one of those two I don’t really want to claim since it happened during a wonky shift-change. But technically I was on the ice then, so it’s mine.)

Game Three: Saturday, 10:30 p.m., vs. North Shore Panthers, final score 1-2.

Ten hours between games is tough, and having the game start 20 minutes late due to the games running late and the overtime/shootout in the preceding game made it even harder. 10:30 at night for a game? Yuck!

We had our full team for this game - 2 full forward lines (Amy, WES, Kathy and Mary, Sharon, Marcia) and 5 defense (Robin, me and Wendell, Chris, Laurie).  I’ve never rotated 5 D like we did last night (Robin and I rotated the left side and the other three rotated the right side), and I have to say that it works for me. I’d have had a harder time if I’d been one of the 3 rather than one of the 2 - it’s hard for me to keep my head in the game if I’m not on the ice every other shift. Anyhow.

For this game we came out like we did in Friday’s game - out of position, clumping around the puck, following the puck carrier like ducklings, not playing smart, not breaking out well, etc. etc. Both their goals came in that first period. I was on the ice for one of them - left the girl on the far post wide open, and she popped in a juicy rebound off someone else’s shot. *grumble*

The second period we pulled it together - Coach Steph gave us a bunch of good pointers and a general talking-to, which we needed. That period produced our only goal of the game. Amy, Kathy, and WES hooked up in front of the net, and WES ended up sealing the deal.

It was frustrating that we couldn’t put any more goals on the board during the game. If we’d have won, we might have ended up in the finals (although we would have had to see what happened during the Cougars/Cape Stars game this morning - I think the Cape Stars would have had to lose by more than 5 for us to get into the finals.) As it was, we had a good run of it for a team that was put together just for the tournament.

For this game, I was a -1, putting me at -3 for the tournament. Not as good as I’d have liked, but given that we were -5 overall, not as bad as it could have been.

This was a really fun tournament. I’d love to have our regular team - the Black Ice - skate it in next year since it comes right at the start of our regular season. We’ll see if we can pull that off.

I’ve never named my vehicles, although many people I know have. Cars I know include: Dave, Suzi, Subi, GC, Scarlett, and Gus. Cars that belonged to me were named: Sunbird, Truck, Blazer, and Civic. Apparently I’m not so much on the imaginative naming.

BUT!

I want to name my bike. And that, my dear readers, is where you come in. Help me figure out a name!

Things to know:

• The bike itself is a Marin Kentfield (see the post below this one).
• It’s silvery black.
• It wants to have a one-word name.
• It needs to be a strong name, but can be feminine as well.

So far I’ve come up with:

• Shadow (but eh… not so interesting)
• Minnow (I typed “silvery” into google and found both silvery minnows and gibbons - minnow intrigues me more)
• Pablo (Kentfield is a town in the Bay Area, and did you know that the bay is actually San Pablo Bay?)
• Dipsea (Marin Brewery has a beer called “Old Dipsea” - but might be too close to “Dipsy” the teletubbie)

Any other suggestions? Do any of those strike your fancy? I’m looking for feedback, opinions, declarations that I’m crazy for naming a bike, etc. etc. And then I shall name her.

P.S. My father rode a sky-blue Schwinn 10-speed road bike for years, and my brother ended up with it in college (and beyond, perhaps). That bike was Old Blue. Good name for a bike…