Week Twenty (March 5th)

Week Twenty was supposed to be the end of the clinic, but due to a scheduling mishap back in the fall, we were given an extra session. So instead of ending the clinic last night, we have one more session next Tuesday: a scrimmage to end the Team Gold vs. Team Teal rivalry.

Instead, last night marked the last "game" of the clinic, meaning playing against an actual men's league team instead of our clinic partners. We had the late game again last night, but I got to the rink early enough to watch Team Gold put up a good fight before losing to the Boston Lobsters, 2-1. The Lobsters are the team we faced in our first game months back, and we tied (1-1).

Our opponents for the evening were the Tigers. As we were getting dressed in the locker room before the game, a member of Team Gold said he'd played the Tigers before.

"They're a pretty good team," he said. "One guy they have is really good. Then there's another guy who wears...I don't know, sweatpants or something...he's really good too."

"Yeah," someone chimed in. "You'd better be real good if you show up in sweatpants."

I got dressed and headed out to stretch and get ready. As the Zamboni left the rink, I put my water bottle on the bench, and Coach Joe told me I'd be skating with Joe and Eric.

I nodded in approval, and headed out for some warm-up twirls. On my first trip around the ice, I made sure I could still skid to a stop, and wouldn't you know it, I hadn't forgotten how. IT'S A FESTIVUS MIRACLE!

After three minutes of warm-ups, it was game time. Coach Joe said we were going to run with two centers (Eric and Bobby Orr) and three pairs of wings. Basically, when a center got tired, the other one would go out, then both wings would switch after. It sounds confusing, but we did OK with it.

My line was given the starting nod, and we went out to line up...only to find that the Tigers' goalie wasn't between the pipes. In fact, he wasn't even on the ice. Or dressed yet. He'd arrived late, and now we had to wait for him. This gave me time to check out the Tigers' uniforms, as any jersey nerd would, and they weren't bad: a maroon-red color with white accents, and an orange tiger that looked kind of like Tiny Tiger from Crash Bandicoot.

If you don't get the reference, kindly leave.

 The Tiger wing across from me muttered, "sorry guys, he was running late."

"No worries," I said, despite actually being pretty mad. "Happens to all of us."

The anger stemmed from the fact that, due to strict ice time limits, the clock had been running the entire time. When the Tiger goalie stepped on the ice and the game began, we'd already wasted two minutes of the 17 minute first period.

The puck dropped and the game began, and we got a taste of the Tigers' style of play pretty quickly: they were decent skaters who passed the puck crisply, but were also prone to making predictable plays and overskating the puck, i.e. they were hardly unbeatable.

On my first shift, both sides essentially battled it out in the neutral zone. The Tigers would get the puck in deep, and I did my best to stick by my right point. We had two defensemen, both very good skaters, from Team Gold stay and play for us, and that helped a lot. The only time I touched the puck on my first shift was when a defenseman sent it around the boards. I went over to get it, looked over my shoulder, and saw a Tiger coming at me. Not wanting to turn the puck over, I chipped it off the boards and out, making the safe play.

It went down the other end for icing, which didn't really matter because we can still change lines. Coach Joe called us off the ice, and I sat down having had no real impact on the game on my first shift. Meh.

Pretty much.

Our other two forward pairs didn't do much either. We were holding down the fort, thanks mostly to our goalie, Red Man, who was standing on his head, and our defensemen, who were capable at getting the puck up and out. However, most of our forays into the Tigers' zone ended quickly, with feeble shots blocked or passes skittering off blades and into the corner.

As my next shift began, the play was in our offensive zone. My teammate had skated back from the blue line to get a change, leaving me way out of position. I didn't think he'd change then, so I wasn't expecting it when Coach Joe yelled, "forward, let's go! Let's go!" I hopped on the ice, lost my footing, and immediately fell.

Nice.

I eventually caught up with the play, and managed to avoid any further embarrassment. I skate up on the forecheck and forced a bad pass which was picked off my Joe, and he sent the puck in deep. I tried to go in after it, but was beaten to it by a Tiger. However, we did earn our first foray deep into their zone, so that's a plus. Kind of.

Later, with the play back in our zone, the Tigers were working the puck around the points. I saw their defenseman looking to move it to my side, so I hopped up on my guy and denied the pass. The defenseman, out of options, sent it in deep instead, where it was corralled by one of our defensemen and sent out.

As I headed to the bench after that shift, Coach Joe said, "good shift out there guys, good shift. Keep the pressure on them."

My last shift came towards the end of the period, and got off to a good start: I didn't fall climbing over the boards. It got even better when Eric got the puck by the red line on the right side. I skated hard up the middle of the ice, where he saw me and hit me with a backhand pass. The puck hit my stick at the blue line, and I managed to take two strides with it. Had I controlled it, we would've had a 2-on-1; instead, the force of the pass caused the puck to skid on me. I managed to regain control a bit, but by that time the defenseman was on me. I held him off long enough to whack the puck towards the middle in hopes of a good bounce, but nothing came of it.

Back on the bench after that shift, Coach Joe again praised us, saying we were getting close, "keep moving the puck," etc.

"I thought I had you there on that pass," Eric said between gulps of water. "I was just off a bit."

"No," I replied, filled with guilt. "You DID have me. I missed the pass. Such bullshit, I thought I had it."

"No worries," he said. "We'll get 'em."

The first period ended with no score, a vast improvement over our last game. Between periods, Coach Joe implored us wingers to stay in front of the opposing defensemen.

"If you get behind them, you get lost," he said. "You're doing no good behind them. You gotta stay in front of them,between them and the net."

Noted.

Me, pretending I already knew that.

