Skate & Shoot

Friday skate & shoot with the boy-child went well.  I got some good skating in along with some practice handling the puck.  Even practiced my tickle-shot a little …

Okay, I’ll explain – some people have a slapshot – well, mine falls more toward the tickle end of the slap & tickle spectrum.  ‘nuf said.

Passed with T along the boards for a bit – he’s improved a lot over the last month at puck handling and reacting to the puck when it gets near him.  I hope that carries over to his draft skate in January – if it does, I think his teammates will be surprised by the improvement.

Monday Clinic

Made it to my second Monday clinic and it was a much better experience than the first one. 

Coach started us off with laps because no one had stretched – four times around, but I was able to stay with the pack and had no foot pain, so I was pretty pleased about that.  The new skates remained comfortable throughout.

The drills concentrated on screening the goalie and deflecting the puck around the net. 

He and another guy set up at the points and we were to skate in from the side of the net and stop – screen the goalie and try to deflect a shot from one point, then move quickly to the other side for a shot from the other point.

I’m new to the drills, but part of this I don’t understand completely.  The explanation was that if the first shot misses it’s likely to go around the boards to the other point, so that’s why the move to cover the other side of the net.  That makes sense to me if it misses wide, but it seems more likely to me that there’s going to be a rebound from the goalie in this situation, so we should be “training” to turn and try to pick that up. 

We moved from that to skating straight across the slot and deflecting a shot on the move, then to circling behind the net and coming in front to deflect a shot. 

I have no idea if any of the shots I was working with went in the net or not, I was too busy concentrating on moving to where I needed to be next.  I figure that’ll fix itself as I get more used to the environment and working with the puck.

I fell once during the drill where we were crossing the slot – I think the shot was more in line with my skates than my stick and trying to adjust backwards to deflect it sent me off balance.  I went down and hurt my right elbow a bit – I was worried at first, because I’d broken that elbow in the past, but it’s getting better.

After the clinic one of the guys asked if I was going to start playing in the rookie game they have afterward – I demurred, but he said he thought I was skating well enough to join. 

I’m still going to hold off on a decision, though – I plan to stick around after next Monday’s clinic and watch a game to see what it’s like.  Maybe start playing by the end of January, which will still be sooner than I expected when I started this nonsense.

New Skates, Old Legs

So after a break for the holidays I was able to get on the ice today with the new skates and the Super Feetinserts.

Awesome result – the pain in the outside of the left skate is gone completely and most of the heel pain is gone. Still a little bit of discomfort after a while of skating, but it’s discomfort, not pain.

Sadly, though, they’re not entirely magical.

They may be more comfortable, but they don’t lend wings to my feet or any nonsense like that – I’m still slow and run out of gas quick.  Maybe for my birthday my friends can pitch in to buy me new legs.

New Skates

Well, I didn’t make it to the lesson this week because I took the kids to dinner with my dad – holidays and all that – but I did make it to skate and shoot last Friday.

I had a nice chat with a guy there – Derek, I think, being horrible at remembering names – he’s also 43 and just started playing this year along with his son.  So apparently there’s more of my sort of dumb-ass going around this year.  Anyway, he took a few lessons and is now playing in the rookie league, so that gave me a lot of encouragement.

Another guy saw me wincing at how much my feet were hurting and took a look at my skates – his advice was to get new ones. 

The skates I had were fifteen-plus years old and were probably the bottom of the line back then – more recreational than hockey, but hockey-shaped.  And the fact that they’re that old and still look new tells you how much I’ve skated in the last two decades.

Anyway, they’ve always hurt like hell, but I figured that was because I wasn’t skating enough to really break them in and this year I kept expecting it to get better as I skated more.  But it didn’t. 

For about the first ten or fifteen minutes of skating, they’d really hurt my feet bad.  Arches, heels, etc.  Very painful.  Then it would wear off for the rest of the skate … mostly.  Came and went sometimes.

Anyway, I stopped off at the pro shop to look at new skates and get a recommendation.  They sized me and recommended the Bauer Vapor line – but they only had the X:50 in stock in my size.  I was more leaning toward the X:20 because, well, they’re cheaper.

I tried on the X:50 just to see and the difference was phenomenal.  Very comfortable right out of the box – no pain or pressure at all.  After a few minutes of walking around, my left foot had some discomfort, but nothing like in the old skates.

I went home and checked prices online for the skates and was quite surprised to find that it was much the same as the pro shop – I hadn’t expected that.  So now I was faced with the decision to wait for the X:20 or just get the X:50 – since it’s the holiday’s and I’m off work until next year and planning to skate almost every day until then, facing the wait for an online order and having to use the old, painful skates just wasn’t something I could stomach – and, it being the holidays, I had a bit of cash gifts from a couple friends.

So, yeah, got the X:50s.

There was someone different in the shop when I went back to get them and he changed the size from what had been recommended earlier. My right foot measures out to 8.25 for skates and the left at 8.00.  So the first guy told me to get 8.5 – but the second guy suggested 8s so the left one wouldn’t be too big.  They felt fine, no pinching or cramping, so that’s what I went with.

