We had quite the cheering section too. My folks, Amy’s folks, friends of the team Sue and Elaine, Laura’s boyfriend Sam, and Nancy were all there. We usually have 3 or 4 people, so it was nice to have a bit larger of a cheering section. And tomorrow we don’t have a game – we get a rare Sunday off, which means Amy and I can head into Cambridge to hang out with my folks before they head back to Minnesota. It’s been a great week with them here.

Libby warms up before the game and we get a pre-game pep talk by Coach Tim.

Lexie drew an awesome penalty here (about a second after this photo was taken, the girl in white ended up throwing her body under Lex and tripped Lex up.)

Laura, one of our assistant captains – and Angela, our pup of a goalie (she’s all of 19…)

Things that stood out for me in this game:

1. Playing hockey with a sinus infection is challenging due to the whole “breathing”and “snot” issues.
2. I really really REALLY don’t like it when people charge my goalie and slash at her neck with the blades of their sticks. The refs agreed with me and told the girl who did it (on the first shift of the game!) to back off. This, of course, after I got in her face and pushed her.
3. Apparently my impulse control when I have a sinus infection is a little free-wheeling.

I’m really enjoying the composition of our team this year. Some people are playing new-to-them positions and are doing a really good job of it. Some people are settling into different positions than they played last year, even if they played those positions before. And the coaches are moving the rest of us around here and there to see what works. I’ve actually played a few games up at forward and have loved it!

The new folks on the team are fitting in quite nicely. Annie, Danielle, Lexie, Jillian, and Angela are all great additions, each in very different ways. We got solidity, quickness, ice-sense, and scoring ability in them, and in Angela have a goalie with a similar strong personality as our goalie last year (miss you Renee!) Although I’m still not sure which of them swears more…. maybe it’s a goalie thing!

I’m looking forward to the rest of the first half of our season, and to documenting a little bit more about our escapades on the ice.

Games played: 49 (36)
Points: 21 (7)
Goals: 6 (2)
Assists: 15 (5)
Overall record: 28-19-2 (15-20-1)
Plus/Minus: +90/-67 of possible 173/137 (+68/-60 of possible 109/116)

Noted:

• More points! Yay!
• I played a lot more this summer than last summer.
• Adding a third team to the mix helped.
• Despite playing 49 games, I’m horribly out of shape. Practice is killing me.
• Way to go Forest, Thunder, and Sun Dogs!

Our regular season practices started 2 weeks ago and our first game is next Sunday. I’m wonderfully excited about our team this year, and hope we can do well enough to make another run at Nationals. We want to be Green Bay bound….

This one is just a few photos of some fun moments after we were done with all our games. There are more over on my Flickr account, and if you’re friends with any of the team through Facebook, there are albums on Judy’s, Laura’s, and Janet’s profiles.

It’s a Megan sandwich! Laura and Renee are the bread, I’m the meaty middle.

Renee, Sejal, and Laura kidnapped Amy while I was napping and returned her to her pigtail-wearing days. In a bar. While drinking scotch. Yeah, I don’t get it either, but they had a blast.

This is the back of Amy’s very special CCMM t-shirt. Mine says “I’m gonna squish you like a BUG”. It’s a long story that started with the hysterical laughter of great teammates all the way back in September at the Darcy Tournament and culminated for at least the two of us at Nationals.

We’ve since played in the Champlain Shootout, where we took not one of the top spots in our division (photos of one of our games available online).  I’m going to miss playing with the team this summer but am looking forward to the three leagues we are playing in all summer long (Walpole, Concord, and Marlboro…!)

The most exciting thing that happened in March was our hockey team’s trip to the USA Hockey Women’s Senior C National Championships in Rochester, NY.  We obviously didn’t do super-well but OH it was fun! We’d have done way worse if our goalie Renee hadn’t been on; thankfully, she was really on, scores notwithstanding. My big excitement of the tournament was getting two assists. I very rarely get points in games, so to bust out and get 2 in the national championship tournament was thrilling. Amy got a goal in our last game, so the Brooks women definitely represented for the Storm.

We also went to the Women’s Frozen Four (NCAA hockey championships) at Agganis Arena at Boston University. Neither of the Minnesota teams made it to the championship game, so I was FORCED to cheer for Wisconsin in the finals. It wasn’t too hard to do that once I got over the whole Big Ten rivalry thing.

The other fun news is that I started playing indoor soccer. Amy finds it highly entertaining when I pick up sports that she already knows how to play (and she plays soccer well – less of a spaz than she is at hockey!) But after the first couple of games, she stopped laughing. There’s a lot I like about indoor soccer: there are the same number of players on the field as in hockey; there are boards like in hockey; playing defense is really similar to hockey (except that screening the goalie is less of a problem since a soccer ball is a tad larger than a hockey puck); and the field is small enough that I can run up and down it a couple of times before I want to die. There are a few things I still don’t like about soccer: my left foot is useless; and, I can’t run into people. That second one has been bothering me a lot, since my hockey game has gotten more physical in the past year. In soccer I really have to remember this mantra: You may NOT squish the opponent like a bug on the boards!

April’s been a mixed bag so far.

Bad #1: Work is very challenging. People I know and like have been affected directly.

Good #1: Last weekend Amy and I followed a trail that we’ve been on parts of before, but this time we took a different turn. We ended up a couple of miles away from home, on the Sudbury Aqueduct. It was really quite lovely and I hope this weekend is nice enough for us to do it again (and go farther this time).

Bad #2: Maggie came home from a “walkabout” yesterday with pieces of smellllllly dog crap stuck in the fur on her back. So I had to give her a bath. (I think the first part is what’s bad, she thinks it’s the second.)

Good #2: MacHeist 3! It was my first time participating in any way, and will not be my last. Besides, I got a ton of really interesting software which I can’t wait to use. So far I like World of Goo, Overflow, Typinator, Acorn, Little Snapper, and PhoneView. I want to use SousChef some more, and figure out how to use WireTap Studio and BoinxTV. But the real killer app for me (pun totally intended) is The Hit List. I struggle mightily with to-do lists and how to manage them – apparently that’s what this does really well. I’ll report back when I know.

I’m hoping the rest of the month looks more up and down – a planned hockey tournament trip up to Burlington, VT should be just what the doctor ordered!

How was YOUR March? How’s your April so far?

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!

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!

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.

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!