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A few months ago, one of my Keen Calistoga shoes developed a bit of a leak under the big toe. These were my favorite shoes ever. I wore them nearly every single day for almost a year, so you can imagine that I was sad by the damp turn of events.

As I was out scouring the web for a place to buy a new pair, I decided to visit the Keen website to find out if they had any guarantees for their products. Turns out they do.  My problem, though? I wasn’t 100% sure where I bought them (stores in contention include Zappos, REI, and Kittery Trading Post). As such, I also wasn’t 100% sure of the date I purchased them.

So rather than just sigh and go away from the website, I decided to email them to find out if anyone else was having similar issues. A quick reply from them followed, and after a few more emails and me photographing the damaged part of the shoe sole, the lovely customer service representative offered me a new pair of shoes!

I was thrilled, to say the least. So not only did I get a replacement pair for the ones that were damaged compliments of the company, but I also purchased a second pair (third pair?) in another color.

Way to go Keen! Even if you didn’t have me before (which you did), you’ve got me as a customer for life now.

1. Went to watch the Boston Marathon with Amy and the dogs. Liver treats work wonders in keeping the little dog calm when motorcycles and dogs go past her. Wonder of wonders! Watched the wheelchair racers and the men’s and women’s elite runners. Stuck around until we saw Lance Armstrong go past, then headed home.

2. Went to the Landscape Depot with Amy. Purchased 2 pallets of Pennsylvania fieldstone to be delivered later in the day. Five tons of rocks costs a lot more than you might imagine.

3. Went to Windy-Lo Nursery with Amy. She picked out a white birch tree and 2 red twig dogwood bushes for a corner of the yard. Loaded them into the Subaru and headed home.

4. Planted the dogwoods and tree.

5. Was amazed when fieldstone was delivered. CRASH BANG SMASH rocks in the yard. Surprisingly heavy.

6. Helped Amy figure out where to put grass strips that we took out of the area where we want to put in a vegetable garden. Spent a fair amount of time watering dirt and watering transplanted grass.

7. Built a small stone wall around new area of vegetable garden. In doing so, moved approx. 2.5 tons of stone in 30-pound increments. That’s the equivalent of picking up my little dog a few hundred times, and setting her down, trying to place her so that she doesn’t wobble. (okay, now I know I’m tired, because that image is making me giggle hysterically.)

8. Ordered a large pizza and watched the Bruins lose in game 7 to Montreal. Le sigh….

But here is the result of the day’s work:

Should be a nice-looking vegetable garden once we get a whole mess of manure delivered and put in there. The stones in the middle will come up when we get the compost and then will go back where they are, to be the walkway through this small garden. We need them there, though, since the electric fence which keeps the dogs from charging to the street runs right there. Ask me how I know this……..

Off to bed with me. Stones make my bones tired.

Another April, another trip to Burlingon VT for the Champlain Shootout. Last year we went with a made-up team, but this year we went with Black Ice (minus a few regulars and supplemented with some Ragers and a couple of other folks.)

So this year was a lot of fun. We played 4 games in all, and went 2-2, but took second place in our division!

Game 1: Saratoga Storm (N.Y.) - overtime win 1-0

Our first game was against the Saratoga Storm. Rarely do we play well on Friday nights, and this was no different than normal. Coach had me playing wing, which meant we ran 3 defenders. They did awesome; I’m not sure how I did, but reports are that I didn’t stink.

Fortunately, we managed to hold them scoreless. Unfortunately, they did the same to us. For this tournament, ties immediately go to a simultaneous shootout (both shooters go at the same time). We got down to the fifth shooters before Ann M. put one in the net on the Saratoga goaltender, and the win!

Game 2: Westchester Wildcats 2 (N.Y.) - overtime loss 1-2

Our second game was a tough one. Coach moved folks around a bit from Friday so we had 4 defenders and 2 centers. I was still up at wing. Our goal was put in by Pickles (a Rager [one of our mortal enemy teams...]). The Wildcats also put one in during regulation, so we ended up with another tie, and headed to another shootout. This one we went to the seventh skater before they put one in Lynn. Bummer!