Now they were comfortable out of the box, but really nice after being heat-molded.  Still some discomfort in the left one – felt like there was pressure on the outside of the foot near the toes and just on inside edge of the heel where the arch starts.  But not nearly as bad as the other skates, so I went with it.

The next day I went for public skating and tried them out – I cannot believe the difference.

The right one is absolutely perfect – no pain or discomfort at all.  And this with brand-new, unbroken-in skates, first time on the ice.  The left one is still uncomfortable in those two places, but I have a bit of a heel problem in that foot.  I think there’s a small amount of swelling or something in the heel that’s causing the pain there and pressing my foot into the front of the skate at an angle. 

I got some Super Feet inserts (again at the recommendation of the pro) and the left one feels a little better just standing around, but I haven’t had the chance to try it on the ice with them.

So I’ll get to try them on the ice tomorrow and see what kind of difference it makes in skating drills come Monday. 

Months of Updates and My First Lesson

So … long time since my last post.  Personal issues have kept me mostly off the ice and I won’t get into too many details except to say that if your marriage counselor ever recommends this book:

Accept that life as you know it is over, then find yourself some good Prozac and a great lawyer.

With that going on, money was tight over the summer and any skating fees went for the boy-child, not me – which is as it should be when you’re a parent.

Over the last few months, T got on his first team, got his first assist, and his team won the league championship.  Three teams in the league, but still.

He’s improved a lot since starting.  He’s still the slowest one out there, but ever time he listens to me or his coach and takes our direction, he improves a little bit.  His skating’s gotten much better.  The one thing he needs to work on most is to gain the confidence to be more aggressive.  Both his coach and I have told him to challenge the other players more – even if they get by him, he’ll be able to disrupt their play.

So his first season’s over and one of the local rinks is running a special … for $100 he gets a month of their youth programs.  Five nights a week – 3-on-3, pond hockey and skate & shoot.  A good deal just for the ice time.

But enough about him and back to me.

A couple weeks ago I took him to skate and shoot and fell hard for the first time.  I was in the middle of trying something very complicated which requires a great deal of skill: skating in a circle.

Yes, I was practicing cross-overs around the center face-off circle and busted my ass.

Actually, it was my head that I busted.  I was trying to lean more in my turns, something I don’t do properly.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough speed for the amount of leaning that I did … or something.  Anyway, my feet not only slid out from under me, they completely left the ice, winding up, near as I can tell, at about waist level before I plummeted to the ice completely horizontal.  At least that’s what it felt like.

The momentum of my fall didn’t let me keep my head up and the side of my helmet hit the ice with a rather impressive crack.  My first thought was:

Good helmet … barely felt that.

My second thought was:

Why does my jaw feel like somebody just drop-kicked me in the face?

Then my inner-retardspoke up:

Duh-oh! Didn’t need a mouth guard yet … just doing skate-and-shoot right?  Dumb ass!

So, yeah, jaw hurt for a week and a half.  Ow.

Now when I sign T up for his month of skating, the guy mentions that on Mondays they do the kids’ 3-on-3 on the main rink, then let them have extra time on the studio rink while the adult clinic’s on.  So I ask him how good a skater I’ll have to be before I can reasonably sign up for that. 

He tells me that’s not a problem, they’ve had people who good barely stand up on the ice.

Hah! I think to myself.  I can stand up.  I stand up good.  Mostly.

So tonight I signed up for it.  What the hell.

In the locker room beforehand, I get a little boost of confidence.  I was expecting this to be all young guys – teens and twenties – but the four suiting up with me are all around my age and one of them’s only been coming for three weeks. 

Out on the ice I’m a little confused about what to do – everyone’s skating around doing their own thing, so it’s looking like a skate-and-shoot, not a clinic.  I was expecting an instructor to start things off first-thing, but apparently there’s quite a bit of warm-up time included.

During the warm-up, the coach stops me and asks me to skate across the rink for him, which I do.  First advice: keep my arms in closer (apparently I had my elbows way far out from my body) and I’m holding the stick too far down when I handle the puck.

I feel a big difference in my skating and puck handling with both these things, so that’s worth the price of admission all by itself.

Next up is skating drill.  Now, I’ve never had a clinic before or taken a lesson, so this is all new to me. 

First off is goal-line to goal-line, push with the left foot only and glide on the right.  I can do this one pretty good, I think.  Same with the second and third: same with right foot, then both feet, respectively.

Next is goal-to-goal as fast as we can, and this one just kills me. I’m the slowest one out there, but not by too much – I mean I get there last, but I’m close enough to touch the next slowest, so that makes me feel okay about it. What’s really bad, though, is that I’ve been on a couch for the last ten years, with little or no exercise, so my endurance sucks.  Bad.  We do this four times and by the time we’re done I’m drained and ready for the thirty-second break he gives us.

I take more than thirty seconds.

In fact, I sit out the first rep of the next drill, because I don’t want to puke on his ice.  Clearly this is a problem and I need to do some serious cardio.  I knew this already, intellectually, but having to leave the ice while a bunch of other guys your age keep going drives it home quite pointedly.  The new apartment has a gym and I need to be there every morning.

