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Category: clinic
Monday Clinic
So did a week of interval training make any discernable difference in my performance? Maybe.
I talked to the coach before practice about changes I’d made in my workout routine this week and he thought they were okay. He also seems to think that I’d be fine playing in the rookie game, but I’m still hesitant – I don’t care so much about the skills, but although I can stop and turn, it does tend to require some advance planning on my part.
Drills are one thing, but with an opposing team out there I’m concerned that I’ll run into someone (or the goalie) and hurt them. I’d also like to be able to make it through the entire practice without feeling like I’ll blow chunks first.
It struck me this week, after last Monday’s revelation, as I looked into the difference between aerobic and anaerobic, that everything I’ve ever done as far as exercise has been aerobic – hiking, kayaking, golf … all aerobic. So starting something anaerobic for the first time at forty-something and having to build an entirely new type of muscle may be pretty stupid. Oh, well.
First skating drill tonight was much like last week, trying to get us into that hop-turn from a standing start.
Starting on the blue-line (top arrows) and facing the side boards, he first had us just step sideways to the other blue-line. The “hop” off the leading foot started to feel more natural during this drill, but after a few reps of this we were back to adding the turn. It might be that I’m not making enough of a hop to get fully turned at the start.
Next (bottom arrows) we’re back on the blue-line, but this time facing down-ice. Forward to the other blue-line, with the first three to five strides being quick steps. Then stop and the return is backwards.
The coach is stressing to everyone that he doesn’t want to see anyone doing crossovers backwards in this drill – strictly power-skating. This is easy for me to comply with, because I have no f-ing clue how to do a backward crossover. I’ve watched it and watched it, but it still seems like magic to me – the way the feet move just shouldn’t wind up in the body going the way it does.
Puck drill is much the same as last week, but there are enough people to have three skaters. It simulates recovering the puck in your own zone after it’s been dumped in by the opposing team.
Skater 1 dumps the puck in behind the net. Whoever’s fastest of the other two (not me) heads for it. The other one makes for the boards at the blue-line – bail-out man. Skater 1, meantime, skates into the zone, playing defense until we have the puck, then doubles back to head up-ice. Whoever stopped the puck passes to the bail-out, and we head up-ice, passing, for a shot on goal.
Lots of yelling by coach on everyone’s reps about the bail-out not being in position and the pass not going to him first. Also more stressing, like last week, about not stopping in the neutral zone to wait for the puck – keep moving, zig-zag, even come back down-ice, but don’t stop and don’t turn around to skate backwards.
Good point that skating backwards to take a pass on offense is going to let the defender set himself in your path. Even in a no-check league, when you run into him backwards there’ll be no penalty and you’ll be face down on the ice.
I made four reps of this (it was two last week) and had to sit on the bench for a bit to catch my breath, but I made it back onto the ice for two more reps before the end of practice. That’s better than last week, but too soon to tell if the improvement will be consistent.
I was happy with my passing during this drill. I flubbed a couple, but so did everyone and my flubs weren’t the worst. On one I got the puck near the goal line and made a nice backhand pass across the slot that was right on target. I also took a pass on one drive and got the shot on goal – that’s an accomplishment in two ways: 1) my shot was on goal instead of six feet to the right; and, B) I was at the goal to take the pass instead of out in the neutral zone struggling to catch up.
Accomplishments are all about perspective.
Back at the Hockey Clinic
Yes, I’d been planning to start back with the lessons in January, but I had several things that would have interfered with Monday nights and didn’t want to start if I couldn’t go every week right away.
Did the three months of exercise get me in better shape? Well …
First drill: Line up on the blue-line, facing the side boards. Now we’re going to skate to the red-line and stop, but we’re facing the side boards, so we have to turn. The way I’m lined up, the red-line is to my right, so my first instinct is to turn my right foot and push off with my left … as in many cases, my first instinct is wrong.
I’m supposed to lift my left foot, cross it over, and push-off/jump off my right foot. This feels very awkward.
Stop at the red-line, then go back, this time lifting and crossing over the right foot, while pushing off with the left.