At this point, we were sitting at 1-1, with 3 points to our name. We knew going into the third game that it was make or break time. If we won in regulation, we’d go to the championship game, if we tied and won, we’d be in fourth place, and if we tied and lost, we’d be in fifth place. So our fate was completely in our own hands.

Game 3: Old Nags (N.C.) - regulation win 2-1

We ended up playing at the UVM rink for this game, which was pretty cool. This game was our best of the weekend. We went out strong, played our game, and despite someone (me) coughing up the puck in our defensive zone to one of their points which led directly to their one goal, we got the regulation win! Amy put a sweet shot in the upper right 90 in the first period; Amy also got an assist when her shot bounced around and Pickles put the rebound in the net. Nice to win outright and to realize we were going to be in the championship game the next morning!

Game 4: Van Kleek Hill Griffins (Montreal) - regulation loss 2-5

Well, leave it to the Canadians to give it to us in the finals. We didn’t play as well as we’d played the night before, and no surprise since we were all pretty tired. Still, they got a few quick goals and were feeling pretty cocky, when Amy got a breakaway and buried the puck in the upper right 90 - pretty much the same shot as she put in the night before. We got another goal a little bit later on a wacky play. Liza just threw the puck towards the net, not very hard, and it caught the goalie off-guard and bounced on the post and dribbled in. Good fun! The rest of the game I honestly don’t remember much of. They put a couple more in, we didn’t get any more goals… Yeah. That.

So we went into that game in second place and we came out of the game in second place.

All in all, it was a great weekend. Our game times were ideal (6pm Friday night, noon and 7pm Saturday, 9am Sunday), the weather was gorgeous (in the 70s all three days), and the company was amazing. Our fabulous coach made the trip up with us so we had coaching for all four games - a key to us doing well, I’d say.

Now we get a couple of weeks off before summer leagues start. Of course, you know I’m looking for ice time between now and May 5. That’s just who I am.

Last night, Libby and I drove up to Nashua, NH to play in a game with our friends the New Hampshire Panthers. We play for them from time to time, when they need people to fill out lines, and it’s always a lot of fun.

The team we played - Chick Stix - was from Groton, NH, and one of the women playing for them was at the Dartmouth summer clinic last year. Turns out she’s going again this year, so we’ll get to catch up some more then.

After we got on the ice and warmed up, the coach let us know what lines we’d all be playing on (I think Maria was responsible for them, and to Maria I say “Thank you for putting me where you did.”) Libby was one of three centers and I ended up playing left wing on one of the two winger lines. My linemate was a woman named Kim.

The game was a fun one - not the fastest game I’ve ever been in, and thank god! I’m conditioned as a defender, not as a winger, and get tired a lot faster playing winger. We didn’t have a ref, so we just played scrimmage rules (if the goalie covered the puck, she’d throw it behind the net and the offensive team would back up a bit to let the defensive team try to break it out of the zone, call your own off-sides, don’t be a jerk and trip or do anything dumb like that, stick-tap faceoffs, etc.) We also had no clock, which was awesome - we ended up playing for almost 45 minutes solid.

Back and forth we went, back and forth. We were pretty evenly matched, and no one could manage to put anything into either net. Finally, about 5 minutes before we were due to get kicked off the ice by the zamboni driver, the coach was talking with a few of us on the bench, saying that it was crazy we hadn’t scored. I agreed, and said that I really wanted to score since the only time it seems I get goals is when I’m playing with them (true - I just checked my records!) The other winger line came off the ice a few seconds later, so over the boards Kim and I went, to play some more.

