Week 3 (Oct. 29th)

Week 3 marked the first scrimmage of the clinic, with my Team White facing off against Team Green. Team Green is, for whatever reason, comprised of a lot of players who are new to the clinic. I'm not saying they're not very good, but they play a lot like I did in the first few weeks of my first clinic session. So I guess I am, in fact, saying they're not very good.

I arrived to the rink and, miraculously, got a seat in the cinderblockerroom (get it? Cinderblock locker room...I know, I'm a wordsmith). I started talking to Joe, and we agreed that we'd try to get our original Team Teal line back together. When Speedy arrived at the rink, he agreed that we should get the band back together and torch the clinic with like, maybe three goals this year. Maybe.

We took to the ice for warm-ups, ready for a spirited (read: sloppy) first game. After about two minutes on the ice, we realized we were missing a key ingredient: we had no pucks.

Our coach, Quiet Coach, as I'll call him, said, "I don't know where Coach Joe is, and he's got the pucks. He said he'd be here."

"I'm not even supposed to be here tonight," he mumbled, sounding like a man who would rather be literally anywhere else on Earth. Confidence boost!

Minutes later, Coach Joe arrived and threw us some pucks. Our team pounced on the loose pucks like a pack of dogs, a fitting description because many of us skate about as well as dogs would move on ice. I fired a few shots on goal, feeling good about the upcoming game.

After, I decided to become Marc Savard and feed passes to my teammates instead of taking shots. Surely they had never seen such feathery passes. Jaws were dropped. Or no one said anything. Either one works.

The referee took to the ice and whistled the start of the game. It was then that we realized something else was missing: the Green goalie didn't show.

Damn it.

Thanks for showing up, Green Goalie.

After a brief discussion, the coaches decided they'd let a Green skater voluntarily man the pipes.

"Alright, we've got a guy volunteering in net tonight for our side, so take it easy," said Coach Joe. "He doesn't have any pads, so don't do anything stupid."

Dejectedly, I skated out onto the ice to take the first shift. Playing against a non-goalie kind of ruins the fun of the game. It's not nearly as challenging to score on a guy in regular hockey gear, let alone one who tries harder to get out of the way of the puck than he does to stop it.

Regardless, we had a game to play, and the puck dropped with yours truly skating on the right wing, Speedy at center, and Joe on the left wing. WE'RE BACK!

On my first shift, I identified which guys on Team Green could skate. By "identified" I mean that one of their defensemen skated right past me on the forecheck, after which I noted "hey, he can skate."

Shortly thereafter, Joe collected a loose puck and flipped it ahead to Speedy. I came up the right wing in a 2-on-1. Speedy floated a great pass over to me, and I saw it coming and prepared to fire.

Predictably, it bounced off of my stick and went into the corner. I flubbed a wide-open scoring chance less than 45 seconds into my first shift. Go me!

I banged my stick on the ice and bellowed the appropriate expletive to make sure everyone knew how mad I was, and skated after the puck. I gathered it up and sent it out front, where Speedy was locked up with a defenseman. It glanced off his skate and into the other corner, and I skated off for a change shortly thereafter.

One shift, one failed scoring chance. Way to go, sport.

Sitting on the bench, I realized that we had an extra forward, so our lines would be screwed up immediately. For my next shift, I was matched up with Speedy, but not Joe. Instead, we were joined by Big Guy, who, as we took to the ice, asked anyone within earshot if they were "ready for the Shitshow Line." I liked this guy already.

While I was on the bench, our team had given up a goal and scored one, so things were knotted at one. I chased a loose puck into the corner of the offensive zone, and had it in my sights. Trying to stay two steps ahead, I began to think about where I was going with the puck: back to the point, where my defenseman was wide open.

I knew I had a backchecker on me. I didn't know how close he was, but felt that I had time to make the play. I reached out to backhand the puck back to the point, and suddenly I had no legs.

The backchecker had, indeed, been close enough to me to make a play. In fact, he was so close that he couldn't stop, and rather than pokecheck the puck he just went right through me. His left leg connected with the back of my right foot, and considering that I don't exactly have Dennis Seidenberg-esque strength on my skates, I went flying.

