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.