Fridge

Fridge

Saturday 31 May 2014

Morning Skate at Gawler

Being a cloudy wet day it wasn't good timing to get a young fella his first pair of skates (you can't go skating cause it's wet?!).  So instead, Me Nan and A went off to Gawler to get some skating in in the public session that runs before the Hockey Day in Gawler starts.

N hadn't skated for years, and not on roller skates for decades, so she was a bit trepidatious about the whole thing.  But after the initial inevitable stride-fall sequence she gave herself time and the floor respect and by the end of an hour was motivating around with some sense of rhythm and a positive sense of self.

Young A, bless 'im, was keen to give it a go and, apart from a little sitdown to watch every now and again, kept going also for the full shift.  He started off at about the point I'd last seen him on the ice, working his way around the edge and holding onto my hand for dear life in the parts of the circuit where there was no accessible barrier for little hands.  After a wee word from one of the rink maidens about keeping his eyes/head up and taking little marching steps (marching, not stepping or walking, is the key word methinks!) and a few falls some of which hurt, we were doing circuits without falling (our record was three).  Near the end, I asked him if it was time to get off, or should we press onwards?  The answer?  Onwards!

A good hour and a half; fun, progress made on the part of both N and A, and a good morning activity for me prior to heading back later to Gawler for the last game of the night against the Bumpers.

And, here's to the Rink Maidens of Gawler!

Thursday 29 May 2014

Vikings Training

Last night I again managed to get out to Gawler for Vikings training.  The session started with pass and shoot practice with two groups in opposite corners of the rink and a goalie in each goal.  One at a time, players would pass a puck to a skater from the other group looping around at their end.  While that skater then carried the puck back towards their own end for a shot, the passer would set off up the rink and loop around the aftermath of the skater shot before accepting a pass from the next player in the opposing group. 

After a few repetitions we changed up by having two players depart at a time, with the puck carrier passing to their partner for the shot on goal.  My partner through this was Riley, a young fellow of great skating and good leadership abilities, aged about 12.  We communicated well and enjoyed the half dozen repetitions.

We then conducted a 'house drill', whereby the main group would remain in the corner, three players stationary on the half rink around the goal (two at point, one half way along the goal line between the goal and the opposite wall).  The skater would pass the puck to the point player in front of them, then skate up and around them.  At that point, the skater would take on a 'D' role.  Meanwhile, the three 'stationary' players would pass from point to point to the goal line player, then between each other for a shot on goal while the D tried to stop them.  Once there'd been a shot on goal, the skater became the first point, first point became second, second became deep forward and the deep forward went to join the group and await their next turn.

We ended with about twenty minutes of six on six short form games on the full rink, turning over teams in shifts.  This culminated in a crazy minute of all in free form competition before we ran out of time and packed up.

During the team battles at the end there was one 'game' where my team was attacking the goal tended by the Wheeler's regular goalie (Matt).  I spent much of the shift screening him at close quarters to give him a taste of it and me the experience.  When we battled for the puck at one point his stick handle found its way inside my helmet cage.  Perhaps lucky for me he let it go at that point.  Good reminder for me that even with a cage one is not invulnerable.

The other thing of note occurred when I we were doing the solo pass/shoot drill at the start.  I steamed in on the goalie and dropped the puck onto my backhand before whipping off an unexpected shot of moderate power.  The shot didn't go in but drew applause from the spectators.  I realised the same thing had happened at Ice Hockey Academy the night before (when the shot had gone in).  Both times, comment was made that I was doing some fancy puckwork.  I wasn't intending to, but it seems this is one of my 'natural trick shots' that I should work on as goalies certainly don't expect it and other players think it is good value.

Who would have thought?

Tuesday 27 May 2014

Academy - room for work

For the third week in a row I made it to Ice Hockey Academy this evening, I picked up my newly sharpened skates after a friendly chat about the kids with the program director on the way in (gotta love Adelaide) and noticed that a few of the crew were already doing stretches in their gear while waiting for the juniors to finish and the zamboni to roll.  I got changed in time sufficient to do a few laps with my new edges.  Could certainly feel them biting the ice around tight turns, not overly confident with the outside edges in hockey stops.  About this time realised that Cory wasn't here.  Instead, Mick and an Adrenaline player (Jakob) were conferring with purpose and a bag of pucks.  'This will be interesting,' I thought.

And it was.  After a few skates up and down ice, stopping or transitioning on the blue lines, we self selected into beginners and intermediates.  The huge bulk (about 20) went intermediate, some such were a surprise to me.  Only one got pulled back.  From then, we were subject to the accented brief commands of Jacob, while Mick had his half dozen charges. 

