Week Five (Nov. 13)

As we were told at the end of Week Four, Week Five would be our second full scrimmage of the "season": no drills, just a game. Unlike the first full-session scrimmage two weeks earlier, however, we would have two goalies, so there probably wouldn't be nine goals scored this time.

I got to the rink a little early, and sat down on a bench to watch the game that was wrapping up. After a few minutes, I walked over to the "locker room," which is actually just a little enclave with metal benches behind a cinder block wall, and found that it was full: a few members of my team were in there, but the rest of the room was filled with gear from the teams playing before us.

Rather than try to sandwich myself in between mountains of awful-smelling gear bags, and decided to just dress next to the rink. I sat down on a bench behind one of the nets to put my stuff on, and had on my skates, socks, shin pads, and pants, when I realized where I was:

The girls' "locker room."

At UMass, there really aren't locker rooms available, so the women who play in the clinic dress outside of the cinder block garrisons used by the men. ("Dress" is used loosely here, as most people show up with their under-gear already on; there's no nudity in getting dressed, that comes later.)

The blond girl next to me said, "So why are you dressing out here with the girls?"

"No room in there, so I just sat down," I said, slowly realizing that I was probably setting myself up for a ribbing at the hands of the other players.

Realizing that my manhood may be at stake, I dressed as quickly as I could, then went off to stand by the glass, stretch, mingle, etc. as the Zamboni left the ice. CRISIS AVERTED, I DIDN'T TURN INTO A GIRL!

However, as is the case whenever one rushes, things felt amiss: my skates weren't tight enough, my elbow pads felt like they were on backwards, my pants kept sliding down. I was filled with the feeling of "do I have everything?", and skated onto the ice wondering if I forgot to turn off the stove, or if I left my garage door open.

I took my twirls up and down the ice, and gathered a puck to stickhandle it and generally look busy. As I was coming down the ice with the puck, I noticed that the goalie wasn't really paying attention, as he was stretching, getting his angles right, and doing other weird stuff that only goalies understand.

So I had two choices: either keep the puck and just stickhandle, or shoot the puck and risk hitting the kid in the face or catching him off guard. When one considers that my wristshot could probably sink an aircraft carrier, it's clear why I was so torn.

A video demonstration of the damage my shot can do.

As I got closer, the goalie slid back into the crease and got down in the butterfly, meaning he was ready for the shot. I took it, didn't score (obviously) and then realized that the reason he wasn't paying attention is because he knew he could just sidle over there whenever and still stop it.

Ouch. That's something like walking into a final exam without even opening a book to study.

With my pride hurting, I headed to the bench. Our coach was, again, looking for volunteers on defense, so I did my best to inspect every square inch of my blade to make sure he knew how busy I was, like reading REALLY HARD in middle school so the teacher doesn't call on you.

Mission accomplished, as I was assigned to play wing on the second line, and the game began.

This game went a bit smoother than the first one, but my line couldn't put the puck in the net. We didn't allow a goal either, and our team's other line had scored twice to give us a 2-1 cushion.

My best chance to score came in the first period, as my team controlled the puck in the offensive zone. I was in one of the corners, and as the puck headed up the wall I went in front of the net (Mark Recchi again!). The puck carrier ended up heading around behind the net, and the puck was knocked off his stick and towards me. I reached out for it, and attempted to pull it to my backhand, where I could've slipped it past the goalie with a defender draped on my back, and celebrated accordingly.

Instead, the goalie reached as well, and while I got the puck past his glove, the knob of his stick hit mine enough to dislodge the puck, and it was swept away from the crease and out of danger.

My line started to put things together in the second period, and I tried to get myself on YouTube with some stellar playmaking. On one rush, I managed to corral the puck at my own blue line and bank it off the boards and out of the zone. Turning on the jets, I raced up ice to try to beat the defenseman to the puck, and could see a linemate all alone on the other side of the zone. "If I can get to the puck, it's an easy breakaway from the blueline in," I thought to myself.

However, the defenseman had a stride or two on me, and, when I realized I wasn't going to beat him to the puck, I reached into my bag of tricks and pulled out an NHL13 play: I dove for the puck.

I laid out, reached with my stick, and whacked the puck towards the middle of the ice, only to have the defenseman tip it with his blade and send it into the corner. FOILED!