A few reps of this and I’m getting the hang of it – better pushing off with my right foot, but I’d expect that. I’m feeling okay, not out of breath, so I start feeling confident that the exercise did some good.
Next drill is similar, but blue-line to blue-line and we start from our knees facing the far blue-line. Oddly this feels more comfortable to me if I’m pushing off my left foot … from both knees, I get my left foot under me and push up and out, getting my right foot under me.
A few reps of this and I’m still feeling pretty good. I get out of breath once we stop to get ready of for the next drill, but during it I was okay. I was the slowest at both of these, but I haven’t been skating a lot, so I’m okay with that as I get better.
Next up is some puck-handling with our feet – trying to get us to kick the puck to our sticks along the boards or to control a pass that comes to our feet.
So four or five of us around each circle, and first it’s just feet. Stop the puck with your feet and kick it to the next person.
After some time of doing this, we change it up and pass with the stick, but stop the puck with our feet – kick it out to our stick after stopping it.
This is harder work than it sounds like. At least for me, it’s awkward and a lot of work to maneuver from a standing start, so when the pass is off it’s a lot of work move to stop it.
I was not the worst in my group at this, so that made me happy.
Last was a passing and shooting drill. Two lines at the blue-line. One player dumps the puck in along the boards while the other heads to the other side to stop it.
Once he has it, both head up ice, passing along the way, and take a shot on goal.
Two things the coach was stressing in this drill:
1) Stay together. If one of the pair is slow (me) the other (everyone else) needs to stay with him, not just blast up the ice. We want to attackers in order to split the goalie’s attention.
2) Keep moving. The faster skater shouldn’t just stop and wait for the slower – when he catches up he’ll just blow by, so keep skating. Side to side or even skating back to the slower skater is preferable to just stopping and waiting.
This is where it fell apart for me. I’m slow, so I’m skating all-out the length of the ice for this drill. I made it through two reps and when I got back in line after the second one, I was out of breath, dizzy, and nauseated.
So I headed to the bench for a rest and frustration. The coach came over to talk to me while I was sitting there – he remembered me from the few times I was there last year.
I told him, “I’ve spent the last two months on the elliptical five times a week to get ready for this, I don’t understand.”
“That’s aerobic,” he said.
I gave him my best look of incomprehension. It’s impressive, I get to use it a lot.
“This is anaerobic,” he explained.
Well … crap … so I’ve spent the last two months doing the wrong thing?
He explained that aerobic was still important so I’d have legs in the third period.
Great … I’ve prepared myself well for the third period, I just can’t get through the first shift.
His recommendation? I can’t run, knees and shins won’t take the impact, so he suggested pushing myself in intervals at public skating.
I should also be able to add some interval training to what I’m already doing on the elliptical, by just increasing the speed. I’ll also be hitting the skate & shoots to skate hard with my gear on – I’m more comfortable on the ice when I have it on anyway.
Getting in Shape
Next Monday I’ll be getting back on the ice for my first hockey clinic in almost a year. Since my last clinic (where I had the interesting experience of slamming face-first into the boards), a variety of things we’ll call “Life” conspired with my general laziness and tendency toward
sitting on my assbeing sedentary to keep me off the ice.A couple months ago I realized how long it’s been and that if I didn’t do something about it I’d never play a game. I also realized that I was in worse shape than I was when I took my first clinic last year, so clearly I had some work to do.
Diet
Weight has never been a real problem for me. I’ve always been able to eat pretty much whatever I wanted without really gaining anything, but I did notice that I’d put on a few extra pounds over the last year – mostly around the middle. In addition to that, a lifetime of being able to eat anything you want doesn’t really create healthy eating habits, so I started this process with a cholesterol level of 194 – just below the “borderline” level on most charts. Still in the normal/desirable range, but higher than I want it.
A few years ago my ex-wife started on Weight Watchers and I did it at the same time to support her. She was very successful at losing weight and I learned a lot about my eating habits and what’s in those restaurant meals. But there’s a lot of paperwork involved in that – looking things up, counting points, etc. If I really, really wanted to lose weight, it would be the best way, but I’m primarily interested in some small changes at this point to see what will happen.
