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.