Week Nine (Dec. 11)

If the last two weeks of hockey had been all fun and games (or, more literally, all games), this week represented a return to the basics: drills, drills, and more drills. I had performed decently well in both the game and the previous week's scrimmage, so I figured I was about a week or so away from being promoted to the "A" league...and then a session of nothing but practice brought me crashing back to Earth like Felix Baumgartner.

Spoiler alert: I still can't stop.

The session started off ominously for me, almost as if my coaches were picking on me (not just me, I guess, as I'm not the only one who struggles with stopping). First drill: skate to the blue line, stop, come back; skate to the red line, stop, come back.

The task would've actually been less Herculean had they told me to literally fly to the blue line, stop, and come back.

However, I took my reps, three times in all. Here's how it went down:

Blue Line 1: Dragged my back foot and hoped no one noticed.
Red Line 1: Felt shame, tried to stop, panicked, used my back foot again.

Blue Line 2-3: Same as above.
Red Line 2-3: Stopped perfectly, spraying ice everywhere like a true champion...or same as above.

Having started my session off with abject failure, the coaches decided to give me a break by making the next drill the notorious push/pull drill, also known as "me getting pushed backwards and struggling to stay on my feet."

I ended up squaring off with one of the women in our clinic, a smaller girl who is a pretty good skater. I informed her ahead of time that this might get ugly, and she, bless her heart, didn't judge. I ended up being the "pusher" first, and did just fine. Believe it or not, I can actually skate.

However, once it was her time to push: chaos. The best way to describe it would be to say that it was like watching a person on ice trying to stop a car from accelerating with nothing but his hands. Have you seen Iron Man? There's a scene towards the end (and you can see it below) where Tony Stark tries to stop a speeding SUV. I'm Tony, my partner is the SUV.

I managed to stay on my feet, but on the inside, it was pretty much "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!" the entire time. You really haven't lived until you've been pushed up and down a rink by a 110-pound girl.

Sensing my vulnerability, the coaches decided our next drill would combine stick-handling, skating, and turning in very tight circles around strategically placed cones. NO PROBLEM!

There were rows of cones set up in four columns: one cone on the near blue line and one on the far blue line. Our objective was to skate up to the first cone, skate around it in a circle, skate to the other and repeat, all while maintaining control of the puck.

Some background: I recently received a pair of very nice hockey-style (read: no brakes) roller blades, and have been using those to do some skating when I can't go to a rink. It works the same muscles and is better than nothing. However, skating on concrete may have given me a slightly inflated idea of how good I am at turning.

On roller blades, I can spin around on a dime; on skates, I can spin around on, say, an area of 500 or so dimes. I imagine that me trying to skate around two cones probably looked something like a drunk frat boy trying to reenact Gene Kelly's lamppost scene from Singin' in the Rain.

My first two runs were humbling to say the least, so on my last two I decided to do what any smart person would do: slow down, and go in bigger circles around the cones! Hey, I may not be helping improve my turn radius, but I'm not falling!

Mercifully, the skating drills essentially ended there.

We shifted into a drill we'd done before (2-on-1's), and then tried something new: 1-on-1's.

For this drill, the skater stood on the goal line, and the defenseman stood at the red line. The skater sent a hard pass to the defenseman and started skating; the defenseman took the pass, sent it back towards the skater, then got back on defense. The skater took the puck and tried to take the puck to the net, past the defenseman.

The drill was pretty fun, and was a good bit of 1-on-1 competition. We were a bit short on defensemen, and at one point, I found myself matched up against my coach.

"Great," I thought. "I'm sure this will end well."

I made the pass and began skating, and was thinking about what move I could make when he started yelling, "my stick's on the outside, take the inside, TAKE THE INSIDE!!!"

Not one to defy orders, I did, and went right past him to shoot into the open net. HE SCORES, HE SCORES, HE SCORES!

Later in the drill, I was matched up with a teal teammate who had foiled me a couple of times before. This time, I decided to wait him out...and wait...and wait, until he finally reached with his stick, attempting a poke check. I then transferred the puck to my backhand and accelerated, skating past him and putting the puck in the empty cage to complete what I believe was my first-ever deke.

The video has probably already gone viral on YouTube, so be sure to check it out.

We ended the session with another unique scrimmage: no goalies, but there was a single cone laid on its side in each net. A goal was scored by shooting the puck into the cone. This made the previous week's bank shot goal look like a piece of cake.

Predictably, both teams struggled. Even clean breakaways went unfinished, with the puck hitting the edge of the cone or going just wide.