I’m used to eating what I want, when I want, and I want to see if I can improve things by adding and changing, rather than giving anything up. At 6’-2” and 175-pounds, weight loss isn’t what I need – what I need is weight transfer and even some gain. I need to build muscle and lose fat – maybe even ending up weighing more, but without the fat around my middle. So traditional weight-loss goals, where we’re measuring pounds lost, won’t really work.
The first change I made was in what I drink. No, I didn’t give up beer – because I don’t drink beer in the first place. Beer is a waste of perfectly good grain – it was on its way to being a fine whiskey when something went horribly awry.
No, what I changed was soda. I’ve drunk soda, almost exclusively, for most of my life – Coke for most of that time and Mountain Dew more recently. So how do I cut down on the amount of soda I drink without feeling like I was giving it up? By adding water – not to the soda, but to my drinking regimen.
When I finish a glass of soda, I fill the glass with water. So rather than having a glass of soda beside me at all times by default, it’s now water about half the time, and I only have more soda when I’ve finished the interim glass of water. I don’t have to give up any soda – I can have another glass immediately, if I guzzle the water right down, so I don’t feel like I’m depriving myself of anything and don’t crave it. In fact, as time went on, I found myself getting water instead of soda by choice.
I added fruit to my diet (vegetables I simply don’t care for that much, so it had to be fruit. I do like fruit, though, so keeping good apples and bananas on hand is enough to ensure I’ll eat them by choice. Fresh berries as well – I’ll mix some strawberries, blackberries, and blueberries together with a container of cream cheese dip and have a bowl once in a while. Yes, the dip has calories, but remember I’m lucky enough to not be worried so much about the calories as I am about getting more fruit into my diet.
For years I’ve stopped at McDonald’s to pick up breakfast on the way to work. I’d actually prefer Panera or Chickfila, but there isn’t one convenient to my route. Regardless, a Sausage McMuffin with Egg and a deep-fried hashbrown every morning isn’t conducive to a healthy diet and lower cholesterol.
So I added oatmeal. I don’t like instant oatmeal at all, but I do like a good steel-cut oatmeal with some brown sugar and dried fruit. A couple mornings a week I’ll make a batch of this and eat it before I leave. This is not in place of McDonald’s – I’m adding, not replacing and not denying myself anything. If I feel like a Sausage McMuffin after the oatmeal, I can have one – mostly I don’t, because oatmeal’s pretty filling.
After a couple months of doing this, my cholesterol dropped to 156. A forty point drop – still not where I want it to be, but not bad for a few easy, sustainable changes that don’t leave me feeling like I’ve given anything up. And that drop is before adding any significant exercise to the mix.
Exercise
For the last year, “exercise” has consisted of walking the dog – about 1.5 miles two or three times a week. Certainly not enough, but I’ve never in my life exercised for the sake of exercise – it’s always come from being naturally active in some activity. But the last year (and the decade before that) found me inactive with little time on the ice or kayaking or anything else, really.
Living in an apartment now I’ve had access to a fitness center less than a hundred yards away for over a year and a half, but until this month I’d never bothered to use it. But I made a decision at the beginning of December to do something active every other day – if I don’t take the kayak out, skate, or something else, then I have to hit the gym.
Exercising and fitness machines have always seemed pointless and boring to me. I hate it. But I think I’ve found a compromise I can live with. First of all, I listen to audiobooks – in the past I’ve tried listening to music, watching TV, whatever, but it didn’t work. I couldn’t get my attention away from the drudgery of exercising. The audiobooks work, though – I’m able to keep my mind active and forget about the exercise part.
Another thing that’s helped this time is the machine I primarily use. In the past I’ve tried the treadmills, but the impact (knees) and the constant speed (I don’t want to have to press buttons to change my pace) piss me off – yes, I’m a grumpy, picky old-man. The elliptical (Precor EFX 546) eliminates both – no impact and I can change my pace at will. This particular one has all the typical program features and the ramp changes angle automatically.
That’s a feature I especially like, because apparently the angle of the ramp changes the muscle groups that are targeted. I didn’t know this. The machine’s console has little lights to tell you what’s being worked the most and it appears that the calves are worked most at the extreme low and high elevations of the ramp.