I got up and got some praise from my teammates on the bench, giving me kudos for my hustle, when in reality I just forgot that this was real life and not a video game. Oops.

I was involved in another scoring chance later in the second, when I got the puck at the defensive blue line and made a little tap pass back to a linemate who had some good speed going. The defenseman closest to me clearly didn't expect this, because my teammate blew past him and he was left spinning like an old-school MBTA turnstile. I skated hard myself, seeking to turn a 1-on-1 into a 2-on-1, and it worked.

My teammate gave me the puck at the attacking blue line, and then headed for the net. As I gathered the puck and plotted my next move, it crossed my mind that I had skated as fast as I could and was rapidly running out of real estate. If I didn't stop skating, I was about four seconds away from being Luis Mendoza.

I switched from a stride to a glide, and centered the puck, hoping it'd find my teammate's stick in the slot. No such luck, as my pass made its way past the stick and through the legs of the defenseman, but was just out of my teammate's reach.

As I skated back to the bench, our coach had words for both of us.

"You BOTH stopped skating! You gotta keep skating, or the defenseman's just gonna play the puck! You," he said to my teammate, "stopped skating at the blue line! He made a great pass to where you would've been if you hadn't slowed down, you gotta keep going!"

Great pass? Good for me.

As the teams lined up for a faceoff later in the period, one of the referees stopped by our bench.

"Boy, you must have a lot of faith in these guys to be out here without a cage," he said to me, the only player in the clinic without a shield or a cage.

"No," I said. "I just figure I'm tall enough that their wild sticks won't reach me."

"Yeah, I never used to wear a shield," he replied as play started up again. "Then a couple weeks ago I almost caught a stick in the eye and changed my mind. I'm getting a visor next week."

Yikes. Might be time to head back to Pure Hockey...

We went into the third period up 2-1, and my line still hadn't scored. As we were preparing to take our shift with around 7 minutes left in the game, we got on the board as one of my linemates collected a pass from a defenseman, the other joined him on the rush, and he put a rebound past the goalie to make it 3-1.

Two-goal lead, late third...just don't screw up, right?

WRONG.

I was hanging out in the neutral zone, anticipating the puck being chipped out by the other team, and it was. I skated back to retrieve it, and heard my goalie yelling at me, something to the effect of "you got time, you got time," meaning there was no forechecker on my tail.

I gathered the puck and looked for my options: there were two opposing players along the wall, I didn't know who was behind me, and I saw one teammate at the top of the slot, by himself. I KNOW that you should never clear the puck in the middle of the zone, so what did I do?

Sent it to my teammate in the slot. STUPID. As you may be able to guess, the puck skittered off his stick directly to a member of the other team, who then took it in on goal and scored before I could recover. I felt like this guy:

I then slammed my stick on the ice and bellowed the appropriate expletives to show my teammates how sorry I was. I probably should've given the goalie a tap on the pads and said "my bad" or something, but instead I just stewed and looked upset so no one could accuse me of being not sorry.

We lined up for the ensuing faceoff, which was won by our team. I ended up with the puck, and dumped it into the zone, then chased after it. An opposing defender got it, but I put pressure on him, as I've learned that putting any pressure on anyone with the puck in this clinic will lead to a turnover 99 times out of a hundred. I got the puck back, and sent it back around the net to a teammate, who went back to the point.

I decided to make my way to the front of the net again (probably not the smartest place for me to go when I don't have a visor, but I guess I'm living dangerously), stumbling between a defender and the goalie, all while trying desperately to not knock the goalie over, when suddenly a heard a "clink" and some cheers.

We scored. My teammate fired the puck from the slot right past the screened goalie, who was probably wondering why this 6 ft. 4 inch guy in a teal jersey who looks like Bambi on ice was trying to skate in front of him. I wasn't credited with the goal, but it felt good to do the dirty work necessary to get the puck in the back of the net.

After the goal, our coach, with time winding down, told our center to play defense, leaving just a two man forecheck. We won the faceoff, and I dumped the puck in. I went in after it and ended up blocking a clearing attempt and sending it in further, just trying to kill off the last few seconds.

With around 6 seconds left, the opposing team started carrying the puck out of their zone. I was tired, so I half-heartedly skated after them, looking at the clock.

"5...4...3...2...1..." and the game ended without the other team getting a shot off. 4-2 victory for Team Teal, and my undefeated streak continues...