I make it back on the ice for the second rep of this drill: around the circles, left-crossovers, right-crossovers … one circle to another.  I’m a little tentative about this one and don’t do as well as I think I should.  Might be because my inner-retardis saying things like:

Didn’t buy that mouth-guard yet, did you?  Here it comes! Going down again and it’s gonna hurt! Dumb ass!

I make it through without falling, but I can do this better and I’m disappointed in myself.  The only reason I don’t have a mouthguard already is because money’s tight right now, so I really need to get one before the next time.

Next drill is down to the far blue-line and form two lines – if that was all that was involved, I’d be pretty good at it.  But, no, there’s more.

We’re going to skate in pairs (I feel bad for the guy paired with me), dump the puck into the zone, pick it up again, then skate to the other zone and take a shot on the goal.  Obviously passing as we go and appropriately to each pairs skill-level.

First time through my guy dumps it in around the boards and I head over to get it.  I know I’m not going to be able to take it up the ice well, so I pass to him – a bad pass, he’s not where I thought he’d be at all.  We head up the ice and I cross the blue line where he passes to me on the left side. 

Now my shot is weak.  Way weak, so I don’t even bother, I just pass back to him as he’s coming across the blue line and let him take the shot.  I have no idea if he got it in, because I’m too busy trying to turn before I hit the boards.

Second time through this drill, I start with the puck, so I dump it in and immediately turn for the other end.  I’m too slow yet to do anything else.  He yells, “Boards!” and this is the first time I’ve ever heard this on the ice, but I understand it and take his pass off the left-side boards short of the zone. 

I skate the puck into the zone and make a back-hand pass to him at the blue line.  Again, I have no idea what happened with the shot, because I fell after the pass.  But I do know that it was a pretty decent pass, at least as far as direction goes – power could have been better, I think, but it was there for him.

I sit out the next rep of this drill because I’m out of gas again.  And my legs are really weak, so I call it a night. I know enough to realize that if I try to push myself, I’m probably going to fall badly enough to hurt myself if I keep going, even though it’s even more embarrassing to leave the ice.

But I talk to the coach afterward and ask him what, aside from finding a treadmill, I should do – basically whether I should keep taking the lessons or if I suck too bad for them to do any good.  He says he’s seen suck and I don’t, which is encouraging. 

Obviously I need to work on my endurance, because right now I have the endurance of a little girl (which I retract, because I’ve seen the little girls who play hockey and they could all kick my ass), but my skating’s good enough to stay in the lessons.  So I’ll be back next week.

But right now I’m starting to ache from tonight, so I’m going to bed.

Ow.

Sunday Skate

The Summer Youth League starts July 10 and T will be done with his lessons by then and ready to join a team.

I, on the other hand, will be nowhere near ready. :(  So the little snot’ll be playing before me.

If I could get on the ice more for practice then I might have a chance (snowball’s), but it’s twenty miles to the nearest ice from my house, so once or twice a week is about all I can manage.

So this Sunday, I got a bit better at backward skating and started trying to hockey stop with my left-foot forward.

I suck at that.  It feels so damn awkward … worse than skating clockwise.  I may give up on it and concentrate on other things … I’ll just always stop on my right foot and turn to my left … what’s the worst that could happen?

My daughter came with this time and stopped me at center ice to ask me how to stop.  She skates well, has started skating backwards, but can’t seem to master stopping.  So I tried to explain a snowplow stop.

She understands the premise, but can’t seem to do it, always winding up in a spin because she’s not scraping the ice at all.

So I tried to get through to her with an analogy I, as the father of a fifteen-year old girl, hope can do double-duty:

“The blade needs to start scraping the ice, not slide over it.  Put pressure on the blades.  Try vocalizing what you want to do.

"Now pretend you’re in a car with a boy, put pressure on the blades and say ‘Stop!’”

She found this amusing, but still couldn’t get it, so I suggested she stand in one place and scrape the ice with one blade to see what it feels like.  I demonstrated:

“Stop!” scrape

“Stop!” scrape

“Just like in a boy’s car.

“Stop!” scrape

It’s at this point that I lost my balance and fell on my ass.  Much hilarity ensued.

She still can’t stop.

lolSkates

It’s a formula that’s worked for cats, dogs and attempts at English translation – so now, lolSkates.  The difference, though, is that my skating can make you laugh without misspelled captions.

At today’s skate I had the girl-child take some video of me so I could evaluate my backward skating.  My judgment? Well, it seems a lot faster when I’m doing it …

For the record, there was an incident before the video was shot.  I would like to make it completely clear that I did not fall down – no matter what the girl-child claims.  Here’s what happened:

Early in the session the hockey-game-in-my-head took a turn against us.  We turned the puck over in the offensive zone and I had to hustle to the blue line as one of the opposing forwards-in-my-head had the puck and an open sheet of ice all the way to our goal (which was in my head, as well, since they don’t put the actual nets out during public skating).

I got to the blue line ahead of him and started to turn to block his progress when he clearly began a pass to the opposing center-in-my-head.  Since the rest of my team-in-my-head was tied up deep in the offensive zone, this would be very bad and result in three-on-one rush, since their other winger-in-my-head was free as well.

