Tonight saw the conclusion of Round 1 in Div II of the Summer IHSA competition. The Knights were victorious over the Flyers in the second game of the evening. Being the opening night of the season, ours wasn't the only team to be gathering there for the evening (there were three games). Which, when you add the fact that 'supportive others' seem to be keen to attend an opener, meant that there was quite an audience during our game. In this regard, many thanks to Wayne, Jess, Craig, Brodie and Eli. Thanks for coming!
I was quite calm in the leadup to the game. Only the normal pregame nerves that should be happening before any game. Not the full on rush that I had before my first ever game. Made me feel all grown up lol! And thus did I bask in the warm glow of expectation until I was informed that I was going to play Defence. All of a sudden, the butterflies inside my stomach spread their wings. I spent the last ten minutes before heading to the change rooms reviewing what I knew of playing defence, and what my fellow defenders offered by way of short form advice.
It boiled down to: stay between your player and the net, read the play, never let them get behind you, clear the puck is priority one, try not to ice it when you do, get possession, keep possession, do not get caught pinching, clear the slot is what you do. Subsidiary tactics: talk, listen, evaluate, take the loose man and let the goalie take the puck carrier if outnumbered, direct the offence towards the boards, delay them. And generally, mainly because we were relatively few in number (Tom, Andy, Aaron, Baden, Foxy, Christian, Michael, Laghlan and me and a goalie (Tom)) and it being the first game of the season: short shifts.
For warmups, a couple forwards/backwards side to side lines, then 'circle work' and a shooting horseshoe, finally the passing/shooting horsehoe. Five minutes was up pretty quick. I started as the 3rd D, came on for my first shift after about a minute. From then on it was pretty continuous changes every couple minutes until the last five minutes (see below). That's a lot of ice time for me!
Period 1 was our worst as a team. Within this context I was reasonably happy with my efforts as a budding defenceman, and we weren't overpowered. Much of the period was played in our end, I spent a fair amount of time harrassing the centre and wing (and covering, if it appeared necessary, the man on point in the absence of our rookie winger). My skating skills were well used, as well as my eyes and assessment activity.
Surprisingly, I seemed to be on top of the physical side. If not clearing the top of the slot (yet), I was managing to clear the front of the net. On one occasion this involved a backward 'check' on the opponent while I tangled his stick. He was bigger and stronger than me and pushed back, tried chopping at my stick. So I planted my edges and gave him a bit of a backwards 'nudge'. He skated off and I didn't have to fend him off again until into the final period. Even as I did it, I thought my off ice program of the past ten weeks is paying off!
Never-the-less, they massively outshot us in the first period. But it didn't feel too bad. For although we had been fortunate to be blessed with great keeping by Tom and we seemed a bit scrambly and frazzled, we had been skating pretty good and generally covering our positions. Not enough shots, surrendering the puck, giving them an easy ride into the slot, these were the things to remedy.
My worst moment, perhaps of the game (though, see below), was when I thought I'd try a cross ice pass to my fellow D, not registering the closeness and speed of the oppo centreman who proceeded to intercept my way too casual pass. Shot - rebound - scramble - siren. End of period. Whew! 0-0.
Our second period was much improved. I started systematically denying the oppo any freedom while in the danger zone, delayed and steered outnumbering opponents towards the board or into the corners. I got to play for the majority of a penalty kill (after our captain got a minor (2 min) penalty for something piddly), which we played quite aggressively in their zone for a goodly time before sprinting back to prevent the counterattack (success).
I managed to stickcheck, kick or even get my stick in the way of several shots - I carried the puck up across the blue line a couple of times, once even pinched high to chase the puck into the offensive zone on my own before dumping it after our forward line had changed.
Starting to get the hang of the D gig. Expanded the 'zone of denial' to anything south of the hash marks (ie, an area bound by our defensive face off circles and the goal) and thus cut off a number of threatening options before they could manifest. This was my best period.
At some point Aaron put the puck into the back of the net to give us our game winning lead of 1-0. This after a hard scramble in front of goal involving upto three Knights and as many Flyers. It was a case of keeping on hammering the rebounds until one went in. I witnessed it from my station back on our blue line. Good stuff!
The third period was more of the same, a close fought and aggressive game. I did manage to block a few shots (though one was a risky-ish cross face deflection into the corner), and hussled them away from in front of net on a number of occasions, steering my oppo to where he hadn't intended on others on their rush. Intercepting passes or winning a race to the puck and clearing it became a mission.
With about five minutes to go, however, my game ended when I got barreled over (no malice) and then fell upon near our bench. I felt my right knee outside muscular 'stretch', no pain. Couldn't move it properly afterwards couldn't take weight. Pulled myself to the gate and crawled over for my replacement to get on. Sat out the rest of the time on the bench. Cheered and grinned when the final siren went off.
The Knights have won our first game of the season. We hadn't beaten this team last season. We had them this season. We were outnumbered. We had a good goalie. We have some not bad players, most of whom know each other. We played less on the body than they did. I think I was a remarkably 'clean' defenceman in the first game of my defensive career (which may not be very long as other members of our team come on board over the coming weeks).
As for my injured knee. I've applied arnica and ice to it over the past few hours, conducted my own 'audit' of the situation. I am beginning to think that I might be lucky and that the strain I have experienced is not a structural part of the knee but of the musculature surrounding it. To wit, a 'corking' of the linear muscle to immediate upper inside of knee cap complex and a straining of the tendon towards the rear of the outside. This is not good, mind you, but is better than what my first thoughts were when I realised that something had happened out on the ice.
Next game - Saturday evening versus the Redwings. Our only Saturday game. Hopefully my knee allows me to skate.
GP 1 G 0 A 0 Pts 0 +1
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