Towards the end of the scrimmage, I found myself in the slot with the puck, and decided to chuck up a Hail Mary, since no one else was scoring. I fired a low wrist shot that, miraculously, headed towards the cone. Could it be? COULD IT BE?! No, it hit off of the lip of the cone and skittered away, my coaches OHHHHH'ing and laughing in response.

The scrimmage continued for a while, and we actually got to play for about 30 minutes longer than we should have. Maybe the Zamboni guy was off having a sandwich.

Towards the end of the scrimmage, you could see the effects of those extra minutes: tired legs, no hustle, and lots of gliding. The game ended in a 1-1 tie, though I'm surprised either team got one.

Sitting in the locker room after the game, someone had brought Michelob Ultra, and was passing them out. The coaches were changing out of their skates in the locker room, and talking about the scrimmage.

"You had a good chance there," my coach said to me. "That was a great shot, almost went in."

"Actually," the other coach added, "it really is hard to score one like that. It's not just you guys, it's tough. We kind of just play that for the coaches' enjoyment."

At that, both erupted in laughter.

Hey, if nothing else, at least we're entertaining.

Week Eight (Dec. 4)

There are many ways to celebrate a 25th birthday: go to a bar, go out to eat, have a family party, pretend you're still a kid and go to Discovery Zone (I wish that place still existed)...the possibilities are endless.

I chose to celebrate my 25th birthday by going to the wrong hockey rink.

Our location changes from week to week, alternating between rinks in Dorchester and Canton. Since our previous week's game had been in Boston, I assumed this week's would be in Canton. I checked our schedule online and saw no mention of our clinic, but also saw no one penciled in for our time in Canton. As this had happened before, I decided Canton was the spot, and headed there after work.

For increased comedic value at my expense, the Canton rink is a solid 35 minute drive from my work; the Dorchester rink is more like 15. I drove down the Expressway to Rt. 24, blissfully listening to my music, wondering how many goals I was going to score in that night's scrimmage...you know, the usual.

I got to the rink in Canton, and there were far fewer cars than usual. "Weird," I thought. "But I'm not usually early, maybe that's why no one is here."

Still, I doubted myself enough to leave my gear in the car when I went inside to have a look around. There was a game on one rink, and a younger kids' practice on the other. I looked at the rink's video schedule-board, and saw that there were no sessions scheduled on either rink after 9:20.

Shit. Wrong rink.

My bad.

At this point, it was about 8:55, and if we play in Dorchester, we start at 9:20. Unfortunately, my Honda Accord can't fly, so I was considering just going home and calling it a night. However, I talked myself out of it and hit the road, somehow arriving at the rink right around 9:25. I went inside to make sure we were playing there, and sure enough, my teammates were already taking their warm-up twirls around the ice.

By the time I got back to my car to get my stuff and made my way inside, the scrimmage had already begun. We had refs, but no goalies; instead, the nets were turned backwards as if we were playing some kind of bizarro-world hockey.

I made my way to my team's bench, and sheepishly approached my coach; the scrimmage was about three minutes old at this point.

"Am I too late, or should I go get dressed," I said, probably making some kind of sad puppy face.

"What color are you?"

"This one," I said, gesturing to my teal teammates in front of me.

"Sure," he replied. "Go get dressed."

As I've said before, rushing to get dressed or get ready always leaves one feeling like something is missing; this time, I had to really rush, because the game had already started. Yeah, it was just a scrimmage, but I wanted to play, and wanted to get out there.

I entered the locker room with 21 minutes left to play (we ended up playing two 25 minute, running-time halves), and emerged fully dressed with 14 minutes left on the clock. NOT BAD.

Replace the office supplies with hockey gear and you get me, getting dressed.

I made my way to the bench to find that my team had four defensemen and six forwards; in other words, I was the "extra" guy. Things would've been easier without me. :(((((((((

I approached my coach and said, "so, what are we doing?"

"We'll rotate lines," he said. "You replace the right wing on the next change. You then play a shift at right, then next you go to center, then you go to left, then you come off and sit."

"OK," I said, having pretty much no idea what he was talking about. "I meant about the nets, how do we score? Just get it around the back."

"Nope," he answered. "Gotta get it in off the boards. Bank shots only."

I was stunned. Here we are, pretty much unable to skate efficiently, and these guys essentially want us to play pool on blades of steel and a sheet of frozen water. GAME ON!

Like this, but with hockey sticks. On skates. On ice. PIECE OF CAKE!

As I watched the shift in front of me, things unfolded hilariously predictably: shots skittered well-wide, pucks banged into the side of the net, and even the most carefully aimed shots flew passed the net mouth, almost as if physics itself was mocking all of us.