Everyone was into the ethic of the a training session (which always makes it good) and Jacob kept us doing technical drills from one or two lines, varying everything forehand and backhand for one to three repetitions.  Used pylons a lot, and our trainee goalie.  Stickhandling, puck handling, passing, shooting.  All the basics in a new bunch of little drills that could practice on inlines easy enough if the weather was dryer and the sun stayed up longer. *sigh*  There's plenty of room for work on looser lower hand and softer hands more generally, leading to more fluidity in stickhandling, a harder shot, and more confident pivots.  But, learned a fair bit and could notice some improvements across the evening (always nice).    Worked up a fair sweat.

Good session.

Sunday 25 May 2014

Sunday Skate & Other Deeds

After the game last night I wasn't late in getting to bed but unfortunately still managed to awaken a couple hours before dawn.  Resigned to the fact that this would necessitate a mid morning nap so I'd have the promised energy to go ice skating with B, and that therefore I wouldn't be able to get a mid morning inline puck'n'skate session in, I instead watch a recording of the second NHL game of the current Western Conference Final series and then had my nap.

Waking up again late in the morning, it wasn't long and B and I had had some watermelon (wonder sports food) and were down at the Ice Arena.  First thing on the agenda was to get a lace tightening tool for him so he can be responsible for putting on his own skates nice and tight (it's tough enough on forty plus year old fingers, let alone for those under ten (just)).  And then, out on the ice for an hour and a half of moderately crowded public skating time.

As seems to be the pattern these days, I didn't really try to push any particular agenda too hard, tending just to enjoy watching other skaters, cruising to the music, and continually doing simple and single 'moves' as I just took my time.  As the ice began to empty over the last half hour I picked up the pace for a few laps, and became more flamboyant in the techniques which had gained most of my attention earlier.  Namely, 'grapevining' backwards/forwards (which is, the way I do it, good practice drill for undercutting outside edges), backwards to forwards transitions, combined with a preceding forwards to backwards on the same foot along the boards on later runs, and the previously mentioned combination of inside edge C cuts and outside undercut, crossed over from standing or pivoting start, forwards and backwards.  Seem to be on top of them all (famous last words).

We left as the Old Timers were turning up for their games later that afternoon/evening.

Quick trip home and a bit of 'down time' while we heated up some food and got some energy back into ourselves, before a trip to the North East suburbs to check out some protective gear which B's Uncle Shaun had spotted being advertised for sale second hand on the web the night before.  He'd emailed for pictures, had forwarded them to my missus who had then emailed the lady.  Eventually I had given her a ring to organise an inspection of the gear and had sadly had to disappoint her that both the guy she'd mailed pictures to and the lady she'd emailed had both been connected to my call (ie not as much interest as she'd thought).  Lol.

Anyway, cutting a long story short, we rocked up bang on 5 pm and were testing the fitting on quite a few items of equipment on B in the dusk.  Turned out that would be able to get practically everything he'll need except for hockey pants and socks (Vince's son is apparently a bit taller in the legs than B).  I made an offer, and then this guy invited me to make an offer for the whole collection.  Which I did.  And that was the final agreed price.  After a down payment, to collect later in the week, we departed for the lengthy trip home discussing the ins and outs of off-ice practice and the value of inline for stick'n'puck'thinking training, the theoretical milestones that would be needed for an Adelaide boy to play NHL (I thought, club-state-national-scholarship-tryout if you're good enough would be the route) and so on and so forth.

I think what we ended up purchasing were two caged helmets (both Itec, white and yellow), throat guard (Bauer), three sets of shoulder pads (CCM and two Bauer), elbow pads (Bauer), two sets of gloves (Itech), hockey pants (CCM), shin pads (Itech), hockey shorts (like boxershorts with a protector in them), three sets of green and gold hockey socks, a black practice sweater and a Bauer kit bag complete with shoulder strap.  Some of it is hardly used, all has been well looked after  $350.  Seemed fair all round.

After finally dropping B off home and then heading home myself, I could only think that I had been a very useful engine and it had been a very busy day. 

All good.

Saturday 24 May 2014

Game Day - Wheelers (4) d Shufflers (2)

Tonight was Round 3 of the Vikings Div 2 regular winter season.  We started our top of the ladder clash against the Shufflers at about 6.30pm.  I think everyone was looking forward to the game, I know I was.  All three of the games I played against this team last season were hard physical contests and all in very good spirits (we led the series 2-1).  The best thing about tonight's game was that this rivalry without rancour remained the defining feature of the contest.