So, bravely sacrificing my body for the team-in-my-head, I dove to the ice, making a spectacular pokecheck with the stick-in-my-head and directing the puck-in-my-head back deep into the offensive zone where my teammate-in-my-head took it and immediately scored. 

This is how I wound up sprawled facedown on the ice at the blueline. 

I did not fall.

This is not the first blatantly false accusation the girl-child has made about me, either.  Just yester day, she accused me of falling out of my kayak.  Brat.

Weekly Skate

Nothing earth-shaking in skating this week.  T had his regular lesson today and I went to the public skate – after his lesson, he joined me and I had him work on his crossover and backward skating a little bit.

I didn’t start the four-week skating lessons yesterday.  I spent Friday paddling in the Gulf and just couldn’t get up the ambition to skate on Saturday.  No energy until about 8:00 PM, when I got a wild hair to go buy a bicycle – bought the cheapest mountain bike Wal-Mart had ($89) and rode three miles last night around 9:30.

I ordered an attachment for running dogs for the bike from Amazon and as soon as that arrives we’ll see if the Big Bad Wolf …

… gets the concept or if she’ll just wait for an opportune moment to dump me on my head.  Odds are currently 6-to-5 against and pick ‘em.

Really-good-skater-guy wasn’t at the public skate today, so no comments were made about my backward-practice.  I expanded things today, going from blue line to blue line.

Something odd: When skating forward, my right leg is dominant, but backward, my left-leg winds up doing the stronger stroke.

I was able to get more comfortable with a semi-crouched position going backward today and kept my head up more – alternating between looking behind (ahead of?) me and ahead of (behind?) me. 

I started practicing keeping my eye on skaters coming toward me, since that’s what I’ll need to do when I start playing.  Unfortunately, since my backward speed is, shall we say, sub-optimal, this means that I’m mostly watching people skate toward and by me.

On the other hand, if someone gives that little five-year old along the boards a stick and a puck, I’m pretty sure I can take her.

I need to get my skates sharpened again and change back to a deeper hollow, I think.  Last time I had them put their “normal” hollow on them and for some reason I’m just not getting enough bite on the edge to feel comfortable – it slides more than digging in.  This is affecting my stop and turns. 

Or maybe I should keep it as-is and try to get used to it, since the deeper hollow will slow me down and, god knows, there’s enough of that already.

Some Really Nice Folks and a Jackass

T’s regular lesson in learn-to-play today and not much new, except that I’ve decided not to jump into the current adult learn-to-play session.  I’d like to, but I’ve watched it a couple times now and I’d be the worst skater in there.  Instead, I’ll be taking a four-week learn-to-skate class starting Saturday –- hopefully I’ll be able to improve enough with that to get in on the next set of playing classes.

Since we started this, I’ve noticed some folks going out of their way to be nice and helpful to us:

• T’s coach at one of his first couple lessons, who gave him a free jersey;
• Really, all of T’s coaches deserve credit for putting up with the little snot;  ;)
• I was sitting at a table during one of the public skates and a referee walked up to me and asked, “Is it your son who’s learning to play?”  My first thought was: “Oh, hell, he jumped onto the ice during someone’s game”, but no, a player had broken his stick and they took the time to track down a kid it could be cut down for (resulting in the one and only $180 stick T will have for a long, long time);
• A lady who heard me talking in the pro-shop about goalie gear, during a momentary brain-fart where I thought my knees might be able to handle that, and stopped me a couple days later to give me the number of someone who was selling his old gear;

In general, everyone we’ve interacted with has been very nice and helpful – so let me set the scene for Jackass.

The public skate starts today and I take a few laps, then move on to practicing backward skating. 

I’m skating a normal oval, like everyone else, but I’m transitioning to skate backwards at the red-line, and continuing straight until I either decide to stop or transition back to forward-skating somewhere between the other blue-line and the goal-line.

Before I transition, I’m making sure that there’s no one ahead of me that I might catch up to once I’m skating backwards and no one coming up behind me who’ll be caught unawares by my transition.  Furthermore, I’m making sure that there’s no one in the boxes who might step out onto the ice ahead of me (behind me?) once I transition.  If these conditions aren’t met, I just keep going forward to the other side of the rink.

I’m very comfortable with my transition at this point and I’m keeping my speed down to maintain that comfort-level.  I think it’s clear that I’m not very experienced at going backwards yet, but I’m maintaining a straight path and I’m certainly not spinning around or flailing my arms in the air. 

Nor am I over-balancing and about to go backwards, ass over tea kettle.  I recognize that my center-of-gravity is still too high and my knees aren’t bent enough, but I’m working on that. 

In short, I’m being very careful to make sure I don’t run into anyone, get in anyone’s way, or push my skills too far – just enough to force me to improve.

So I’m doing this and as I’m skating backwards, this guy, we’ll call him really-good-skater-guy slows down and gets my attention.  Now really-good-skater-guy is someone I see at the rink a lot – he breezes around at a pretty good clip and clearly knows what he’s doing.