On my first shift of the second, I showed that I apparently didn't listen to his wise words. Being a wing, I'm supposed to stick by the point and help pucks out along the wall. However, a lot of the play occurs between the goal line and the tops of the faceoff circles, and it's kind of hard to not go down there when one sees the puck. This happened a few times on my shift, and I'd sag down to help, only to see the puck go back to the point...where I was supposed to be.

By the way, that was our entire shift. We didn't see the offensive zone once. Ouch.

As I glided back to the bench and sat down, Coach Joe said, "good shift guys, but Dan, remember: you gotta stay back on that point. Don't let him get a clean shot. Stay back." I nodded again, this time determined to heed those words on my next shift.

And heed them I did: on my next shift, I managed to stay on the point. I kept the puck away from the guy on my side, discouraging passes. I didn't pinch down at all until a loose puck came up the boards towards my area. Myself and the Tiger defenseman went over towards it, and we both got there at the same time. He had come further and faster than I did, so when we met, he ended up knocking me to the ice.

I don't think it was intentional, but I, being irrational, was furious. I swung my stick around at his feet uh...by accident (like Ryan Miller did to Lucic, only not nearly as hard), and then got up and got back in the play. The puck went out of play shortly thereafter, and I glided towards the Tiger I thought had wronged me. We played a game of chicken, me determined to right the wrong, he unaware of his transgression, until we both just turned away and that was that. MESSAGE SENT.

It's only a matter of time before I go full goon...

On my next shift, still mad about being knocked down, I was determined to make some kind of play. The problem with attacking the point men in this league is that you can't hit them: they just get the puck away, and you have to glide by, leaving them right where they were.

I decided that wouldn't work for me. I skated towards a defenseman who had the puck, and he tried to chip it by me; instead, I was able to knock it down, and it was at both of our feet. Instead of stopping and gliding, I just kept going, bumped into him, and got the puck off the boards and out. I heard some Tigers on the bench going "ohhhh whoaaaa," so I must have done something objectionable.

However, I got the puck out and had open ice. I looked up, and there was no one with me, so I kept carrying it. I got to the blue line and saw a defender coming towards me. With few options, I decided I'd try to deke past him. I got the puck between his skates and almost got it through, but it tipped off his back skate and went just out of my reach.

YouTube deke = foiled.

However, I had made enough noise on that shift to earn some praise from Coach Joe and some "attaboys" from my linemates. Good enough for me.

If only I could've carried that over to the next shift. The Tigers carried the puck into our zone, and I filled in on the guy in the middle, temporarily lifting his stick to discourage any passes. As we got closer to the net and our guys got back in the play, I peeled off to head back to my point, as I was supposed to. I ended up with a perfect view of the guy I was covering gliding back, getting a pass, and shooting it past Red Man for a 1-0 lead.

It wasn't my guy (the center should've been covering him), but I still felt guilty as we went back to line up. I had done what I should have: helped out on D and then gotten back into position, but it didn't work out well for the team, and we were behind as the second period ended.

Time for a comeback.

In lieu of an epic speech, Coach Joe kept it simple: stay tight on the points, make good passes, and take shots when we had them. No fancy stuff, just shoot.

Truthfully, we tried, and didn't do that badly. To a man, we stuck to our positions and skated hard. We chipped pucks out and did our best to hunt them down. On one shift, I collected a puck that had been sent around by our defenseman, and surveyed my options: the Tiger defenseman got a late start on me, so I took a stride towards him, chipped the puck off the wall past him, and raced after it.

I was about a stride away from it (and a probably odd-man rush) when another Tiger who had come on during a line change grabbed the puck. Later on that shift, Eric scooped up a similarly chipped out puck and took off. I saw the play developing and took off too. We had a developing 2-on-1, with Joe trailing in a bit of a 3-on-1, but it was the end of our shift. A Tiger backchecker made it a 3-on-2, and Eric's pass towards the net was about four feet in front of me. Had it been earlier in the shift (or if I could skate faster, duh), it would've been interesting.

Back on the bench, Eric repeated what he'd said earlier, almost to a word: "Almost had you there, man. We're getting it."

But we didn't get it, and as time ticked down, I thought my night was over. As the teams lined up for a faceoff in our offensive zone with about a minute left, Coach Joe surprisingly called one forward off the ice and told me to go out and take his place. BONUS SHIFT.

We managed to win the faceoff back to the point, and, since we were down a goal late, I knew we had to get a shot. I headed from my right wing side to the front of the net, hoping for a point shot to deflect, or a rebound to collect. I saw our defensemen struggling to get control of the puck, when one heaved a desperation backhander towards the net. While it wasn't a rocket, it had some mustard on it, and I reached out along to ice to change its direction.

I managed to tick it a bit and send it back towards the far post, but it was denied by the skate of a Tiger in the slot; truthfully, it was probably going to get stopped anyways. That was it for chances for us, and, cruelly, the Tigers managed to score again with 1.2 seconds left. Team Teal suffered a 2-0 defeat.

We trudged off to the locker room with just one session left in the clinic. Coach Joe offered words of encouragement, saying we skated well and just needed to make better passing plays.

I came up with a good analogy for how this hockey experience is going: I know where to go, where the opposition is going to go with the puck, and what plays I need to make; I just can't quite get there yet.

My analogy: it's kind of like knowing the winning lottery numbers, but not being old enough to buy a ticket yet.

Get it? Get it? No?

But I'll get there someday. After the game, I was talking to one of my teammates in the locker room. I found out that the current coaches are "90% sure" they'll be doing the summer session too. If so, I think I'll join that, and maybe a rookie league team too if time allows. (I also found out this kid lives less than two blocks away from me, which is weird, but whatever.)

So perhaps the Milk Crates adventure won't end next week, and instead it'll just be the end of Book 1. Hey, at least I learned how to stop...kind of.