So there we are, having a bit of a battle in the neutral zone. Finally, Maria got control of the puck and started skating it over our blue line, over the center line, towards our offensive zone… She popped the puck at me (a perfect pass, I might add!) right as we both got into the zone. There were a bunch of Chick Stix players in front of the net, Kim had a head of steam and was crashing the net, and Brenda at center was coming in strong behind me.  All of a sudden, I saw this sliver of open net and knew the goalie was screened and wouldn’t be able to see the puck coming at her. I took a wrister from the top of the right circle - probably the best one in my playing career thus far - and watched as it flew through the air into the goal, about 3 feet off the ice. Wahoo! That ended up being the only goal of the game.

So the upshot is that I really, really, REALLY like scoring. I had no idea how much I enjoyed it until the first time I did it last fall (also when playing with NH, that time against MIT.) The grin last night didn’t come off my face for a couple of hours. Playing wing is a real challenge for me still, but I’m learning more each time I do it. My head is that of a defender, but my soul? She wants to score lots of goals. And really, who knows what the future holds?

Thanks NH Panthers! Thanks Maria, both for the great pass  last night and for letting us play with you when you need skaters.

Our last game of the day reminded me of all the NHL playoff machinations of the last few days - if we won or tied, we went to the first round of the finals. If we lost, then we needed the game right after ours to end up in a 0-0 or 1-1 tie. If it wasn’t a tie with one of those scores we’d be out.

So there we were, taking on the Nantucket Miacomets in the third game of our tournament. They’d won their first two games, shutting out both teams they played. As we all know, we’d tied one game 1-1 and won the other 3-2. We were playing on the back rink - OUR rink, where we practice every Monday night. We know the rink, know its foibles and quirks. We know we can win on that ice, and we know we can lose on it (witness last year’s blowout against the Pink Panthers).

Scouting reports told us that we needed to shut down their young gun, #71, and that we needed to shoot shoot shoot on the goalie, who tended to give up some big rebounds. Given that, we thought we had a good chance of keeping the game competitive.

And boy did we ever! The first shift we went out - me, STP, Amy, Alaina, and Libby - and scored! (That’s Amy there in the photo.) We’d gotten the puck into their zone deep, Alaina passed it to me on the point, I skated it in a few steps and took a wrist shot. When the goalie stopped that shot, both Alaina and Amy were there for the rebound, and Amy got the goal. Wahoo!

After that we played tough but ended up down 1-3 with about 4 minutes left in the game. (One of those goals against happened after I fell down low in the corner and couldn’t get back up quick enough - the girl I was covering ended up wide open and put the puck in off a rebound. Argh!) So there we are, on our own ice, looking at a potential loss. The same set of us were out on the ice as we got it back into their zone again. I think Alaina passed back to me again and I skated those few steps in and shot again. It was blocked by the goalie again, and this time Libby and Amy both got their sticks on the rebound, and Amy was credited with our second goal, making the score a much more reasonable 2-3. As we all skated back out of the zone to the faceoff circle at center ice, Amy said, “No way are we getting off. We’re getting another goal.” The puck dropped and after a few seconds, we got possession. It popped up to Alaina, who drove towards the net and put a beautiful shot in the net on the far side, over the goalie’s glove. TIE GAME!

We began playing defensively after that, knowing that all we needed to do was keep them from scoring, and we were in. Then, with about 20 seconds left in the game, 164 things went wrong for us in quick succession. I have no idea of the sequence of events, but I do know that Amy was laying face down on the ice in front of Lynn and I was falling over her, and realized that if I brought my skate down it would be on her inner thigh. Not wanting to risk that kind of injury, I crashed into a heap on top of her. There was some passing of the puck going on at the same moment, and a shot and possibly a rebound, and then they scored with 10 seconds left in the game.

Needless to say, we couldn’t pull out a final goal in 10 seconds and lost the game 3-4. We all waited around for the next game to finish up, hoping against hope for the 0-0 or 1-1 tie. Alas, it wasn’t to be and the Black Ice team finished the April Showers Tournament of 2008 with a 1-1-1 record. Not too shabby, given that we often go 1-2 or 0-3 in tournaments. In this photo, Libby and I are incredibly happy to be playingon the same team.