“Turn around,” he says.  I figure he wants to tell me something and knows I’ll be able to listen better skating forward.

“Cool,” I think to myself. “Really-good-skater-guy’s going to give me a pointer or two.  Probably that I should get my COG lower, but still.”  So I turn around and get ready to listen.

“You need to stop skating backwards like that,” he says.

Huh? I must have looked perplexed, because he continued:

“You’re going to bust your head open.”

Now, keep in mind, I haven’t fallen, I haven’t lost control, I haven’t been flailing my arms in circles like a deranged gibbon.  In fact, I feel like I’ve been very careful not to push too far beyond my abilities – obviously, in order to improve, one has to push somewhat beyond one’s abilities, but I’m pushing that envelope slowly and with forethought.

I say something to the effect of, “Well, I’m learning.”

To which he responds, “Learning to crack your head open if you keep it up.”

At this point, I’m somewhat irritated, because his tone and phrasing are very condescending.  In addition, I realize that his initial “turn around” wasn’t a friendly, “hey, turn around so we can chat”, it was, to him, an order of some sort – an attitude I don’t respond well to.

But I’m not going to cause a scene, so I shrug and say: “Well, I’m practicing,” hoping he’ll take the hint and go away.

Which he does, with the parting words: “If you’re going to do it, wear a helmet; I’ve seen too many people crack their heads open.”

Now, his core advice, which he finally gets to, is probably sound: wear a helmet.

In fact, I’ve considered wearing not only the helmet, but my shin and elbow pads, as well as my hockey pants, when practicing skating, precisely because it’s just safer.  And I don’t bounce so good anymore.

But his presentation and attitude are just so supercilious and negative, that this encounter simply pisses me off.  Plus now I’ve got “crack your head open” and the fact that really-good-skater-guy is apparently keeping an eye on me running through my head, so if I try to practice any more, I likely will fall and crack my head open – not the best mindset in which to be when practicing something.

Which, of course, brings up the mindsets of: if I don’t keep practicing it, he’ll think it’s because he told me not to; and, if I do wear my pads next time, he’ll think it’s because of him.  The stubborn boogeyman of human nature rearing its ugly head. 

But I realize that the I’m-pissed-off-so-I’ll-be-even-better-at-something mentality only really works in the movies, so I leave off any backward skating for a while.

Midway through the second-half of the public skating, I start practicing this again – same way, only doing it if there’s no one else around me and no flailing – when really-good-skater-guy breezes by me again with an eye roll.  What the hell is this guy’s problem with me?

Even if the advice “wear a helmet” is good, fundamentally a lot more people have learned to skate – forward, backward and sideways-triple-camel-death-spin – than have ever learned with one.  The learn to skate class, where, I assume, I’ll be taught to skate backwards, doesn’t require a helmet.  Ultimately, this guy seems older than I am so, presumably, he learned as a child well before the current helmet craze, so he must have learned without a helmet.

Attitude and phrasing have a big impact when offering advice.  My fifteen-year old daughter apparently knows that, because she offered some skating advice to a couple this afternoon and got a big “thank you” after the session.

Let’s see:

“Hey, you’re doing pretty good, but you should keep your center-of-gravity lower and a lot of people get hurt learning this, so you might want to wear a helmet.”

or

“Turn around. You need to stop skating backwards like that.”

Which approach would work for you?

Things We Need to Work On

No, this list will not be everything that T and I need to work on, just the most immediate couple of things I can see right now.  There’s not enough room on the interweb for the complete list. 

One thing I’ve noticed observing both the kids’ and adults’ learn-to-play classes is that they concentrate on different things.  The kids are combining learning to skate (crossovers, backwards, etc.) with hockey drills, while the adults are assumed to know all the skating maneuvers.  As a mediocre skater, I’m a bit miffed by this, but oh well.

So T’s list is more hockey related, while mine is more skating in general.  Sucks to be me. :(

T

• Situational awareness.  He’s focusing on the puck, especially when he has it, and not looking around at all.
• Passing.  Sort of like the first one – he looks at the puck as he’s getting ready to pass, not at where he wants the pass to go, so they tend to go wide or he misses the target if it’s moved.
• Practicing. He needs to start taking new things he learns in class into his regular skating.  For instance, last class they taught crossovers, but he spent the next public session without doing it at all.

Me

• Trust the Ice. A lot of my problems boil down to this – someone once told me to get better I had to trust the ice. I can see this in other skaters, the way they’ll turn and slide with ease and confidence.  I have it with certain maneuvers, but not with others, and I think it needs to be more of a general attitude.
• Backwards. Awkward as it feels, I need to get a lot better at skating backwards.
• Clockwise. Why don’t they reverse direction periodically in the public skating sessions?  I can’t do a damn thing turning to the right.
• Shooting.  It’s not that I have a weak shot … it’s that I have no shot.  Not to speak of, anyway.  I think I need to not practice shooting until I have a class where they tell me how, otherwise I’ll be reinforcing a technique that clearly sucks.
• Balance.  I need to get the Wii set back up and start doing yoga in Wii Fit.  If I had stronger core muscles a lot of this would be easier.