"You call that a bank shot? NOPE."

The skaters came to the bench for a change, and I didn't move. I didn't think he'd throw me on right away, considering there was a line behind me.

I was wrong.

"What are you doing?! Get out there, full change, full change!"

Oops. I charged over the boards and into the action, already imagining what kind of pool trick-shot goal I was going to score.

Truth be told, it's harder than you'd think. Because the puck isn't shaped like a ball, it's a little harder to judge which way it's going to go when it hits the boards. I found myself with the puck by one of the faceoff circles, and decided to just fling it at the net.

It would've been a great shot...if the net was facing the other way. The puck went off of the netting and onto the stick of an opposing player. Backwards Facing Net 1, Me 0.

After my first shift, our team scored to knot things at 1. Time went by, and I went out for my next shift. I think I was supposed to play center, but I didn't. I kind of just floated around, aimlessly looking for the puck, attacking when I got the chance.

One thing I've taken to very well is forechecking. As I said in a previous post, I've learned that attacking (most of) the defensemen in our clinic leads to either a turnover directly to me or a harmless dump out of the zone that my team retrieves. I consider myself tenacious on the forecheck, to borrow a term from Jack Edwards.

On one shift, I decided I'd attack the D and try to force a turnover. My target was a guy I didn't recognize wearing one of those old-school Calgary Flames jerseys with the flaming horse head. I set my sights on this Jay Bouwmeester fella, and attacked.

He went right by me.

Lesson learned: don't attack the unknown guys. They're probably good.

Later on, I decided to keep attacking. I'd go after the defense every time, and usually had good results. However, one time I tried to seal off the boards, as I read that the defenseman was going to try to use that as his escape route. I hustled over the cut off the boards and headed towards him. He flipped the puck up anyways, and it went off of my blade and out.

Considering that an object in motion stays in motion (hey, second physics reference of the post!), and that me on ice stays in motion until I hit something, myself and this defenseman found ourselves on a collision course.

I didn't want to hit him, nor did I want him to hit me, so I kind of veered into the boards. They absorbed most of the impact, and we had what I'd term a minor fender-bender of a collision. However, my left arm, apparently mad at my decision to bail into the boards, wasn't too happy, and responded by yelling at me with waves of "OUCH" for the rest of the night.

Being the warrior that I am, I decided to keep playing, because I'm all that is man.

Me, at hockey.

As we headed out to start the third period, I was playing center, and realized I'd get to take a faceoff for the first time in my illustrious career. There's an art to taking faceoff in the NHL, as players will read every twitch in the ref's hand in order to get an advantage.

In the clinic, taking a faceoff is a lot like trying to kill a mouse with a broom: JUST WHACK AT IT, EVENTUALLY WE'LL GET IT!

After a few whacks, the puck squirted free, and went to one of my teammates. Career faceoff winning percentage: 1.000% Patrice Bergeron can't touch me.

Midway through the third period, the score was still tied at 1. Myself and teammate Bobby (again, I don't know if that's his name) found ourselves in a puck battle down behind the net. The puck squirted free to an opposing defenseman, and, being the tenacious forechecker that I am, I forced a turnover and put it back behind the net. Bobby's bank attempt was denied, and I found myself with the puck at my feet, facing away from the boards.

I decided to go full trick-shot, back handing the puck off the boards without looking, hoping that by some bit of birthday luck it would go in.

Denied.

Later in the third, I had three great chances to score.

• Two came on potential breakaways. Our coaches instructed us to hang out by the red line in order to draw the defense out, and to give our defensemen outlets. Twice I was fed pretty decent passes, but they were just a bit behind me. Remember: changing from forward to reverse isn't my strong suit, and neither is skating while looking down for the puck. I ended up looking like a jogger trying to see if his shoe is untied without breaking stride, and didn't really do either successfully. Foiled again!
• Down the stretch, I carried the puck over the blue line with a defender in front of me and another behind him. Considering it was late in the game, I kept going, and the defenders kept backing off. I made it to about the hash marks and decided to let one of my trademark blazing slappers fly. The puck, as if it had eyes, made it through both sets of legs, hit the boards where I wanted it to, slid towards the open net, and...went wide by an inch. FOILED AGAIN AGAIN!

In case you didn't get the "foiled again!" reference...this guy.

I headed to the bench after that last failure, and looked at the clock to see time ticking away. Realizing that I'd probably played my last shift, I relaxed a bit.

My coach and one of my teammates, clearly focused on the game, were talking about fishing, catching sharks, and how one and his group of buddies really is a "drinking crew with a fishing problem."

