The End? (March 12th)

Last night was the last game of the clinic's Fall 2012/Winter 2013 session, a clinic vs. clinic game of Team Teal vs. Team Gold. After 21 weeks of skating, falling, shooting, and falling some more, last night was the end.

I arrived at the rink a little early and watched a little bit of the game that was going on. It looked like a pretty high level men's league game. How high? One team had a coach. No joke, a legitimate coach who at one point stood on the boards to scream at the men's league referees. Yes, you read that correctly.

The game was a pretty spirited (albeit lopsided) affair, and after one player on the losing team turned and took a slapshot at an opposing defenseman, it looked like a brawl was going to break out. Cooler heads prevailed, however, and no harm was done (though the offending player was serenaded with taunts and curses on his way back to the bench).

Compared to that game, ours was going to look like a pillow fight.

Coach Steve was behind our bench for this last game, and gave us a rousing pregame speech that would make Kurt Russell jealous.

"You guys have beat them all season," he said. "So you gotta get 'em again tonight. All that matters is who wins the last one."

Stirring, indeed.

Not quite that stirring, of course.

Prior to that speech, I noticed the kid keeping score/time walking past me towards the exits as I was making my way to the bench. "Weird," I thought. "He must be going to the bathroom or something."

Except he never came back. As it turns out, we had no scorekeeper or clock manager, so we just...played. Plymouth Whalers Jersey was in one goal, and another guy from the clinic (who had never played goal before) volunteered to be the other goalie.

The refs decided that we'd switch goalies halfway through to make things fair. Each team had nine skaters, so we played with two forward lines and three rotating defensemen. This game was going to feature a LOT of skating.

Coach Steve told us to sync up with our usual linemates and get out there, so I skated on the right wing with Speedy at center and Joe on the left wing. The puck was dropped, and we were underway.

Our first shift was decent enough, as we made a bit of headway in the offensive zone but were unable to sneak anything past Plymouth Whalers. We were told to stay tight defensively, as our goalie was about as "new" to goaltending as one can be. We did pretty well on the first shift, and our teammates did a decent job on their first shift as well. It was a pretty even start to the game, with a lot of back-and-forth play.

I got going on our second shift. As one of my defensemen gathered the puck behind the net, I migrated towards the wall, waiting for a pass. The puck was sent around the boards, and I chipped it up and out, past the pinching defenseman. I raced after the puck and gathered it near the red line, then looked up to assess my options: they had a defenseman back, and a backchecker coming. I kept skating (and didn't fall!), decided I didn't have much to go on, and just sent the puck towards the middle of the ice. It ticked off of Speedy's stick and went into the corner. Odd man rush = failure.

Aw. :(((((((((

As I got back to the bench, Coach Joe had some advice for me.

"When you get the puck, you stop skating and you start doin' this," he said, mimicking a back-and-forth stickhandling motion. "Once you stop, you give 'em a chance to catch up. Keep skating! KEEP SKATING!"

Point taken. As we sat on the bench, Team Gold managed to get in and sneak a snapshot past our sprawling goalie to take a 1-0 lead. Remarkably, we tied it up moments later when a wrister from the faceoff dot by White Helmet somehow snuck through Plymouth Whalers jersey. It was 1-1 four shifts into the game.

We changed lines after that goal, determined to keep momentum on our side. We managed to dump the puck in, and went in hard on the forecheck as we were told. I had a defenseman with the puck in my sights, and anticipated a clearing attempt up the wall. When that attempt came, I was ready for it, blocked it with my feet, and continued in after it. I got the puck by the goal line and sent it in front, hoping for a tip-in, but it was denied be a Gold defenseman.

The puck came back towards me, and I sent it around the end boards to Speedy, who sent it back to the point. The puck ended up getting turned over near the blue line, and Gold went the other way. I started back towards our end, half-heartedly at first, but then realized that the trailing Gold player had turned the rush into a 3-on-2, and was going to be wide open.

I skated as fast as I could to catch up. When I hit the red line, he was at the blue line. When I hit the blue line, he was in the high slot, where he slowed down. His teammate hit him with a perfect pass, and he was about to take a wide-open shot from about 15 feet out. With one last stride, I used every bit of my gangly (most accurate description of me ever) frame to reach out as far as I could, and as he was pulling back to take the shot, I lifted his stick and took the puck in two quick motions. As I peeled out of the slot with the puck, I head Coach Steve yelling "great play, great play!" and the Gold bench mixing "ohhhhhhhh!" with laughter at their teammate missing a golden (pun intended) scoring opportunity.

As I curled out of the slot, I chipped the puck up and out again, raced onto it again (it's quickly becoming my signature move), and went in on a sort-of odd-man rush; however, it was the end of our shift, so I threw it towards the net (it was stopped) and went off for a change.

Honestly, it was probably the best hockey play I made in the entire clinic. Call me Patrice Bergeron Jr., responsible in the defensive zone.

Me.

Unfortunately, we couldn't keep up the defensive responsibility for long. On our next shift, I had a nice view from the slot as a wrister from the left faceoff circle snuck through our goalie, making it 2-1 Gold. After that goal, the refs told us were were halfway through the game, and that we were going to switch ends. The goalies stayed in the same nets, we just switched directions. So now, we had Plymouth Whalers stopping pucks for us, and were shooting on the New Guy.