Forward-to-Backward Transition

There are a lot of things I need to work on as far as general skating skills before I’ll really feel ready to play, so each new accomplishment is a big milestone for me – one step closer to that first game.

On Sunday, I watched the adult learn-to-play class, the one a coach told me I could jump right into, and saw one of their drills:

Two players skate around the face-off circles twice and head up-ice. Pass in the defensive zone, pass in the neutral zone, pass in the offensive zone and shoot.  They ran it both with and without a defenseman trying to break things up.  I think I could handle this pretty well, except for the skating around the circles part.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I can skate in a circle.  That’s not the problem.  But this drill had them skating the top half of the circle forwards and the bottom half backwards.  Since I can barely make noticeable sternway backwards and can’t transition at all, even in a straight line, the drill would be problematic for me. 

So after sending T off to join the kids’ scrimmage, I worked on that today.  My friend Eric tried to tell me how to do it last week, but I still can’t translate what he said into physical action.

I did, however, get a pretty stable transition going – skating straight, anyway.  It’s not elegant, but it works for me.

It involves going into a hockey stop with less pressure on my leading foot, so it’s still scraping the ice a bit, but not too much, then bringing my trailing foot around to point backwards.  I seem to be lifting the heel of my trailing foot during the turn, too.  So I can then transition my weight to the trailing foot, which is now pointed backwards, and reposition the lead.

I practiced that for quite a while today, skating from the blue line, transitioning at the red and then gliding to a snowplow stop at the other blue line.  Not pretty, but it worked.

One step closer…

The boy-child did not beat me

Today’s skate-and-shoot had very few people at it, so there was a lot of ice for T and I.  We started out with T skating with the puck and taking shots on goal while I poked the puck away once in a while and gave him something to worry about to keep him on his toes.

Until, that is, he announces that the score is 2-0. Well, hell, I didn’t know we were keeping score.

So the two goals he scored before that don’t count, in my opinion. Neither does the empty-netter he laid claim to after I’d been sitting on the bench catching my breath for a full minute.  Which means that his 5-0 final score is inflated by three.

Yeah, I’ll give him credit for the middle two goals, because I was pushing him pretty hard there and he stayed on the puck well. For some reason, every time I sent the puck to the net it went wide to the left.

Once he was bringing the puck up the right side and I stayed with him, blocking his shot and not letting him move toward center ice.  I figured once we got to the net he’d skate straight into the boards like he usually does to stop, but this time he turned into me and we went behind the net, with him still in control of the puck.  It wasn’t until we got tangled up behind the net and both went down that he lost it.

Since there were only a few kids there today and most of them his size, I sent him off to join their scrimmage while I practiced skating (more on that in another post).  He developed a little tactic of waiting until the crowd around the puck got tangled up, then swooping in to grab it. 

T’s Gear Stand

One thing I didn’t realize before starting all this was how much you sweat in hockey – I mean, ice, right? Cold? Sweat comes from heat, right?

Well, once all that gear’s on and you skate for forty-five minutes, you find out different. And even I know that leaving the gear wet is going to result in damp, stinky gear the next time you put it on.

So some kind of stand to let the pads and such dry is in order, but after just buying two sets of gear, another $40-$60 each for stands seems a bit much.  I’d rather spend that on ice time.

So T and I headed over to my crack dealer* Home Depot to see what we could come up with.  For $20 we got enough PVC, connectors, PVC glue and a hacksaw blade to make two stands.

T did all the measuring and cutting of this by himself, I just did the gluing.  Here’s a stop-motion clip of him doing the dry-fit:

 

One problem with this: We went with 3/4” PVC and the upright bends too much with all the gear on it.  The arms are fine, but it sways like a sapling.  Should have gone with 1” for the upright.  But, never fear, attaching a 2” piece to brace it** works fine and provides a convenient tube to put the stick in:

Next is for me to build mine and figure out where to put it … right now the gear’s piled in a corner of the bedroom, but I’m not sure how long that’ll be acceptable.

 

* I’ve started a lot of projects around the house recently and kitten thinks I’m addicted to Home Depot.  I disagree – I’ve only been there about a hundred times in the last month, which is perfectly reasonable.

** Yes, getting the 2” PVC required another trip to Home Depot. I feel much better now and the shakes have subsided.

Oh Crap

I go looking for T after his skating lesson today to give him the wristband he needs for public skating, but he’s still on the ice where the lessons are.

I figure they’re just taking advantage of some extra ice time until the zamboni is finished cleaning the other sheet, so I get his attention and he skates over:

“They want me to try the learn to play and see how I like it!” he says.

So he tries it … and, of course, he likes it. 

In the learn to skate group he was one of the bigger kids and got things pretty quickly, but he’s being challenged in learn to play.

Of course, this screws up my timing and plan to take learn to play at the same time he does … after I’ve had another couple months to practice skating.

One of the coaches told me its no problem, I can jump into the current adult learn-to-play class and there are enough coaches in it to work with me on skating, but I’m a little leery of that.  I don’t want to be the suckiest guy in the class.

I need to decide by next Sunday what I’m going to do about that. :/

The Boy Has Some Skills

Second skate and shoot for T. 

