Hockey practice last night was really good. We worked on lots of things - power turns with the puck, shooting after doing a big power-turn weave and bob thing, bringing the puck into the zone with a partner and shooting early so your partner could get the rebound, and about 15 minutes of 3-on-3.
My power turns are getting better, although there’s still a ton of room for improvement. Like Amy, my turns on one side are stronger and on the other side are incredibly uneven. My shooting is okay when I actually think about my form - otherwise I have these dinky little bloopers that all goalies can stop easily (i.e. almost every shot I made last night). My passing is definitely improving. And my puck possession, while still among the weaker of folks on the team, is improving. Niki turned to me at one point last night and summed up what I was thinking: “I’m so much more comfortable wtih all this now than I was at the beginning of the season!” With miles to go before we achieve perfection…
But there were two moments last night that gave me real boosts in confidence.
The first was when we were playing 3-on-3. My team went up against the team with one of the coaches on it - the coach who’s about 6′4″, has a wingspan that goes from here to Montana, and who skates incredibly fast. We played several rounds against them, with a break in-between for the other 2 teams to play. After our last round, he skated over to me and told me I’d done a really good job. While he didn’t point out anything in particular that I’d done well, just the act of noticing and commenting was a real confidence-booster.
The second moment came as we were almost ready to get off the ice. A few of us had been shooting on Renee, and as usual she was stopping pretty much everything. I don’t think I’d put one past her all night long (even when I sat on her during one drill - this is what happens when you ask defenders to act as wings and screen the goalie - we lose our sense of space, get in the crease, and sit on people… anyway!) In fact, I know that I’d put at least 10 shots into her pads, and at least 10 more into her belly. My shooting form just wasn’t on last night. But at the very end of practice, I remembered something that someone told me a couple of years ago: “Don’t look at where the goalie is, look at where the net is and then shoot at the net.” So I came in to the high slot, saw open net above Renee’s left shoulder, and ripped one up there. It’s nice to know that even when I’m having a hard time with something (like shooting), just doing it right once makes all the difference.
Then all went to the locker room and KP made me, Amy, and Libby die laughing with some unintentional humor. That’s always the best kind! Happy Summer Solstice everyone!
We played the Ice Sharks tonight. They beat us last time we played 1-0, so it’s entirely reasonable to think that we could have won. Except that we didn’t. The final score was 1-3 in their favor. Our one was a beautiful shot 3 seconds into a power play in the third - Laura took the faceoff through our offensive circle, took a shot, and Sejal picked up the rebound and put it in. Totally gorgeous!
The three they got - well, I’m not proud of the fact that I was on the ice for two of them. And the third goal was the worst. I thought our goalie had it and told her “you’ve got it! you’ve got it!” As it turns out, the black disk I thought I was looking at in her pads wasn’t the puck, but was part of her pads. I know they’re new pads and all, but I wonder if she’d let me paint them some wacky color so I don’t ever make that mistake again… (just kidding, Renee!)
Those two goals notwithstanding, there were a couple of INCREDIBLY LONG shifts Kristine and I played in our defensive zone where the Ice Sharks didn’t score. Thank the FSM for that. At the end of the first, I think we did close to a 3-minute shift. Never in a game have I seriously considered throwing up; tonight was different.
Two things that jump out about tonight that I need to work on:
- better talking with both Kristine and my centers in our defensive zone (which WILL come in time, and is getting better each game, but still needs work)
- figuring out how to throw the puck OUT of the zone when we’re closing in on one of those horrid mega-defensive-shifts
KP, thanks for having a day so Libby could make us cupcakes. NOT a birthday, mind you, but just a day.
Okay, off to bed!
Our dear friend Tammy came to visit a couple of weekends ago. She came to one of our games (against the Phantoms) and broke out her fancy-shmancy camera. Snap snap snap, zoom focus repeat. Here are some of my favorites:
Me in the corner, KP up high
Amy backchecking, a Phantom player hot on her heels
Amy corrals the puck after her backcheck
The team between periods
Catch the rest of the set over at Flickr.
Team photo (most, but not all, of us), from a tournament back in September (we didn’t win, alas.)
Front row, L to R: Libby, Myriam, Renee, Sandy, Julia
Back row: Judy, Scott, Nancy, Brian, Laura, Amy, Niki, Kristine, Megan, Sejal, Tim, Stacey
Not pictured (because they didn’t play in this tournament): Karen, KP, Tiffany
And with that, we’re off to practice. How fabulous is it that we have practices that are NOT at 9:50 at night the day after our games? So fabulous!
Nighthawks Blue
Saturday night we played the Nighthawks Blue (I think… they have a lot of teams that we play, from B to Red to Blue to … I’m not sure. I think last night was Blue). I played defense with Kristine again, which was fun. Of course, with a couple of penalties, I think Kristine, Nancy, Julia, and I all ended up playing at least 2 shifts with each of the others. We ended up winning 4-2. I think the Megan/Amy listening to of Johnny Cash and the Laura/Niki listening to of George Michael before the games may have triggered something, because….
Chaos
We played Chaos tonight and we won again! Both Amy and I and Laura/Niki listened to our songs again on the way to the rink. This game was a little tighter, with us winning 1-0 on a goal by Amy. Last night’s game was a LOT tighter than this one tonight - it felt like we were running around in our defensive zone a lot more than last night. Fortunately, both nights Renee was hot and stopped all sorts of amazing shots.
After our game tonight, we went to the 99 for about 40 minutes to grab a little food before coming back to watch Black Ice play the Bulldogs. They had a really good game - apparently their best one of the year so far - and ended up with a victory. So nice to see them win! We went back to the 99 for another 40 minutes so a couple of them could grab food and then headed back to watch Steph and the Renegades play the Needham Huskies. It wasn’t pretty…. (I think it was a crossover game, with the Needham team on the higher end skill-wise of that crossover).
We MISSED seeing Chanda today, which makes me sad. (You hear that, Chanda? We’re both sad - and so is Steph, and Lynn and Tracey Lee both wanted to see you and say hi too…) We did get to see Amy’s sister and her family for little Cam’s 4th birthday, and we also got to see LJF who’s in town for the weekend. She and her cousin came out to our place after meeting us at the children’s museum - we only had about 30 minutes out here but LJF really wanted to see the dogs. Maggie gave her and her cousin (who she met when we lived down in Philly) the body wiggle and happy squeak. That’s the highest praise that dog gives anyone, and it made LJF smile a lot. Yay!
Okay, off to bed. I’m wiped and work comes early in the morning. Zzzzzz…..
hockey, nablopomo | Megan 11/26/2008 | 
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