That’s kind of important for me to know, because my calves are where I get the most fatigue when skating, so I want to work them more. The fixed-ramp machines have an elevation in the middle, so I’m assuming I’d get less benefit out of them.
I started at fifteen minutes, quickly moved to thirty minutes, and, today, did forty minutes with no problem. Rather than increase the time any more, I’ll start bumping up the resistance.
The program I use is like two hills. It starts with a middle incline, rises over time to the highest, then down to the lowest, back to highest, and then ends back at the middle. At the higher and lower inclines, when it indicates that my calves are working the most, I increase the resistance for half the time.
After that I use the weight machines, then walk the dog for a 2-mile cool down.
Has it done any good? Well, I went skating yesterday for the first time in quite a while and managed a full hour without taking any breaks. I left the ice to get a drink periodically, but went right back on. It felt like a big improvement in endurance from the other times I’ve skated this year.
We’ll see Monday when I start going to the clinics again.
Monday Clinic
So … yeah … not my most impressive showing at the clinic …
On the plus-side, I have a new stick. The old one was wood, no flex at all and cost $19.99. New one’s composite, has some flex which may help my shot and was $69 – which is still on the cheap side, but it’s much lighter.
Skating drill was goal to goal pretty fast five times – we were divided into two groups. Fourth time coach sent the twos off quicker and told them to catch the ones – I was a one and didn’t get caught. Fifth was the reverse – I also didn’t catch anyone. Then backwards to the far goal line.
Then we paired up for some passing drills. Two of us skate to the far end, trying to stay even with about two stick-lengths between us, passing the whole way.
First time down, I flubbed my first pass and put it behind him. Second time we did well and made all our passes except the last one – that was almost at the goal line and he wasn’t expecting me to send it back to him. I think I did okay the rest of the times we did this – we weren’t trying to skate at full speed, so that helped me a lot.
For the rest of the clinic, we did a three man breakout drill. Two goalies, coach along the boards with a pile of pucks and us in three lines at the red-line.
Coach dumps the puck in and we’re supposed to chase it – the goalie goes behind the net to stop it, but might miss, so the theory is whoever’s fastest gets behind the net, where the puck should be, and the other two head for the boards.
If the goalie’s missed the puck behind the net, we’re supposed to send it back to the player behind the net and start a breakout – down the ice to the far goal, passing, and then shoot on the far net.
Well, two things happened to me in this drill:
First, it just killed me. I wound up on the bench about ten minutes before the clinic was over. See, I’m still pretty much slower than everyone else, so where they might go half- or three-quarter-speed into the zone and down the ice, I have to go full speed just to keep up. After a few repetitions of this, I was wiped out and had to sit for a while.
Second, and this happened on, I think, my first time, I had a bit of an impact.
We enter the offensive zone and the guy with the puck passes it to me, but I miss it and it heads to the goal-line, left of the net. So I skate after it at full-speed and I’m about to the goal-line when I realize I have a problem.
I’m going full-speed, the pucks right there, the boards are in front of me, the plays to the right and I can’t stop on my left foot. So I could turn left and stop on my right foot, but that’s away from the play – I’m on the puck and I’ve got two guys crashing the net, so I should get it to them. Or I can try to stop on my left foot and get the puck into play. What did I do?
I muttered a copulative-verb and skated full-tilt into the boards, missing the puck entirely.
I bounced off the boards and landed on my hands and knees staring straight down at the stationary puck with my stick flat on the ice in my left hand.
Now, I don’t know how this looked to the other guys, but here’s what I was thinking at this point: I need to get the puck to somebody. So I reached for it with my right hand, dimly realized that would be a hand-pass, and then shuffle the shaft of my stick into it to knock it toward the net.
As I’m doing this, one of the other guys skates over and asks if I’m okay, to which I reply: “Ib tieing ‘oo ‘it ‘oo ‘uh ‘ucking ‘uck.”
I have yet to master speaking with the mouthpiece in, so translate that yourself.