Near the end of the session, the goalie from the adult scrimmage goes in net at center ice where the kids are scrimmaging.

T’s not scrimmaging, he’s just grabbing loose pucks and skating in to take shots, some of which the goalie lets go by, so T’s happy about that.

On his last shot, though, T’s coming straight in with the puck.  He shifts his weight and lifts his stick a bit to take a shot and the goalie moves to cover him, but T swerves left, takes the puck with him and then gives it a little backhand tap into the net!

It was a very nice little move that he did at-speed (his, at least) – he should be proud of that shot, I know I am.

Looking for a Future Division - Redux

Tonight there are Division C-Gold games … annotated as “novice” on the schedule.

I come in mid-game and I’m immediately disappointed.  If this is “novice”, then I’m an even worse skater than I thought I was.  I knew I needed to work on things, but I didn’t realize how far I have to go.

There’s a C-Silver division, that might be what the guy at RDV meant as the “rookie” division, but I think I’ll probably have farther to go than I expected even for that … I need the GWFDAL*-division.

 

*Guys Who Fall Down A Lot

Boy-child’s First Skate and Shoot

Okay, that was fun.

After checking out the skate and shoot Monday, I decided to bring T today.  The rest of his gear arrived, so he’s well-padded and ready for some more ice time.

Unlike last time, when I just skated around trying to control the puck, this time I had an eleven-year old of roughly my own skill-level to play with (all the other eleven-year olds there being far beyond my level).

We practiced passing – a lot different on ice with a puck, than it was in the garage with a plastic ball. T took some shots on the empty net at center ice. And we just chased each other around in the neutral zone trying to steal the puck from each other – it was a blast.

I like the skate and shoots, so far, but I’d like to find a time when they’re less crowded.  The scrimmages at either end seem to get a bit more aggressive as time goes on and come further and further over the blue line -- it’s unnerving to watch a herd of guys four times his size bear down on the little guy and weave around him.

Looking for a Future Division

In a couple months T’ll be done with learn to skate and then we’ll both take a learn to play class.  After that, I’m pretty sure he’ll be ready to play on a team, but I’m not so sure about myself. The kid’s picking things up and improving a lot faster than I can.

Tonight I go to the rink to watch a game in the 35+ division – I am, after all, getting up there, so maybe this is where I need to set my sites on playing.  I want to get an idea for what my target skill-level needs to be to join a team.

Things look promising at first … lots of grey hair, lots of missing hair, some bellies.  I might be able to keep up with these guys … then the puck drops …

Old and slow?  Right.  Older and slower than when they played in college, maybe.

Not where I’ll likely ever be playing, but a fun game to watch.  I need to stop by and watch games here more often.

My First Skate and Shoot

So how, exactly, do we get from the boy-child’s skating lessons to me being on the ice in full hockey gear?

The progression of logic is as simple as it is horrifying:

• Boy-child needs ice time;
• Skate and shoot is recommended;
• I should be on the ice with him and should check it out beforehand;
• Although the rules say, as an adult, I only need a helmet and gloves, I realize I don’t bounce so good anymore;

See? I was clearly required to buy a full set of hockey gear today. There was no other logical option.

So me in a locker room – haven’t been in one since high school and didn’t like it much then.  Putting on all this gear for the first time. 

Yes, realizing there’s still a tag on the elbow pads and pulling it off quickly while hoping no one saw.  Of course that had to happen …

Onto the ice and looking around because I have absolutely no idea how this works or what’s going to happen.  Thankfully a few seconds of watching make it clear.

Nets at either end of the ice and one in the neutral zone against the boards between the two benches.

There’s a goaltender at one end with people taking shots and shots on the empty net at the other end, so it looks like center ice will be a fairly safe place for me to stay.

I grab a puck and set out to practice just being able to control it and skate at the same time – back and forth between the blue lines or cross ice.  And I don’t think I do too badly.  For the most part, I can keep it on my stick, even when I’m stopping and changing directions.

I pick up the pace, too, of both skating and stopping, and I’m pretty happy that I can mostly keep the puck with me when skating at a reasonable speed (for me, at least) and when reversing directions quickly.

When I get off the ice I realize something, though: forty-five minutes of skating is one thing – forty-five minutes of skating in twenty-five pounds of gear is quite another.  I’m exhausted and sweating like a pig.

I got my hockey stop

Now I haven’t skated much over the years … maybe twice a year since 1995 or thereabouts, so I’m okay, but not great.

I can make it around the ice reasonably quickly, snowplow stop and if you watch long enough (or possibly use a time-lapse camera) you can see me making progress when I skate backwards.  You have to pay attention, though, to the casual observer my backward skating looks remarkably like someone dancing the Twist.

But I have never been able to do a hockey stop. 

I’ve tried, but mostly I just wind up turning or spinning in a circle.

Well, today I got it.  Something clicked and I was able to start getting a feel for it early in the skating session.  I was still mostly turning, but my outside skate was scraping more and slowing me more, then all of a sudden the turn went away completely and became an actual stop.

I can still only do it with my right foot – turning so my left foot is outermost feels incredibly awkward, but I can work on that.