We sure are a unique bunch.

During this discussion, our team managed two more goals, and we ended up winning 4-1. Team Teal remains undefeated.

After the game, we retreated to the locker room, where Jay Bouwmeester sincerely congratulated everyone on a good scrimmage and pulled two 12's of Narragansett out of a duffel bag. Even though I think Narragansett is awful (I know, nonsense coming from a guy who enjoys Bud Light), I'm not one to turn down a nice gesture. So there we sat, a bunch of misfits who combined to score five goals in a game with no goalies, drinking Narragansett and laughing about the game.

I don't think I've ever felt more like a beer league hockey player.

*Cue the sentimental music.*

Week Seven (Nov. 27)

For our first game, my team was assigned the later slot, meaning we wouldn't start until 10:30. Considering there are a number of guys on my team who are pushing/past 40, I was curious as to whether or not some of my teammates might show up in their pajamas.

Even though the game wasn't slated to start until later, I left early to pick up my Fan Club. The Dan Fan Club that night consisted of two members, Sam and Jill. One was trying to show moral support while stifling her laughter, and the other was there to see a comedy show on ice and make no attempt to stifle her laughter. I'll let you decide who's who.

As I walked into the rink, the other half of our clinic (the Yellow Team) was playing their game. The score was 4-1 late in the second period, and I stupidly wondered who was winning. The answer, not surprisingly, was "not my clinic-mates."

After some words of hearty encouragement from the Fan Club, I headed over to the locker room to get ready. As I was walking around the boards, I noticed that the referee who had asked me where my cage was a couple weeks back was working the game. He saw me and, with play going on, leaned over the boards by the scorer's table and said, "hey, did you bring one for me?" and motioned to the Fan Club.

How dare he?!

"No," I replied, "I'm selfish. They're both for me." He laughed and skated away, clearly dejected from having been shot down so easily. Me 1, Horny middle-aged ref 0.

Getting dressed for this game brought a new wrinkle: I borrowed a cage from my cousin Conor, and was going to wear it for the first time. However, the cage had two snaps, and my helmet only had one. My ghetto solution? Just jam the second strap up into my helmet and hope it stays. Hey, that college education really worked!

As the seconds ticked away in the first game, one the Yellow Team would lose, 6-2, I noticed that we didn't have many players. In fact, we only had five forwards and two defensemen. Luckily, a few more people showed up, and we had a few volunteers from the first game stay for the second. In the end, we were able to ice three full forward lines and two defense pairs. I was slotted as the wing on the second line, skating with Bobby (whose name might not actually be Bobby, I don't remember) as my center.

Our first line started, and I sat back to gauge our level of competition. The other team was a mix of older guys and kids slightly older than me, with the one hotshot that every team has. They were better skaters than us, and better everything else's too, probably, but they weren't that much better. We had a shot.

Me, before the game

To be honest, the game wasn't terribly different from our scrimmages. We started off OK, but had trouble establishing pressure. Once our defensemen got the puck in our zone, they kind of froze (except for Alexandra Ovechkin/Bobbi Orr, who just tried to skate through everyone). More often than not, the neutral zone was as far as we got the puck.

My first touch came on a loose puck by the blue line, one that I sent back to a defenseman, making the safe play. Phew. One touch, no goals allowed.

After getting back to the bench following one of our shifts, our coach told my line that the forwards (i.e. me) were too stationary, and that we had to move to give the defensemen an outlet. It was like getting yelled at for talking during class in middle school.

During a break in between shifts, I went to have some water, forgetting I was wearing a cage. What a project this turned out to be. At first, I considered unsnapping the cage and drinking like a normal human. However, when I remembered that I had to rig the strap into place using college-level logic and thinking and that it'd probably be easier to remove Bane's mask, that idea flew out the window.

So I settled on a kind of reverse-carnival game. You know those game where you have to squirt the water gun into the hole to make the character climb, and the first one to reach the top wins? It was like that, only my mouth was the hole, and I couldn't see where I was aiming.

First squeeze: all over my nose.
Second squeeze: chin.
Third squeeze: SUCCESS.

Having established myself as the Goldilocks of squirting water, I headed out for my next shift. Again, we failed to generate much offense, and actually ended up hemmed in our own end for a while. When the puck is down by the net, there's a sort of helpless feeling that takes over: I'm supposed to, by my assignment, stay by the points and help out along the wall.

However, seeing a scrum for the puck near my net, I kind of started drifting down there, only to see the puck squirt out to the point...where I was supposed to be.

"Uh oh..."