Why didn’t I turn right instead of thinking about stopping, take the puck behind the net with me and pop it out in front to a teammate? Because I’m an ‘ucking ‘oron.
The rest of the drill went better for me, though.
I’d say I was about 50/50 for passes I made being on target or reasonably so. I made my share that were off target, but everyone did. On receiving passes, mostly they were too far ahead of me – which is reasonable and expected when you consider my speed. They’re passing where they think I’ll be, but they’re expecting me to be moving faster than I do.
This was actually a fun drill and I wish I’d been able to finish it, but the repetition of full-speed from center ice into the zone then pushing it all the way down wore me out. Especially when I had to push even harder when a pass was ahead of me.
Some of those I got, though, even though I had to skate hard and stretch off-balance to reach them. It was good to have to push myself that hard – now I just have to push myself into better shape.
I’m not the Slowest! (except sometimes)
The skating drill at tonight’s clinic was an important milestone for me: I wasn’t the last one across the ice in one of the drills. Yay!
So skating drill tonight was goal-line to blue-line forward, then return backward; then the same to the red-line; then the same to the far blue-line. Then to the far goal-line and back, both forward.
It was at the far goal-line that I realized I’d made the turn and there were others behind me. Maybe I’m getting faster .. maybe they just weren’t skating as hard … don’t really care which, I’ll go with feeling good about it either way.
Then we did goal-line to goal-line and back three times … backwards.
I am not not-the-slowest going backwards. I am, in fact, slower than the goalie. That’s right … I’m slower than the guy with 500 pounds of equipment on him.
Also, I don’t turn well backward. How do I know this? Well, since I’m the slowest, it meant that everyone else reached the goal-line and started coming back before I did. (anyone see where this is going?)
I’m doing what I’m supposed to, looking over my shoulders frequently, but I seem to have trouble seeing directly behind me. And when I finally do see him, he’s close and we’re both moving. And I was unprepared to maneuver, so there was a bit of a collision. I went down and he kept going, which was rather disappointing. I mean, if I’m going to go down after colliding with someone, I’d at least like it to be mutual, you know?
The hockey drills were interesting.
First off, we ran an offensive drill with two defensemen and one forward. Passing and shooting while the coach put pressure on whoever had the puck – it’s a bit sad that at three-on-one he still could’ve kicked our asses if he’d chosen to, I think.
So we all line up and the first three go in. After a bit we cycle, so right-defense moves to forward, forward moves to left-defense, and left-defense moves back to the line, while the next in line takes over at right-defense.
This drill uncovered a serious problem I have – I kept trying to walk. At defense, I found myself trying to take steps side-to-side instead of skating. So I need to work on moving left/right by skating instead of thinking I can step back and forth.
For the second drill we line up in two groups at opposite blue-lines, along the boards and facing the far blue-line. First skater from one group skates to the far blue-line and turns, taking a pass from the other group and skates down to take a shot on the net. As he gets the pass, the passer from the second group takes off and does the same, but taking his pass from the other group. On and on.
Of the three times I did this, I missed the pass I was supposed to receive twice – but I’m going to blame the passers. The passes were ahead of me … okay, so that makes it my fault for not skating faster to get them, but still …
The three passes I gave, though, seemed to be on target. I didn’t notice any of the receivers having to stretch too far or really work to get to them. So I’m happy with that, because I’m realistic enough to know that 1) I’m not fast enough to skate with the puck and B) my shot sucks – so my best bet to help the team if I touch the puck is to pass it and it’ll be good to at least be accurate about it.
Monday Clinic
Tonight’s clinic started in what I’m going to start calling The Bad Way – that is, goal-line to goal-line skating drills that I’ve described in two of the last three clinic posts. Not going to elaborate further again.
However, they didn’t wear me out as much as previously. I’m wondering if it might have something to do with the enormous amount of water I drank between noon and skating – maybe there’s something to that whole hydration-thing.
Drill tonight was shots again – first dragging the puck in from the blue line and taking a shot, then something different.
Coach set up on the right boards at the blue line with a pile of pucks – seems most of his drills consist of him standing in one place with a pile of pucks and making us shag them. It’s good to be the coach.