I'd forgotten my gloves (the first time I've forgotten a piece of equipment other than my skates (!)) and was glad to be able to borrow Matt the Goalie's spare set (!) of skater's gloves.  A neat set of Bauers, a lot less bulky than my Mission Commanders.  Though, the week I took a few strikes and pucks on the gloves and know that the only thing that saved my hands was my now scarred gloves proved the worth of the padding (even now, I can feel the impact site on the edge of my hand).

The other major difference in my kit tonight was that I brought my Bauer Ice Stick rather than my usual Easton wooden stick.  The Bauer is a lot lighter and has a fibre flex to it (potentially allowing much more power, though I still don't press the stick hard enough in a shot to benefit from this).  There were a couple moments during offensive plays plays tonight when I was specifically aware of the benefit of the lightness of my stick.  I think I'll make my Bauer my 'match stick'.

The game itself was a tough contest.  Alex boomed all four of our goals, all from relatively close and very deliberate.  He's potentially a bit of a sharpshooter, though his score could have been more if he had a quick snapshot as well.

Half way through the first period, we were 2-0 up  when their two guns combined to put them in reach.  Alex answered back a couple minutes later to reinstate the two goal cushion, only to have Alan shoot one in with seconds to go from half way.  This was the goal against that was scored while I was on the floor.  I was tracking Alan and crossing his path about a couple metres from him on centre wing.  He fired off a strong wristshot that got no higher than a foot from the floor the whole distance and was dropping as it crossed the goal mouth in a gap about four inches wide between keeper and post.  Probably the best shot I've seen on goal yet.  I was inches from blocking the shot, could have done so - but by the time I thought of it it was too late.  Good training in hockey sense!

So we went into half time at 3-2, and anything but confident.  They had had us under strong pressure at the end of the period, and Alan's goal had shown us that we only needed to drop our guard for a moment and they could capitalise.

The second half was a much more dour affair, with their Mark probably the best player, skating hard and dishing the puck around.  We did rise to the occasion, but only just at times, and at others it came down to a couple great saves by Matt the Goalie.  Our whole team contributed to the occasion, with Matt desperate in the midfield, Merrilyn and Brenton providing their own high standard of defensive coverage, Alex posing a constant threat and me enjoying playing pivot behind the play and skating up the puck before passing off.  I managed a court length stretch pass at one point, and a half court bank pass (off the boards) at another, both were tape to tape in the end.  In the last minute of the game Alex and I combined to put paid to their persistent attacks with a neat and deliberate goal, me passing from mid court to him uncovered in the lower left slot - resulting in control of the puck and a deliberate shot into the top corner.

So, the Wheelers now sit  a game clear on top of the ladder.  Despite this, any of the games could have gone the other way (or so it felt at the time), but I thought that this was our best effort yet.  And, as I said earlier, it was a great fun game also, so the handshakes and 'good games' at the end were full of good vibes and smiles.  There were no penalties and no criticisms of the umpiring of which I was aware.

I was pretty happy with my own play, being on the floor for three of our goals and one of theirs, scoring one assist, finding time with the puck, not getting totally blown, totaling probably slightly over 20 minutes floor time, controlling the puck and occasionally the play.  I won 6 out of 7 face offs, for which we were much more aggressive in our set up than last week (ie. two or three forward, as opposed to playing two back as we did last week).  I had about five shots on goal, including a couple jams at the crease, a backhand snap and two strong wrist shots, one coming in at speed from wing (could and should have crossed the goalmouth before shooting) and the other from within a pack in the bottom of the slot.  I learned that you can find time even the middle of a pack if you maintain proper focus.

The biggest things I got from the experience in terms of my individual game were the experiences of taking puck possesion and then evaluating/deciding/executing in a time span appropriate to the situation (ie. seconds when in deep D taking a pass back for a reset, milliseconds in a pack in front of the crease before unleashing the unexpected backhand that so NEARLY crossed the line underneath and behind the sprawled goalie before the ref blew the whistle), leaving the puck (carrier) to the goalie and taking the man when they were on the rush, and the experience of being stick checked twice from behind by Alan as I wound up for a shot coming in at speed from mid rink (must remember to use the technique myself a bit more, as well as put more emphasis on protecting the puck prior to the shot when I can do so (as I could have in both of these instances)).

GP 3 G 3 A 3 TP 6 +5 3/0/0

Back to School. Again.

