Week Eleven (Jan. 2)

The holidays came and went with no hockey to be played, as both Christmas and New Year's Day fell on Tuesdays. Thankfully, we ended up getting our second session bumped to a Wednesday night, or we would've gone some three weeks without any action. Considering none of us is in top physical shape to begin with, the results would've been pretty disastrous.

We don't usually play on Wednesdays, but I still expected to find the same scene when I got to the rink: a few people milling around, a men's league game finishing up, general emptiness out on the godforsaken frozen peninsula that is UMass-Boston in the winter.

Instead, I pulled up to the rink to find cars spilling out into the parking lot, and general mayhem.

"What the hell is going on?" I thought as I pulled up. I drove into the parking lot, grabbed my bag and went inside to find an even stranger spectacle: a lobby packed with people of all ages, but mostly parents and younger kids. Wondering if my blog finally took off and we had a packed house to watch us, I wandered into the rink. There were more people milling about, including a few reporters with tape recorders interviewing high school kids and coaches.

Finally, it all came together: B.C. High must have had a game, and judging by the guy who walked past me, they must have played Malden Catholic. Those are two big-time high school hockey programs, so it all made sense. There were even a couple of college scouts.

Sensing that my big break and road to the pros was at hand, I dressed quickly and took to the ice. There were only a few of us there at that point, so we had free run of the rink. We were about ten minutes ahead of schedule, and used that time to mill about on the ice, do some skating and take a few shots.

Halfway through my twirls around the rink, I decided it was time to try stopping again. I told myself I'd do it, committed to it, and promptly chickened out. PROGRESS. I repeated those steps about seven or eight times before I actually slid on my blades a bit and declared myself the victor.

The music in my head, after my semi-stop

Soon after, our coach arrived and blew the whistle, signaling the start of practice. Maybe getting out there early wasn't the best idea, because half of the guys were gassed by the time the actual practice started.

Coach Okie lined us up, and first wished us happy holidays, Happy New Year, etc. He then got a bit more serious, telling us that the weather was getting colder and that our skates needed to be sharp. If we felt our feet slipping during strides, he warned, we'd better head to the skate shop.

"If your skates are dull when the weather gets colder," he said ominously, "you're gonna rip a groin. You rip a groin now, that's it for the season. DONE!"

Someone managed to ask him a question of how often we should be getting them done in the midst of his cheery infomercial, and he replied with, "you guys? Probably every six or seven hours you're on the ice." What he meant to say was, "you benders? You're all such shitty skaters, you should get 'em done every day!" Subtle.

After that, we got right into skating drills, and I could tell it wasn't exactly going to be a fun practice. Down and back forwards once, down and back backwards once, then repeat. I've figured out a little cheat at these drills: I get on one of the outside edges, and instead of stopping at the end, I kind of just slow down and go right into a turn. Piece of cake.

Hey, he didn't say go all the way down and then STOP. He just said down and back.

Aw man, that's not nice

I completed these two skating drills and was feeling pretty good about myself: no falls and no call-outs. Not too shabby.

Next up was 2-on-1's, and I didn't realize we'd be doing some variation of this drill for pretty much the rest of the practice. The premise was simple: two lines of each side of the goal. Head up ice, passing the puck back and forth to your partner, staying onside. Shoot if you want at the end.

I got paired with a guy who skates about as well as I do, maybe a little worse. Me and Older Me, as I'll call him, struggled tremendously with this drill. If he made a good pass, I'd flub it. If I made a good pass, he'd stumble. If I stumbled, he'd pass it by me. You get the picture.

It got to the point where we'd kind of just look at each other after each rush and say something to the extent of "we'll get 'em next time," but we both knew we weren't gonna get 'em. Ever.

After a few rounds of that, our coach added a twist: this time, the man on the inside (nearest to the net) was supposed to give up the puck at the attacking blueline, head to the far post and stop, awaiting a pass. I laughed in my head when he said "stop at the post," already imagining myself careening into the boards like an out-of-control shopping cart.

"Hey, how did I get down here?!"

However, me and my partner gave it a go or two or five, and hey, believe it or not, we didn't do it right. Stunning, I know.

The next wrinkle came in the form of a passing 2-on-1, where the puck carrier fired a hard pass to a defenseman at the blueline then began skating; the defenseman sent it back and began skating backwards, and the 2-on-1 was on.

I ended up paired with older me the first time, and wouldn't ya know it, we screwed it up! We ended up together the second time, and lightning struck: I passed to him, he flipped it back, I held the puck and sent it behind the defenseman, he bobbled it a bit, the controlled it, then shot and...hit the post.

GOOD ENOUGH!

Coach Okie gave us some further instructions during this drill, and a lot of it was helpful: how close to stand to the crease, how to look off a defender, etc. But his most enlightening bit of advice was about when to pass it.

"Make sure you have your stick on the ice," he barked. "If you have your stick up in the air, you're sayin' 'I don't want the puck.' If you're teammate has his stick up in the air and asks why you didn't pass it, you tell him it's because he was skatin' around with his stick up in the air like a f'ing a**hole."

Awesome.

We continued this drill for about ten minutes, before Coach Okie said "alright, you got about ten minutes left...we can keep doin' this, or we can scrimmage." Believe it or not, we chose the scrimmage! A shocking result, to be sure.

We didn't have goalies, so I was waiting to see what wacky scoring rules there would be this time: off the ceiling and in, have to be sitting down when you shoot, no sticks allowed, etc. To my surprise, it was more simple: you had to hit the center post (the one in the back of the net) to score. Not bad.

Team Teal had enough skaters for two forward lines and two defense pairs, but we only ended up skating for three shifts each. It was pretty clear early on that we were all gassed from the inactive period before the session and from us goofing around on the ice beforehand.

So when I skated to the ice after my last shift, having thrown two pucks on net that missed by a few inches each, I wasn't exactly sad that my night was over.

New year, new me, right? I think I'll add "STOP" to my list of resolutions...oh, and get a hat trick. That'd be nice.