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Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Week 2 (Oct. 22nd)

Week 2 of the clinic started with a little bit of a wrinkle: we were going to be broken up into three teams instead of two, as there were too many players for just two sides.

The good news: hey, smaller teams means more ice time in games!

The bad news: shit, smaller teams means more ice time in games!

I got to the rink early enough to watch a bit of the game that was going on before our session. One team was called the BoozeHounds, and their jerseys were based on the Chicago Blackhawks' Winter Classic sweaters. In other words, they were awesome.

During this game, two players started jawing at each other for some reason or another, leading to a gathering of the clans. (Keep in mind, these are basically beer league games, so fighting isn't tolerated.) Numerous blown whistles failed to quiet the masses, so finally a referee shouted, "IF YA DON'T CUT THA SHIT NOW, WE'LL JUST SHUT THE GAME DOWN AND WALK OFF RIGHT HERE!"

Apparently the threat had weight, as all of the players immediately returned to their benches. It was pretty weird to hear a ref threaten to end the game with ten minutes left in the third in order to end a scrum, but hey, it worked. For those curious (I'm sure there are tons), the BoozeHounds scored with five seconds left to tie the game at one. Riveting.

Much like the first week, things were way too crowded at the rink to get a seat in the locker room. Your faithful hockey playing hero was forced to get dressed next to the rink again, probably catching four or five different colds in the process.

Thanks, hockey rink.

I tied my skates as tightly as possible again and managed to set a new record in the process: I couldn't feel my left foot after just under two minutes, shattering the previous record of ten. After a few warm-up spins, it was time to begin. I had noticed the coaches giving maroon jerseys to a few guys before the warm-ups started, and we were subsequently all ordered to gather by color along the boards: white, green, and maroon.

I wasn't exactly married to my white team, but I knew a few guys from the first clinic, so I kind of wanted to stay. One of the coaches asked "are any of you playing alone, without any buddies?"

Being the one-man wolfpack that I am, I started to raise my hand. The coach then finished, "if you are, come out here and grab a maroon jersey."

SCREEEEEEECH. No thanks. My hand went back down and I tried to inconspicuously skate away. I managed to escape, and was left with my white teammates (awkward). Speedy and Joe, linemates from my first clinic, remained on my team as well. We should put up around 1,399 points during the clinic.

We started things off the same way as we did in the first session: end to end, end to end with a puck, end to end backwards, end to end backwards with a puck, and finally...stops and turns.

We meet again, left-foot stops. My first few left-footed trips up the ice were, predictably, disastrous. It went something like this:

  1. Fail to come to even one complete stop, instead spinning like a top each time.
  2. Kind of stop, but instead nearly do a split.
  3. Repeat number one.
However, on the magical fourth run, I had a mini-breakthrough: I managed to skid to a bit of a stop on my left skate, barely dragging the right one. It was the first time I'd ever been anything close to successful on the left, and I was brimming with confidence.

In fact, I had so much confidence that I sped up a bit to try my last left-foot stop, approached it without hesitation, and...spun around like a top again.

Back to square one.

Hey, who took a picture of my trying to stop?!

Turns went in a similar fashion: spins, spins, spins, kind of turns, spins, kind of turns, and spins. I'm nothing if not consistent, and by consistent I mean "consistently not succeeding at doing anything on my left."

The chase drill/2-on-0 drill was up next (it was a chase drill on one side of the ice and a 2-on-0 on the other, alternating sides). My first chase was predictably successful: I smoked my poor competition, leaving him in the dust.*

*Dust here means "by one or two strides, at most."

The 2-on-0 was going OK until I got to the faceoff circles, at which point I tried to unselfishly backhand a pass to my partner. My partner was already at the goalline, so it probably wasn't the best idea. The puck skittered into the corner, and I skated away in shame. Oops.

My second race was against a new guy, JOFA Helmet. JOFA Helmet had on all old gear and old looking glasses, so I thought he was a newbie and would be easy to beat. 

Wrong. I lost by about four strides, and learned a valuable lesson in the process: if a guy's gear looks to be as old as the rink you're skating in, he's probably been playing for a while.

I got a laugh at JOFA's expense in the next drill. It's a simple shooting drill involving three skaters at once and three items on the ice, spaced evenly: the first person curls inside the first item and takes a shot, second curls on the second item, third curls on the third. It's a pretty simple drill.

JOFA struggled mightily, skating past his target and then compounding the error by skating into the next group of three to go, earning a thundering "WHAT THE HELL IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?!?" from Angry Coach.

I can only assume JOFA's struggles were punishment from the Hockey Gods for daring to beat me in a race. He won't make that mistake again.

Old school JOFA!

The last drill of the night was a passing/shooting drill. The person with the puck passes it to a skater at the point, then skates to the point. The point guy passes it to someone on the other point, then skates to his spot. The guy who received the second pass skates in and shoots. (It's a lot harder to explain in words.)

I watched as the new-ish players struggled with the drill, making the wrong passes or failing to skate to the right spots (I fear what's going to happen when we try the weave drill in a couple of weeks). As the failures mounted, the zone started looking like the Expressway at rush hour.

My turn was up, and I confidently stepped up to the puck and fired a pass to the point, a pass that promptly was in my teammate's skates. Oops. 

My three shots in this drill? Saved, saved, and saved. Oops again.

Hey, sometimes it's good to be humbled. I've certainly made progress in the last year, but am occasionally reminded that there's a long way to go. There are definitely guys (and girls) in the clinic who are worse than me, but there's no point in comparing myself to them.

No, instead I've made not of who they are and will harass them when they have the puck in the games next week. Strategy!

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