Being a beautiful autumnal day I finally got my opportunity to go out for a neighborhood skate this morning.  Couldn't do too much in terms of working out because I have a game this evening at Gawler so contented myself with grabbing stick and pucks and heading down the primary school, taking a punt that the construction works that made the netball court surface unusable when daylight saving ended were either completed or at least advanced to clean up stage.

Luckily, I was right in my assumption.  I had to adjust what I'd do to account for a few materials left near my traditional goal shooting site, and a fair bit of detrius on the surface.  However, the trench had been ashphalted over, I could sweep off the detrius, and I could adjust where on the court I skated and what I did to account for contractor's vehicles and materials on other parts of the surface.  All good.

So, I contented myself by setting up the neon puck as a target against some concrete and snapping the green pucks at it from 15'-20' until I needed a breather, and followed that up with a series of puck carrying slaloms through a simple course of puck pylons, completing each run through with a shot on goal at about 30'.  Ended up with a run of five sprints in to pick up puck from the centre, control and release at 20'.  The particular skills that I kept at forefront in the skating were my heel to heels both ways, and the move of deking one way but crossing over the other direction simultaneously.  This latter is still not probably drilled enough to use in a game comfortably but I am improving.  Total time on court, a bit less than an hour before the skate home.

Didn't push myself too hard as I didn't wish to either risk injury or tightness in muscles.  And it was thoroughly enjoyable and brought a smile to people that saw me on the street and at the school.

Wednesday 21 May 2014

Vikings Training - more passing games

Tonight was the regular Vikings inline hockey training at Gawler for us lower grade adult players.  About fifteen present.  I got there early for probably the first time ever, many thanks to the missus for restructuring her own day to give me the opportunity (car).  The anthropologist in me finds the whole experience of what goes on in change rooms to be fascinating.  But that's another post for another day.  Let's perhaps say that it breeds a distinct sense of camaraderie amongst participants.

Which is good, because when accidents happen (and they do) and people get hurt, there's no aggro.  Tonight, for example, Jai got tangled with another player and ended up in pain on the floor.  And not getting up.  With a sore shoulder.  And he's a fairly tough bugga.  But it was all very 'matter of fact' as an event, even when the ambulance crews arrived and there was a huddle of fellow players around his suppine body on the bench.  Kinda reminded me of laying on of hands, or the grieving mary's at golgotha.  Perhaps, looking back on it, the strangest aspect (though not at the time) was how seemingly natural was the fact that our training session continued on in the adjoining rink at the same intensity and almost the same volume as before, stopping only at the appointed time.

We did less drills than at the ice academy last night, but we did (a few) more repetitions for each drill.  There's something to be said for both approaches, depends on the pedagogic emphasis you wish to achieve.  I'm happy to trust my coaches on the matter.

Started with groups of three players, each group formed in a line between a player at each of the red lines at opposite ends of the rink and a skater in the middle.  The middle skater would skate towards each of the opposing end players in turn, passing to the stationary player on the journey in and receiving a pass on the way out as they looped around behind them, then in a long figure eight to do the same with the player at the opposite end of the rink.  They would then pass off to one of the stationary skaters who would then become the skater in the middle.  Then there'd be another pass off and the third skater would have their time in the middle.  Started reasonably slow, sped up as it went.

Then, with the groups of three holding their positions (one at each end and one in the middle), moved to a high tempo passing drill.  Centre skater now just skated partway towards one of the stationary players, receiving a pass from them and then immediately passing it back before stopping and heading back towards the other stationary player.  Repeat five times, then the centre skater swaps with one of the stationary players until all three have had a go at being centre.

Then, two groups on opposite ends of one of the goal lines, goalie in the goals between.  One from each group departs, up the boards to the defensive zone before curling across and swapping sides with each other.  One of the two skaters will have carried up a puck, passes it off to the second skater.  They then skate back down the boards towards the goal line, with a pass from F1 to F2 for a shot on goal.  After the pass, F1's job is to skate hard at the net for any rebounds.  We all got to do this maybe four or five times.  (It was during this drill that Jai was injured.  I didn't see what happened, but saw the immediate aftermath with both skaters on the ice.  My guess is that they collided).

Then, everyone into the middle for an description of a variation of 'red rover'.  A goal was put in the centre of the rink, facing the side boards.  The goalie was in the goal mouth.  Two or three players started in a line across the centre.  Everyone else had a puck and lined up across one of the opposing end goal lines.  The puck carriers had to skate their puck beyond the opposing red line.  The guys in the middle had to stop them, take the puck, and put it in the net.  The skater who had been dispossessed would meanwhile try and get their puck back and get it to the safe zone behind the red line.  If a goal was scored with a puck, that puck's original carrier joined the defenders in the middle.  The successful puck carriers got to repeat the exercise, until there was only one left.  Ganging up on the attacker, and passing to others for the goal was expected.  The drill combined offence, defence, puck possession and protection, passing, 'two way play' (the sudden transition from carrying a puck to battling for it and defending the goalie).  We did it twice, both times the coach being the last man standing.  As it should be.  Very great fun.

