It's a almost perfectly fitted Kontinental Hockey League hockey jersey in the home colours of the CKA St Petersberg Hockey Club. Basically, royal blue with red 'CKA' and a star, outlined in white, on the chest, and a white band with thick red centre strip around the waist at top of 'hem', elbows and across shoulders. There's also a small red star on the upper forearms. On the back of the top, 'Kovalchuk 17', one of the great players (still playing with them). The CKA stands for something like 'The Army Club' and refers to the club's origins in the officer's training schools of Leningrad. It used to be known at the Kirov Club in the forties. Very very cool top.
Then it was off to work.
Then I came home and so I put on my CKA top and went out for a birthday dinner with family. I spent much of the meal talking hockey with my daughter's partner, much of the time listened to avidly by my 5 y.o. grandson. Everyone is pleased with my MVP award and I guess that's a good buzzy boost to me before I get brought back to ice level when hockey season starts. It was a great pizza birthday meal with good company.
And then, once I'd confirmed that the big ice was available to public skating, it was off to the ice arena for an old fashioned Wednesday night skate. Got about 80 minutes of skating. Caught up with quite a few familiar faces, including the fellow (Phil) who's ankle I broke earlier this year. We got to trade stories and experiences and tie up loose ends from our respective perspectives on that traumatic moment. He's well over six foot tall indeed, so the whole thing seems almost surreal (I'm 5'6").
Turns out his ankle broke when he landed on it with his bum. He was in a cast for six weeks and then into a moon boot. He reckons he was back on the ice two days later with a much weakened leg. He's been skating every second day ever since and, to my eye, looked pretty good. He reckons he's come back a better skater than he was because he had to think about it so much, reading and watching videos and all the non skating ways we train ourselves to do things. Good luck to him, he seems a nice enough chap.
The ice was possibly the worst I've seen there, full of holes and divots. Not sure why. The figure skaters blamed the hockey players. I actually think they got caught out by the warmer weather we've been having recently as usually hockey does not cause that much damage to the ice. It was potentially dangerous enough that there had to be quite a few witches hats put over the various hazards.
Partly for this reason, partly because of all the bits of chit chat that happened, partly because I'd had a big day at work, partly because it's my birthday, I mainly just cruised around doing whatever maneuvers I felt like doing as they came to mind. A handful of sprints, maybe three dozen stops, a dozen three turns, and countless transitions and tight turns, backwards undercuts and accelerations. Went over a couple of times, once sprinting and once transiting. No harm. And the CKA jersey felt great!
And finally, after admiring the lovely handmade cards I've received from nephew and grandson, I'm going to sign up to NHL Live Centre so I can watch all the oiler's games I want to over the coming NHL season. First game is October 9.
Can't wait!
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Off ice this week (so far) I have limited myself to double and triple circuits of upper and lower body respectively (with 12 reps) on Sunday evening and Monday morning. Looking at maybe keeping it to twice a week for these cycles for the next period, stepping up with core development to fill the gap. Hopefully, starting that on Thursday eve with plank, side planks, and glutes. Will see how we go.
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