I hustled out towards the man with the puck and closed my feet together, attempting a blocked shot that would earn my praise for my "intangibles" from the between-periods analysts, only to have the shot sneak past me towards the net. I turned around, fearing a goal, only to see that my goalie had smothered it.

Bullet = dodged.

Later in the first, our best-skating defenseman (defensewoman, actually) took the puck up ice. I jumped into the play to turn it into an odd-man rush, but her speed caught the lone defenseman by surprise: she turnstiled him, leaving him in her dust and heading in on goal alone. I knew that the chances or her passing me the puck literally could not have been smaller (LITERALLY), so I stayed on my course towards the net, banking on a rebound.

My rebound never came, however, and instead I got a front-row seat to her backhanding the puck past the goalie and into the net. 1-0 Team Teal, and a +1 rating for me. SUCCESS.

In the second period, my line continued to have trouble moving the puck, and we found ourselves hemmed in our zone again. The puck was near the top of the right faceoff circle, and, jostling for possession, I somehow fell down. Shocking that I fell, I know. The puck was right in front of me, so I poked at it to get it out of the zone. Mission accomplished, but as I went to stand up, I fell down again. On all fours, I struggled to get up. I probably could've used a milk crate right then.

Embarrassed, I looked to see if my Fan Club had noticed my Benny Hill moment. Fortunately, they were too busy Instagramming to notice my foibles. Crisis averted.

Later in the period, we lined up for a faceoff and I found myself next to an older guy.

"Hey man," he said, "those skates look kind of loose. Are they too big for you?"

Feeling like I was in Groundhog Day, I said "nah, they're OK. I just can never seem to get them tied right."

I've decided that having the wrong-sized skates will be a running theme throughout this hockey odyssey.

Off of that same faceoff, the puck went back to the point. I skated towards the man with the puck, again trying to block the shot. This time, however, it worked: I caught a slapshot right off of the side of my foot, just next to my ankle. Granted, none of these guys were Zdeno Chara or anything, but it still stung quite a bit.

However, seeing my dedication and selflessness, I think I noticed the Fan Club visibly swooning at the sight of my manliness.

A book my Fan Club wrote about me after my blocked shot.

Later in the second, with yours truly watching safely from the bench, the other team finally got on the board, batting a rebound passed our sprawled-out goalie. Teal Team 1, other guys 1.

The third period featured more of the same, pressure from the other team and occasional sojourns into the offensive zone by our side. My line continued to have trouble moving the puck, and at one point we took three straight faceoffs in our own end. Needless to say, our coach wasn't exactly singing our praises.

As time ticked down, the score remained tied at one, largely thanks to our goalie making a number of big stops. Late in the third, I was on the forecheck when I suddenly ended up with the puck at the attacking blue line. The nearest defenseman was by the right faceoff circle, a good three or four strides from me. After a step or two in, I was right in the slot, alone with the puck.

I saw the goalie crouch in anticipation of the shot, and was trying to decided where to go: up top, over the shoulder? Five hole? Down low to generate a rebound? Why am I so hungry? What am I gonna do this weekend?

As you can see, I thought a bit too much, and focused a bit too much on where to put the shot as opposed to um...actually taking the shot. Sensing that my time was running out, I flexed to shoot, only to look down and see the puck slowly dribble off of my blade and about a foot away from me.

Opportunity lost. Again, to show my displeasure, I bellowed an expletive. I wanted to make sure my teammates knew how angry I was that I didn't get a shot off, when in fact I still have no idea how the puck even rolled away. I'm convinced that the ice must have been slippery or something.

I skated one last shift after that, hoping for a chance to redeem myself and give my still Instagramming Fan Club something to cheer about, but nothing really developed. With about two minutes left, I skated to the bench to watch the rest of the contest.

As the final two minutes ticked away, one of our defensemen made a bad pinch. It was one of those pinches that you can see as disastrous from miles away, but there's nothing you can do about it. "Noooooooooooo......", and away the opposing skater went, alone on a breakaway from the red line in with less than a minute left.

I almost looked away, certain that we were about to suffer an ignominious defeat on a last-minute goal; however, I hung in there long enough to see our goalie stone the shooter, and our team hung on for the tie: 1-1 in our first-ever game. Not bad.

I dressed after the game, reliving my near-miss and contemplating how many sponsorship dollars I'd cost myself with that miscue.

As I walked towards the exit, I was welcomed with open arms by the Fan Club, as they sung my praises, admired my selflessness, and asked me for autographs.

And by all that, I mean that they were waiting for me out in the lobby, having left as soon as the final horn went.

I should've scored a goal. Girls love goals.