Then, about three penalty shots each.  And finally we had to be quiet (presumably at the paramedic's request), so we just did some laps.

Great training.


Academy - themeing D

Last night I got to the Ice Arena with comfortable time to change before Ice Hockey Academy.  About twenty players, one goalie again.  This week, if there was a 'theme' it was about playing defensively.  Or at least, that's what themed the night for me.  I've never really noticed 'themes' before, though, having recognised a layered approach in other levels of his classes, it wouldn't surprise me at all.  Part of his art is to not give meta commentary in his sessions, letting the player's put the pieces together themselves with him helping by providing the tools.

Anyway...

Worked upwards from basic inside edge hockey stops, adding forwards then backwards cross (under) starts from the stop (ie. pivots).  Then, shots on goal from a horsehoe at 20 feet plus, forehand and backhand.  Then some passing one on one.  Then passing interchanged with one on one battles.  Then work in pairs, starting on opposite sides of the goal line, crossing over with a pass / drop off, up the boards over the blue and repeat the cross, followed by pass(es) and shot(s) against a tended goal.  Then repeat this with a defender thrown in against.  Then a three count back checking chase.  Then some red rover, then red rover without using the hands (ie, bodycheck).  Then some sprints across the ice, stop, swift accelerate backwards.  And a lap to cool down.

What I got out of all that?  A bunch of defensive concepts (though could equally be taking away converse offensive concepts).  Of note, the crossing passoff, and the undercutting acceleration out of a pivoting stop.  Both very very useful.  The first, will rely on my trainings to keep drilling this into me (as by definition require at least one other skater to do).  The second, of which the basic skating move is what I've been calling undercutting reverse c's over the past few weeks, is something I can work on.  It ties directly into my more grand goal of working on my acceleration this off season  All good, in other words.

A good session.

Tuesday 20 May 2014

Sunday Skate - four ice-skateers

Yesterday afternoon I went skating with the three Lizard Kids, by popular demand.  They'd been up pretty late, and I'd been up ridiculously late watching the F.A. Cup Final (ended at 3.30am our time), so it took a bit of finessing to keep every one moving (except for B, who was keen as mustard to get out on his new skates) and it didn't help that I forgot my skates and we had to go back and get them.  Be that as it may, we got there about 1:30pm, leaving us one and a half hours before an early closing of the rink to allow for preparation for the Adrenaline game an hour later.

J seems to have relaxed and isn't trying to prove himself outwardly, and hence looks much more confident and natural.  B continues to push himself and try out new techniques, not afraid to drill on the boards in his stationary moments and getting a buzz out of life on the edge (quite literally, as he is discovering the importance of his edges on the ice also).  E just looks cool, and had worked her way onto the big ice by the time the session had ended.

Me, I didn't do anything too much in particular and just basically went through a lot of my various 'moves' and 'projects' but in a non dogmatic and playful manner.  Always looking for a gap in the crowd to give me a few seconds of freedom I continued to work on my exit from transition from rearward to forward skating with a left leading foot.  It's becoming a bit more natural to take an inside line with my right foot rather than crossing over as I had unconsciously been training myself to do.

Quite a crowd had gathered for the game by the time we were leaving.  As cool as it would have been to stay we were all buggered and needed to get back to our respective homes before sunday evening.

Monday 19 May 2014

Game Day - Wheelers (7) d Rockers (3)

On Saturday, May 17, we played the Rockers in the second round of the North Vikings Inline Hockey Club's Division 2 Winter League.  We were the second last game of the day, starting at 8pm.  I brought up Lizard King with me from Adelaide, he brought his ipad for a bit of video action.  We got there about 7pm.  The Rockers were our opponents in the Grand Final last season.  They'd lost four of that team to First Division teams, we lost two to Division One (the Dylans) and one (Mal) to another Div 2 team.  It was going to be interesting to see how the teams had panned out.  It turned out to be a reasonably comfortable win for us, though it got a bit stressful at times. 