We had noticed that two of Gold's defensemen tended to do a lot of roaming, probably due to the fact that it's a clinic game and they wanted to score too. However, this led to better odd-man opportunities for us, and we took advantage early. After I saw Speedy collect a loose puck in our high slot, he flipped it to me at the blue line. I passed it back to him up the middle, then followed the play down the ice as he and Joe had a 2-on-1. Speedy sent it back to Joe as a backchecker got there, and, as I was trailing the play, I noticed the puck may come loose.

I don't know if Joe saw me, or if he just fumbled the puck, but it ended up sliding towards me in the slot. I took two strides and was on it, gathered it up, and took a shot. The puck managed to weave past two bodies in the slot and through the space between the goalie's right arm and chest. I had my second real goal of the clinic, and tied the game at 2.

This time, I took a few celebratory strides with my stick up in the air, but didn't want to be too happy because the goalie was new, and I'm not trying to show anybody up. But hey, I scored as many goals as Chris Kelly. And for a lot less money!

With the game tied at 2, things started to open up. We'd get an odd-man rush one way, fail, and then Gold would get one going back the other way. The whole game looked like something out of NHL13: not much defense, a lot of sliding around, and a lot of wide-open play.

On my next shift after my goal, Speedy gathered the puck at our blue line. I took off, seeing open ice and a potential 2-on-1. He tried to hit me with a pass before the far blue line, and it was a pretty good one; however, I tried to do two things at once (collect the puck and avoid the defenseman), and instead just fell and slid on my stomach like a penguin. The puck went harmlessly into the corner, and I banged my stick on the ice to show HOW MAD I was, when in reality I thought it was pretty funny.

Me again.

On my next shift, I had another good opportunity. There was a bouncing puck right near the center circle, and a bunch of us were trying to corral it. I managed to knock it forward, and it ricocheted off a defenseman at our offensive blue line and back towards me. I had it in my feet, and tried to kick it forward for what could have been a breakaway; I managed to use my feet successfully for maybe the first time ever, kicked it ahead, and took a stride after it when suddenly...CRASH.

I was down again, this time victimized by a small bump from the defenseman (or maybe a stick in the feet, who knows). I briefly wondered if there would be a penalty shot awarded, and if I'd get to skate in and do the triple deke in slow-motion, but none came, and on we went.

The back-and-forth play continued, and neither team was able to cash in. We had some chances, but weren't able to beat Gold's mobile defensemen, even when they left home to join the rush, Erik Karlsson-style.

Coach Joe had insisted that we shoot whenever we got a look, so we did. I took a shot that went wide and around the net. It was quickly gathered up by a defenseman, and he sent it waaaaay up ice.

Shit.

You can guess what happened next. Yup. They managed to bat a rebound past Plymouth Whalers jersey, taking a fairly late 3-2 lead. Ouch.

Determined to make up for the error (read: my error), our line worked hard in the offensive zone. I carried the puck up in a 3-on-2, and, working against Gold's best defenseman, decided to take the puck wide. I managed to get around and a step behind him, and sent the puck towards the slot. It ticked off Speedy's stick and went wide. We got it out of the corner and sent it back in front, only to see it denied again.

As we headed to the bench, we were told there were about five minutes left. As it stood, my turnover led to what was the go-ahead goal. Yikes.

Thankfully, my Teal pals helped me out. After a wild net-mouth scramble, one that featured the New Guy lying flat on his back, spread out along the goal line, the puck worked its way into the net. The game was tied at 3, and I was off the hook.

Handel's got a sweet salad going there.

After the tying goal, we took the ice for what would be my last shift of the clinic.

I think you all know what happened next: "Milk Crates guy picks off a pass...slips past a defenseman, and he's in alone...dekes...SCOOOOOOORRRRRRESSSSSSSSSS! THE TEAL TEAMMMMM KNOCKS OUT TEAM GOLLLLLLLLLLLLLD!"

And then I woke up. What actually happened? A decent shift, a couple chances, and a lot of huffing and puffing. As Coach Joe called for a change, I felt a mixture of anger and melancholy: anger at not scoring the game-winner, and melancholy because the clinic was over.

As I sat on the bench, there was one last hairy moment: Gold's best defenseman managed to pick off a pass at the blue line, and in he went: breakaway from the red line in, with about 30 seconds left.

"Stay up, [Plymouth Whalers jersey], stay up!" implored Coach Joe from the bench.

As he had done many times, PWJ stoned the Gold skater, preserving the tie. The game ended shortly thereafter, and the two sides shook hands. Truthfully, it was the best-played game of the entire clinic, and clinic-wide improvement from Week 1 was pretty evident.

Skating towards the bench door, I remembered I had to try something: I had to stop.

So I skidded to a halt in front of the bench door, achieving the goal I'd set out for myself some 20+ weeks earlier.

As I walked past Coach Joe (he coached Gold last night), he told me I played a good game. We were all congratulating each other in the locker room on a game well-played, and talking about finding ice time in the coming weeks. More than a few people are planning on playing in the summer clinic, which starts in June, and I just may join them.

Until then, my Milk Crates days are done. I managed to score three goals (two times there was even a real live goalie!), fall down approximately 4,300 times, check a girl, get checked in the head, fall off the bench, and stop.

Not bad for 21 weeks of work.

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.