So I spent most of the rest of the session at center ice skating a little between the cones:

Skate-skate-skate-stop, skate-skate-skate-stop, skate-skate-skate-stop.

I’m rather proud of myself, actually.

Boy-child: Lesson Three

Proper shin and elbow pads, plus a jersey one of the coaches gave him last week and T is starting to look like he means business.

At the public skate after class he keeps his shin pads on and starts going to his knees and sliding like they taught him in class today, but that’s not good in the crowds so I have to tell him to stop.

So now I have a dilemma.  I want to get him more ice time so he can practice what he’s learning, but he can’t do those things in public skating.  The staff recommends taking him to skate and shoots, but I’m a little wary of that. Those’re going to be full of people who already know how to play and he’s barely starting out.

Second skating lesson for the boy-child …

We arrive at the ice and I have him wearing his bicycle elbow and knee pads … I haven’t had time to find some for him and Play It Again Sports doesn’t have any used.

Well, he heads for the far end of the ice where the highest-level group is and I think, “uh, oh … he was only supposed to move up one level”.

Nope … I assumed that, but not so.  They bumped him up to the highest level in the class.

The boy-child’s first lesson

In a new pair of gloves and used helmet and skates from Play It Again Sports, the boy-child takes the ice for his first learn-to-skate lesson.

To my eyes, he seems to be doing okay.  Not falling down a lot or anything.

After the class, he tells me he’s getting moved up to another group.  They’d split the class into four groups on day one, and T was in the second group.  I figured, cool – he’s moving up a level.

I talk to the coach and she tells me he should have elbow pads, shin pads and a stick for that level.

Well, a couple sets of pads … not that big a deal …

Dementia has clearly set in …

Forty-two years old …

Largely sedentary for the last decade …

Never played organized sports in my life …

Raised in sunny Florida …

Obviously I’m the perfect candidate to start playing ice hockey.

No? Not obvious? So how did I get myself into this situation?

Born in Minnesota (okay, hockey-country).  Never played, never went to a game, and moved to Florida when I was about six.

Florida was not hockey-country in the seventies and eighties.  Far from it.  Summered back in Minnesota, but not a lot of hockey in August even there.

I remember my grandfather took me to one hockey game when I was a kid.  A USA-USSR exhibition match – but I didn’t really understand the game.

Then in 1995 Orlando got a professional hockey team, the Orlando Solar Bears.  The guy I worked for at the time had season tickets and gave me a couple one day, so I went to a game.

I don’t remember who one or lost or even if a goal was scored on this play, but I remember seeing Mark Beaufait take the puck from one end of the ice to the other – around and between players from the other team like it had been choreographed. 

In that one skate from end-to-end of the ice, he made me a hockey fan.

Within a month I had season tickets of my own and for a number of years rarely missed a game.

But I never considered playing … my ideas of sports for me were:

• Golf: Hit the ball, drive the cart, pay the drink girl;
• Bowling: Roll the ball, eat a cheeseburger and fries until it’s my turn again;
• Kayaking: Can be strenuous, but you get to do it sitting down;

Hockey looked like a lot of work for people a lot younger than me.

In 2001 I met my wife, who had two children at the time.  I took the kids to games with me occasionally, until the season ended with the Solar Bears winning the Turner Cup and the IHL folding.  No more hockey.

Another team, the Florida Seals, came to town, but problems with leagues and management and switching playing locations made it more difficult for me to get to their games.

The point of all this is to set my now eleven-year old son’s (I adopted my wife’s kids) exposure-level to hockey:

• Half a season of watching the Solar Bears when he was two;
• A few Seals games at three, four and five;
• Very few games on television;

So why, over the years, hasn’t he shut up about it?

He used to take a plastic stick and puck and skate around the kitchen in his socks “playing hockey”.  Half a decade since he’s been to a game in person, and he still wants to play. 

But we’re twenty miles from the nearest ice and hockey is not exactly a cheap sport – and the boy-child sometimes has issues following directions and following through on things, so I didn’t want to commit to the time and expense only to have him quit after a couple practices.

Well, earlier this year, my wife brought home a Try Hockey Free flyer from RDV.  So, for free, I’ll take him to spend an hour on the ice.

Equipped with rental skates, RDV-supplied stick and gloves, and his Spiderman bike helmet, he went onto the ice for an hour of drills … and damned if the little snot didn’t listen to the coaches, do what they told him to and get better at every drill. And he comes off the ice smiling and happy.

I try to see if he’s serious.  I tell him it’s hard work, it takes a lot of practice, he’ll have to do the same thing over and over again to get good at it (he hates that). He still loves it, he still wants to play.

So I sign him up for Learn to Skate: Beginner Hockey.  All I need to get him for that is a pair of skates, a decent helmet and some gloves.  If he doesn’t stick with it I won’t be out all that much money, right?

Learn to skate is about ten weeks – after that there’s a learn to play class he’ll have to take and I notice that there’s an adult learn to play class immediately thereafter.

In the misty, distant picture of the future I have, I think “that might be fun”, when he moves up to learn to play, I’ll take it too …