We opened the scoring with two quick goals off of Alex's stick (he ended up with four on the night).  Then, they struck back with two fairly quick replies, both off of errors in our (my) game.  In the first, I was screwing around in offence for way too long making my mind up what to do.  When I finally tracked behind their goal I was still uncertain in my moves.  Unsurprisingly, their largest player had time to track and dispossess me before skating it up to our zone where he slotted a nice shot.  Not long after, I was involved in their second goal when I went down in front of our net and ended up blocking shots (3 by my count) while on the floor before letting through the fourth.  I had managed to screen our goalie, so it went in.  Not to be put off, we blitzed a number of shots, before I ended up scavenging a loose puck during a scramble in the slot and snapping it into the exposed far corner of the net.  We went in to half time with a 3-2 lead.


First Half Highlights

The second half was more lop sided, with their only goal coming off a goalie brainfade on Matt's part, and we slamming home four more.  I got the last goal of the night from an unassisted skate up the right wing (chipping it off the boards to get me started out of defence) and a slow cruise across the goal front until the goalie had lost his balance tracking me.

No penalties against either side.  We generally kept a defence in place and played a passing game for probably three quarters of the match.  Our line management was pretty good, everyone having roughly equal time and no one totally blown at the end.  I got two goals, no assists.  I had about four unsuccessful shots, none from close in.  Was on the rink for one other of our goals in addition to those I put in the net.  We were quite pleased with the effort and look forward to playing the Shufflers next week in a top of the table clash.

GP 2 - G 3 - A 3 - TP 5 -  2/0/0 - +3

Friday 16 May 2014

Vikings Training

On Wednesday night I had opportunity to grab the car and get to inline training at Gawler.  So I did, managing to wolf down a bit of food before I left on the cruisy 45min trip with the tail of the rush hour. 

On a last minute whim I ended up bringing my new Blue Jackets sweater with me to 'break it in'.  It has elastic around the cuff at the wrist which makes it even harder than it should be to put on over elbow pads, but apart from that it was a good jersey.

Fashion commentary over, I got out to the rink as the session completed the evening's first drill - carrying a puck around the witch's hats in a deep slalom, with the cornering turns using the tightest turns the skaters could manage before accelerating to the next.  Straightline skating with braking turns (for those that could, the others of us making do with as tight a 'regular' turn as possible) followed, skating from the wall to the far blue line, back to the close blue line, on to the opposite wall, turn, return to the start point, repeat five times. Thirty second breather.  Do it three more times.  Heavy, but doable.  One other drill.  Then basically a thirty minute four a side shinny, with bench's of four and whistled line changes (excellent fun).

The shinny was great fun, and had enough of a smattering of player skills that there was heaps to learn from the experience, both in the doing and in retrospect.

An hour after I started it was time to change down with everyone else (we all generally use one of the building's large meeting rooms for this) and then hop in the car for the 40 min trip home.

There were a couple members from each of the Div 1 and 2 teams ('lower grade' players from Div 1 share the session with Div 2, their better skaters mixing it with the Premium grade players on Monday nights) at the session and two Div 2 goalies.  The higher proportion of Div 1 players meant it was a higher skilled session than had been the case most of last season.

Tuesday 13 May 2014

Back to the Academy

Tonight I finally made it back to the Ice Hockey Academy at the Ice Arena, after a hiatus of almost six months.  It was great to return to a crowded change room and be welcomed by a bunch of familiar faces, whether from my social skating episodes of recent months or from academy or league play from summer time.  It sure does one's soul a load of good to have a bunch of welcoming faces!

Cory was in his usual fine form, somehow managing to keep everyone involved at a level they'd get something out of it with.  From almost rank beginners to my cohort (borderline intermediate level), he kept everyone in their place if required, and pushed us all just that bit further than we felt comfortable with.  As it should be.

The format is pretty standard in its make-up, with a mix of skating and stickhandling drills, passing and shooting, puck possession and defence work, short battles, ending up with a round of penalty shots.  We had one goalie only for about twenty skaters, so Anthony the goalie got a good work out.  He's come a long way since term 4 last year.  I felt quite proud to have got the majority of my shots in on him, including being one of only three that got a penalty goal at the end.  Of interest with this last, two of us were Knights, and the third was a genius ten year old who just shines even in the adult sessions.  Good company.

It took me about half the session to get used to the fact that the puck slides over the ice a lot faster than in inline.  Once I'd made the adjustment I was able to start relying on the skill bank I've been working on.  I heard someone calling me an 'ice dancer' so that must mean I have kept my ice legs!

And sweetness of sweetness, mine wasn't the only Oilers sweater for a change!

Monday 12 May 2014

Extreme attitude

"I get my team to shoot at my head so I can work on my reflexes."
A recent quote from a Buffalo Sabres goal tender.