My first slew-foot. I'll remember it forever. <3

I went down hard, my back slamming off the ice and helmet barely avoiding contact. It didn't hurt too badly, but it certainly didn't feel nice. Regardless, I was furious. I reached out with a Ryan Miller-style slash/swipe, attempting to show my displeasure with this fellow's antics. I hit the boards instead.

Shaking off the cobwebs, I went to the bench, which I then kicked. I sat stewing on the bench until the end of the period, plotting my revenge.

Who let Ovechkin in the clinic?

We started the second period up 2-1, and were shooting on the goalie this time. I took my first shift a few minutes into the second, this time playing left wing. I gathered a pass from Red Defenseman (a guy who has played in both clinics with me, and arguably the best skater in the group), and took it into the offensive zone.

An odd-man rush was developing, and I was thinking "pass." However, the Green defenseman just kind of left me alone, instead electing to play the pass. Clearly he wasn't exactly fearful of my shot.

As I drifted in towards the circle, I decided I'd shoot. I let loose a wrister, and actually got some good wood on it. It headed towards the goalie and broke through the space between his arm and his torso, dribbling out the other side about a foot wide of the post.

Speedy gathered up the rebound, and I headed towards the crease to cause some havoc. I posted up in front while Speedy hung around in the corner. He skated towards the blue line, then stopped halfway and fired a bad-angle shot on net. The goalie knocked it down with his pad, but it dropped right into the crease. I outmuscled (I know, I was surprised too) my defender and whacked at the rebound, sending the puck up in the air, off the post, and out. Foiled again.

Inspired by my close calls, I came out flying (relative term) on the next shift. My line buzzed the cage again, but we couldn't get one past the goalie. Late in the shift, I ended up in a battle along the boards with the defenseman who blew by me earlier in the game. I got inside position and went past him, kicking the puck to my stick. Entering Gretzky's office, the guy was on my back. I tried to put a backhand out front, but the defender got his stick on it.

Peeling back the other way, I decided it was time to make another Savardian pass. I knew my teammate would be at the point, and there was a wide-open lane. I slid the pass out to the point, about ten feet away from the nearest teammate. Oops.

We entered the third period up 3-1 and were shooting on the regular skater in the final frame, meaning it'd take a collapse of Maple Leafs proportions to lose the game. On my first couple of shifts, my line couldn't get much going.

"You have to MOVE," implored Quiet Coach. "When your teammate gets the puck, everyone just stands there. MOVE! MOVE! He needs someone to pass to!"

Noted. On the next shift, we had a bit more flow to our game, and managed to get a few decent breakouts. On one such entry into the offensive zone, the puck was rimmed around the boards and I tore in after it. I gathered the puck and headed further down the boards, towards the back of the net. I was met by a Green defender who either A) couldn't stop or B) didn't like me, because he elected to just keep on coming and bundle me.

Luckily, #IAmGregoryCampbell, so I popped right up and gave the offending defenseman an icy glare. He didn't seem to notice.

As I sat on the bench, my teammates managed to score two goals, putting us up 5-1. It was getting late in the game, and I figured my next shift would be my last. I took to the ice with Big Guy and someone else I didn't recognize, determined to score after my earlier close calls.

Towards the end of the shift, the puck had worked its way into the corner of the offensive zone. I was on the opposite side of the ice, and headed towards the slot to hang out and possibly get a tip. My teammate won the puck in the corner, and just threw it towards the net. It pinballed off of a few sticks and feet, and lo and behold, ended up on my stick.

Before I could think, I instinctively flicked the puck on net from about ten feet out, and it snuck between the legs of the skater-goalie for my first goal of the clinic.

My team went on to score another goal before the game ended, giving us a 7-1 win over the overmatched Team Green. Yours truly is a goal-per-game player, meaning a call from the Bruins should be coming shortly.

It looks like Team White might be an unstoppable juggernaut this clinic (until we play actual teams, that is).

Of course, I mean unstoppable in a literal sense, so maybe it's not much of a compliment after all...