As mentioned yesterday, I recently had an invitation to join a shinny (scratch match) down at the diminutive Noarlunga ice rink this evening. After reorganising the weekend to some degree (taking advantage of the fact that there was no inline matches over this long weekend) I had the space, and so headed off in the mid afternoon to the deep south of Adelaide's urban sprawl. Getting there in plenty of time, there was no one I recognised but the rink confirmed that the ice was hired for a couple hours from 4. So I grabbed a cuppa and hung out to watch the troops arrive.
Which they duly did. By the time we were scheduled to start we had the ice set up and teams formed. The ice is squarish in dimensions, and smaller in length than the small ice at the Ice Arena. It's a cool little place, actually, set up originally by a Scandinavian emigre simply for the love of the ice, and it's kept going now for decades with a little government and a lot of community support. Anyway, its ice is more accessible than that of the Arena (both in terms of availability at civilised hours and cost). Which is ironic because it lies much further away for most of those that came than does the Arena, the majority of whom seem to reside in the northern suburbs. The rink manager manually prepared the ice while we were getting changed. It's all so much smaller in scale than Thebarton, and I wish I could use it more. So it was a total pleasaure to reaquint myself with it (I was last here 18 months ago, before I'd ever hit a puck with intent, so the experience was almost as new).
Our gathering of players was really what this was all about, however. Despite not being told who was likely to come by the fellow who invited me, I'd pretty well guessed many of the participants before I got there. Which was really cool, because if they consider me to be part of their cohort then that is an honour and privilege! Mitch I'd known from my first 'learn to skate' lesson, Ben from Wednesday evenings, most of the others from various phases of mine at the academy. There were a couple others, but good blokes so all was well. One goalie, two sheilas, three or four blooded C graders, for a total of 12.
The people side of the experience is pretty significant. Everyone present was of similar level in hockey ability, different abilities and skills meant that everyone had a role and no one was totally outclassed. More importantly, we mainly knew each other and there were no strangers. No ego and little uncouth emotion. Those I knew, I have seen under high pressure mental and physical and have respect for all as decent people. We all share the peculiar passion for this game which is a bond in itself, and were willing to put our safety into each other's hands to prove it. To an outsider, would have been interesting to see, the cameraderie and friendship as we came in, the no holds barred physical and mental struggle that followed, the business like friendly departures. It's a nice feeling of belonging.
We split into two teams white with the single red sweater v the coloureds. I had my Vikings sweater on and was thus with the coloureds. We played three on three, with a bench of two for each team. There was one goal set up, teams would take turns being offence/defensive, determined by puck possession. If a team gained possession while playing defence and carried it to within a couple metres of the far wall, they became the offensive team and could launch their attack.
We had two hours with three five minute breaks. Within my team we seemed to have more or less equal shift times, with only Nuono taking extra time out as he hasn't played for fifteen years (what a brave man!). Although I was tired at the end I was still able to function on the ice relatively well and use my head. This makes me pretty happy, there is no way I would have managed this six months ago. As I write this though, several hours later, I am pretty sore all over :-) and suspect I'll have an earlyish night.
My team was outplayed quite handsomly by the opposition and, consequently, I got quite a bit of defensive time. Think I might have only had two shots on goal, the one which scored actually being a deflection from a east to west dump into the crowded crease. Our main systemic problem was that we gave up possession too easily after getting it. I think by the end this was improving with a bit of 'stop and think' beginning to happen. Before that, we often just dumped the puck in hopeful long stretch passes.
I've never scored a deflected goal before, so that was a good experience. Other good experiences were application of various things we've been taught, like puck protection, backwards to forwards heel to heel transitions, poke checking, deception tactics, accurate passes, finding open ice, blocking lanes, tagging and screening. All great fun. And we're all peers, so even better!
So much so, I reckon I'll do it again next week, and then when possible.
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