What can I say?!

Sunday 11 May 2014

Sunday Skate - back in the rhythm

I picked up B this afternoon and we went for our usual term time Sunday Skate.  The Ice Arena was back to its more usual non-olympic-year winter self, not crowded and a moderately proficient average skating skill.  Nice to see a few familiar faces, and nice to see some of them recognising B from past occasions also, and the improvements he is making from week to week.

As for me, I used the hour and a half to reasonable good effect, just enjoying the sensation of skating for much of the time.  Didn't really push myself too hard, a couple sets of a couple laps at speed, a couple laps of heel to heels, some concentrated drills of transiting on mohawk from reverse to the left at speed (finally worked out that the issue I was having with this was that I was moving straight into a crossover with my right leg (presumably an artefact of having to skate in a anti clockwise direction at public sessions)), and generally speeding up the work that I do at random moments on my simple drills (backwards inside C cuts with outside edges, forward alternating crossovers onto outside edges, tight slalom, etc).

Noticed one of the coaches in the background watching at one point (the drill up the ice with left foot exit rear to forward transitions at moderate speed).  Suits me fine.  Hopefully my puck'n'stick work keeps evolving through inline experience and I get their attention through that as well when next it counts.  What's lacking at the moment is accelerating speed, need to work on that.

B fell over and banged the bony part of the glute complex about 30 seconds before the session ended.  I think it hurt him quite a bit but he wasn't about to complain.  He's a tough wee bugga.  Hopefully he doesn't bruise to the black stage like I did a few months ago.

Saturday 10 May 2014

Game Day - Wheelers 7 d Bumpers 4

Winter Season started for Vikings inline hockey at Gawler today.  My team (Wheelers) played against last season's fourth place getters, the Bumpers.  Our team had changed a bit, with the loss of the two Dylans to Division 1 and the addition of Alex (from the Shufflers) and a newbie, Matt.  Matt Vickery remains our goal tender.  Me, Merrilyn and Brenton remained the old 'core' from last season.

Bumpers opened the scoring with a blitz goal at 40s, followed by another about a minute later.  This seemed familiar (two goals in a minute against us at start of grand final).  I was on for this goal, it came off of a face-off where I won the draw but didn't skate on to support Alex who was wrong footed.  They stole it off him and broke in.  It became 3-0 half way through the period. 

I played in a role in our both our goals in the first period.  With six minutes remaining, I backhanded the puck from right point to Alex who in the left slot who made sure of it.  Five minutes later, similar play except this time I did I forehand pass after skating it up from our defence, to Merrilyn who dropped it in.  Half time, 3-2 their way.

In the second period we were having lots of shots and crushes on the net without a score for about five minutes, before they scored one against the run of play.  We scored two more and it was tied at 4-4.  By this point I had taken about four shots and tried to jam it through the goalie's legs, to no avail.  She'd made one very good high glove save on the nicest shot I did all game.

This changed when I received a nice pass from Merrilyn behind the red line, I was backing across goal with stick on ice and just held my wrist shot until I had some space.  This turned out to be the game winning goal.  We scored two more (with the last less than a second before the final siren).

Our team gelled really nicely.  Merrilyn and I fed each other goals, and it was nice to know Alex is lurking their with his strong shot.  Our rookie scored two goals, he'll be pleased.  I think we'll be a pretty cool unit this season (no superstars, lots of teamwork, good triangle work).

My game was pretty good.  I didn't run out of puff despite my recent head cold and double shifting it several times (once even triple shifting mid way through the second as I was only one with any puff left).  A lot of things I drilled a few weeks ago were of use, from backhands and gliding in for rebounds, to keeping the head up and assessing a situation, heel to heel protected pickups of the puck, backhand pickups off the boards.  I even chipped the puck up the boards on one occasion, chasing it down and carrying the puck into the offence zone. 

I could benefit from remembering to skate the extra stride to the puck rather than reaching early with the stick and to watch the torso not the puck with someone coming in on me.

Great opening to the season, tremendous fun and both and actual and a moral victory at the same time!

I'm now #34.  Is good.

GP 1 G 1 A 2 +2 1-0-0

Tuesday 6 May 2014

Excuses Decisions Excuses Decisions

I didn't go skating over the weekend at all because I was in Sydney or on a plane.  I didn't go to Hockey Academy because I am fighting off a nasty head cold and don't want to stress my body out too much.  I won't be going skating tomorrow night because we have a family event (one of the reasons I want to shake the head cold, or at least stop it getting too much worse).  Which means I'll be going into the first game of the season with the Wheelers (the other reason I need to shake the cold) having only skated once in the previous fortnight.  And that was on ice, at that.

