I arrived early and stopped to watch a few minutes of that night's Bruins-Rangers game on a TV in the lobby. As I was standing there with a couple other guys, a clinic teammate walked by and said, "hey, ice is open."
This was out of the ordinary, because usually BC High is practicing until right before our ice time starts. This time, however, they had vacated the ice early, and the sheet had already been resurfaced at around 9:05.
Reasons were passed around the locker room as to why the team was done early, and as one can imagine, they were very..."colorful."
"They all sucked too bad, they got kicked off."
"Nah, they were too good, they didn't need anymore practice."
"They have too much homework to do."
We've got a lot of skating comedians.
Having gotten there early, I was dressed and ready to go pretty quickly, and noticed that there were already six or seven guys on the ice. I stretched a little, and headed out to join them. Someone had a few pucks and we passed them around. It was pretty nice, actually: an open, clean sheet of ice, on which I could do whatever I wanted.
I chose to skate around a bit and practice my stopping, and wouldn't you know it, I've gotten even better at it. Can I stop on a dime and send snow everywhere? No, not yet. I'm more "truck slamming into snowbank and eventually stopping." But hey, it's progress. If learning to stop is the one goal I had for myself, it looks like it might actually be within reach.
I apparently didn't learn my lesson from the first time I'd taken to the ice early: don't get too tired. Once the coaches showed up, I had already been on the ice for ten minutes, and had probably skated about 15 full laps. Bad idea.
We'd actually gotten onto the ice too early, we learned. Coach Steve called us all into the center circle, and told us to "take a knee, like peewees." I started to, but then realized no one else was moving. Oops.
"The guy who does the ice is pissed," he said. "Says someone got on the ice before he was done cleanin' it. Who did it?"
Eyes shot around the circle, looking for this lawless skating knave. Turns out it wasn't much of a hunt, as three guys raised their hands and admitted to (unknowingly) skating too early.
"He says he's supposed to dock us 15 minutes if someone gets on early," said Coach Steve. "You skate early, that's one week of no game or no practice."
"Bail will be set at $1,000. The charges: skating too early."
On that happy note, we were told to start skating around the rink: skate upright in the zones, and speed up between the blue lines. Not bad, as it's something I can do. I even got an "attaboy" from a coach for properly skating (bent at the waste, slightly tucked) between the lines. I'm just so great.
We made three or four laps, then heard the whistle. "OTHER WAY," one of the coaches shouted.
"Wait, more?" I thought to myself, already feeling a little winded.
Yes, more. Much, much more. After five or so more laps, I felt like I'd just run the Boston Marathon. (Note to self: next time you can get on the ice early, take it easy. Turns out you're not exactly in Olympic shape.)
After that, we were sent down to opposite ends to do 2-on-0's, which we then followed with 2-on-1's. By "then followed", I don't mean immediately. We probably did each set for ten minutes. That's ten minutes of pretty much non-stop, end-to-end skating. Yikes.
My rushes weren't awful, but they weren't great either. At times, I'd wait the defenseman out, but he wouldn't come near me. In that case, I'm supposed to take the shot, not force a pass. However, considering that it's just a practice and I don't want to be called a puckhog, I kept trying to make the pass (usually without success).
After one such attempt, my partner skated over and said, "hey man, don't force yourself to give me the puck. You can shoot it, I won't call you a hun." Point taken. I guess I wasn't George Costanza after all.
Hockey can have chuckers too.
The next drill was a series of 1-on-1's, in which we were supposed to try our best to get around the defenseman and get a shot off. A number of our defensemen skate pretty well, but a few are a little unsteady. It was on one rush that I noticed this, and decided to try to get fancy.
I skated right at the defender, and as she reached out with her stick, I deked back the other way and skated right past her. Unfortunately, Plymouth Whalers Goalie was in net, and decided to get fancy too: he did a diving pokecheck/double pad stack hybrid. When I saw this coming, I momentarily thought "OH SHIT!" and assumed I was done for. However, I had one last deke up my sleeve, and pulled the puck past his stick.
Unfortunately again, he had a trick up his sleeve, and managed to keep one pad along the ice. That one pad stopped my backhand attempt, but I managed to collect and bat the rebound past him. Hey, he tried to poke it. I figured I owed him a second shot. (That, and he stopped me every other time. 1-for-43 isn't SO bad...)
At that point, we were around 40 minutes into the roughly 60 minute skate, 50 minutes including my pre-practice jaunts. When we started a passing/breakaway drill, I was gassed.
When that drill continued for about 15 minutes, I was ready to keel over. I kept waiting for the whistle that would indicate a scrimmage (we had two goalies again), but it didn't come. I wasn't the only one: other guys were bent at the waist, using their sticks as semi-crutches.
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| "We surrender"! |
Towards the end of the scrimmage, I was on the ice with one of the more selfish players on our team. She's clearly a good skater, and probably shouldn't even be involved in a beginner clinic. She tends to get the puck behind our net, and then skate it all the way up herself, passing on the chance to pass (get it?).
I got myself open for an outlet the first time, and no pass came. Second time? No pass. Third time? I didn't bother. I skated along the blue line, letting her go by, and positioned myself in front of the crease with my stick on the ice, hoping for either a rebound or a pass. Neither came.
With that, I was done. I skated to the bench, and was about to sit down when one of the coaches told me I hadn't gotten open on the last rush. "You were all in a line, her, the defenseman, and you," he said. "She can't pass it then!"
I started to say, "she won't pass it anyways," but bit my tongue and shook my head, to say "yeah, I'll do it next time."
Then from a few spots down on the bench, she started to chime in. "I can't make the pass when your--."
The end is cut off, because as soon as she started talking I sat down and looked the other way.
She can't pass the puck, but wants to pass on advice? No thanks.
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