I got to the rink late due to (what else is new?) traffic on the Expressway, and had apparently missed my celebratory one-month cake and ice cream. Weird. Drills had already started, and one of the coaches, still getting ready himself, said "you're late."
"Yeah, traffic," I muttered, feeling like I was late for sixth-grade math class.
"You're gonna have to skate laps," he said as he headed out the door.
After a pause, he laughed and said, "nah, just kidding," which was good, because the only lap I would've made was back to the highway and home.
I tried to dress quickly, which isn't easy with hockey. As is the case when rushing, something was missing. In this case, the thing missing was correctly tied skates. They were tied, but not nearly tightly enough. I decided to wing it anyways, and headed down the stairs (weird, I know) to the ice.
The coaches had started us off with some more backwards-skating drills, and by the time I got down there they were already done. I drifted down to the other end of the ice, employing my best "late to class in college so I hide in the back" sneakiness, and made it down in time for 2-on-0 drills.
We paired off, and headed down the ice. I managed to end up being the shot-taker twice, and, of course, didn't score either time. Soon, however, I found myself on the wrong end of some odd numbers, and was paired with one of the coaches.
This is like being paired with your teacher for an in-class assignment, in that you're not going to have any excuse for doing it wrong, and that everyone else is watching you. To my own surprise, I held my own, and my coach, being the generous man that he is, deferred the shot to me. That means I got to get stoned by the goalie in front of the whole clinic, so that's nice.
After the 2-on-0's, we started a skating drill we'd never done before. We were told to pair off, and I ended up with a kid named Bobby who is around my age and had actually skated on my line a few times during the scrimmage. He's a nice kid, more advanced than most of us, so maybe he wasn't the best partner for a drill where we had to skate backwards while towing our partner, and skate forwards while pushing him (and while he made every effort to make the pushing harder).
The drill resembled a football drill using tackling dummies, and I actually did OK pushing him down. He gave me words of encouragement and some tips, and I told him I'd do my best to not get in his way when we switched roles.
Yeah, that didn't work out.
I ended up looking like an old man trying to stop a car from pulling out of a space: both hands on the hood, pretty much holding on for dear life, knowing I'm going to get steam-rolled.
Bobby, to his infinite credit, eased up a bit, and told me how to better position my skates. What a saint. Mercifully, the drill ended soon after. I was one more run away from looking like the bad guy at the end of Roger Rabbit.
Next up was a stickhandling drill, in which we had to backhand the puck around some cones, skate in on the goalie, and shoot. Fun stuff. After a couple of twirls up and down, I still hadn't scored. Thinking myself a regular sniper, I was shooting my
The last drill of the day was something like "the weave" of basketball practice fame: three players lined up, one with the puck. The player with the puck passed it to someone, then skated to the spot he passed it. The one who received the puck was supposed to adjust his/her positioning accordingly, pass it to the next person, and so on.
The coaches asked for volunteers who knew how to do the drill. Predictably, the first time one of the volunteers made a pass, two skaters crashed into each other like something out of America's Funniest Videos. Eventually, however, they got the hang of it, and the rest of us fell into line.
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| A VERY technical and scientific illustration of the drill I'm talking about. |
After a few runs, the coaches broke us up into teams and we got to scrimmage, with a twist: one-minute shifts only. The coaches blew the whistle every 60 seconds, and we had to shuffle on and off the ice as directed. (One would think that this would make it easier, but truthfully it just made everyone more winded: short shifts also equaled short respites on the bench.)
I was skating at forward again, and had a few decent opportunities. My best chance was one that never really materialized: I followed one of the more hot-doggish players in the clinic up the ice, and that player went into the corner carrying the puck. The opposing defenseman followed, and I posted up at the top of the crease, doing my best Mark Recchi: stick on the ice, hairline slowly receding. I called for the puck, wide open, ready to bang it home...but the player kept skating, going around the net, into the other corner, and flipping a weak, bad-angle shot that the goalie easily turned aside.
Needless to say, I wasn't happy, feeling that my glory had been stolen from me by a puck-hog. THE NERVE!
A few shifts later, my team made a bad change, and we got caught going the wrong way. I tried my best to backcheck, but couldn't help but remember that I can't stop, so maybe going full-steam towards my own goalie isn't the best idea after all. I had a front row seat to watch my goalie make a save, only to have a member of the opposition bang the puck into the vacant net. My first minus. :(((((((((((((((((((((((((
The scrimmage was short, and ended as a 2-1 win for my team. That's two wins for team blue/teal/whatever now. I could get used to that. We're supposed to have a full scrimmage next session, and then play another rookie team after that.
Playing against a real team? Now that's going to be a real three-ring circus.
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