And with only five skaters plus a goalie on our roster, that's scary - if I don't shift this cold significantly and get my energy levels back.  If I do, it's a challenge.  Such a fine line...


Sunday 4 May 2014

Sweaters Pt 1

If you play hockey you probably have learnt that you can never have too many hockey sweaters.  Team sweaters should only be worn for game days, leaving a lot of practices to wear something else.  Odds are they'll get pretty grubby and smelly unless they get washed frequently, so you shouldn't just wear the same one again and again.  Add to that the occasional need for someone to change into red/white/blue/black colours to even up the sides in a small rink game or a shinny, and there's need for a few different sweaters.

That's my excuse, anyway, for beginning a bit of a collection of the things.  Add to that the fact that they tend to have interesting designs / bright colours /an emotional 'tone' and it then becomes somewhat easy to take them up as a type of regular clothing in their own right.

I started my collection with an Edmonton Oilers sweater I saw at the markets in Sydney a bit over a year ago.  To that was added a Canadian (away (white) colours) from the International exhibition game in June last year.  I got a Vancouver blue top on my next Sydney trip.  Then, gave the missus a shopping list for her next trip to the markets and she came back with Colorado, Montreal (with 2009 centenary epulettes and #11 - Koivu on the back (then time captain before being traded to Anaheim where he remains)) and Redwings sweaters.  The Redwings was her idea because she liked the red (more on this one later).

And this weekend, I was in Sydney with the wife again, and again it was a trip to the market stall to see what they had...

Came back with a St Louis Blues one (royal blues with a stylised yellow note as the front symbol, #41 - Halak on the back) and an oldschool Columbus Blue Jacket sweater (18th Century cannon logo on white roundel in front of a dark navy blue top, with lacework).  Also another one which I won't describe here because it's a gift for someone...

Next weekend I'll be picking up my own Vikings sweater (Royal blue, Viking helmet with crossed sticks beneath ala jolly roger on the front), and a Wheelers sweater (maroon, no logo).

I had a chat with the stall holder this time, enquiring at the absence of 'L' sized tops (so it goes comfortably over my body armour) or of 'S' ones (for the kids) and she explained it by the fact that they're all remainders.  Hence, no Winnipeg Jets, few of the other 'minority' teams, the old designs that have been supplanted in the most recent season (which is good as I wouldn't wear the stars and stripes design of the present bluejackets top, but I do like the older gun logo), etc.  The numbered sweaters become remainders when the player is traded (hence, my Montreal player these day is with the Ducks, and my Blues player was traded earlier this year to Washington, making the sweaters almost worthless on the usual market).

Maybe I'll continue this in another post some time...

Thursday 1 May 2014

NHL Playoffs - Round 1 done

Well, an interesting First Round of playoffs in North America.  In the east, Montreal v Boston and N.Y. Rangers v Pennsylvania Penguins is the result.  In the west, Chicago Blackhawks v Minnesota Wild and L.A. Kings v Anaheim Ducks.  I'll be going for the Wild in the west and, in the east, the Habs.

Having followed the first round as well as I could (a game a night on Pay Murdoch TV) for my first ever real playoff season has been interesting.  My joy at Montreal beating the Lightning 4-0 and going through to the next round before anyone else was great.  Sadly, because their series was over so quickly I only got to see one of their games.  Hope the 11 day break won't have been too long.  The best game I saw was that when L.A. beat San Jose to tie their series 3 all (surprising, as I'm no fan of Kings hockey, but they played lively and crisp and were good to watch).  Hats off to LA also, for coming back from being three games to nil down to win that series 4-3.  Only the fourth team in NHL history to have done so in a playoff series.

The biggest surprise, though, was how my attitude to several of the teams in general shifted.  You might have gathered I'm not particularly fond of Boston and their angry bear style of play.  But at least they do it with style.  What got me, however, was how much I didn't particularly enjoy a bunch of other teams that play the monster game with their size.  Namely, the loser teams of St Louis Blues, Colorado Avalanche and Columbus Blue Jackets.  So, my heart wasn't where my original wishlist predictions had originally put it going into the series.  The other team that played the rough house style was the Philly Flyers, but there was enough teamwork class with them to make it entertaining (as they went down to NYR in a seventh game).

We'll see how my predictions stack up before the Conference Finals.

Paid up for Winter Vikings Inline Hockey season today.  Go Wheelers!