Anyway, two lines of us – one at the left boards and the other at center, but on the blue line.
Coach dumps the puck in around the boards – skater at the left boards goes in and gets it, skater at center heads for the net. Shot, pass, deflection-attempt, whatever and then back to the end of the other line.
On my first attempt I was on the boards. I tried to stop the puck with my skates and forgot how to stand, which resulted in me flat on my back on the ice.
Second or third attempt from center and I’m trying to screen the goalie and maybe deflect the shot, but the guy taking the shot lifted it a bit.
Note to Self: Puck-deflection with ‘nads inadvisable.
Not really – it hit me on the outside of the thigh about two inches below the level of Mr. Johnson and the Boys, but it was the first time I’ve taken a puck anywhere, so it was surprising. And made me glad I remembered my cup, just in case.
Will now always remember my cup – pending divorce or not, I may need those again someday.
My “shot”, and I use the term with much derision and mocking, showed itself again to be weak. I need to figure out a way to strengthen my right elbow – I broke it a few years ago and it twinges quite a bit taking a shot.
I also discovered, when stopping the dumped-in puck along the boards, that it’s difficult for me to see a puck right at my feet. I stopped them all after that first fall, but had to look around to find them again – kept getting lost under me and squirting away. Since I’m not heavy at all, I’m going to blame this on all the gear.
I felt really good after the clinic – tired, but not completely worn out like previous ones. I think I might target trying to play in the Monday game starting in February.
Monday Clinic
Last night’s clinic started much the same as my first one – that is to say, lots of end-to-end skating drills. This time, though, I seem to be in a little better shape – I’m still out of breath and dragging at the end, but at least I was able to continue with the rest of the clinic and didn’t wuss out and leave the ice.
The rest of the drill concentrated on shooting, which I haven’t practiced very often, even at skate & shoots … which is probably a good thing, since I apparently do everything wrong. Now that I’ve had a bit of instruction and demonstration, I can practice without, one hopes, developing any bad habits out of ignorance.
Now I just have to remember to get my left wrist at my right hip, puck behind me, both arms moving forward, pivot the stick when my arms are fully extended, point the stick where I want the puck to go, but in line with the puck not in front of my body and, oh yeah, shift my weight to my left foot and get the right one back … all while trying to skate … and not run into the goalie after … or the net … or the boards … and with five other guys trying to take me off the play …
Yeah.
The drill was simple in explanation: start at the blue line with a puck, skate in and take the shot from the hash marks. Keeping in mind all that stuff above. Except for the five-guys, which, in my case, is probably not necessary anyway – I can see it now: I’ll be playing my first game, take the puck over the blue line and someone on the other team will just wave everyone off and yell: “No, let him, just watch … wait for it … ooohhh, that’s gonna leave a mark!”
Second drill of the night came out of the coach’s sadistic-bastard bag.
Start at the blue line and he dumps the puck in around the boards. Skate into the zone, pick up the puck, then take it, hard, down the ice to the other zone for a shot on goal … then pick up another puck from a pile at that blue line and take it, hard, back to the other zone for a shot on that goal. Then back in line. Repeat.
After a few of these we, or at least I, added practice for the skills of wheezing heavily in line and chanting “please god let this be the last one” over and over again.
I did bail on this one and sit on the bench, but I’m pretty sure it was on the last one and I wouldn’t have been up again, so I consider this a completed clinic for me. I’m especially happy about this because it started with the same skating drill that wiped me out the first time.
So I’m going to really have to work on my shot, such as it is, and figure out if I’ll ever really have a decent one. A few years ago I broke my right elbow and I have a bit of carpal tunnel in my right hand because of my work as a computer programmer, so I wind up with pain in those two places after only a few shots. I’m not sure yet if strengthening those areas will help in this respect.
Another thing I learned is that my stick sucks. It has no flex to it at all, or at least is very difficult to flex. I’m not sure why this is, since I had clear criteria when I bought it (“Hi, show me your cheapest stick, please.”) So I think that’ll be the next piece of equipment I upgrade, both for me and the boy-child.
Monday Clinic
Made it to my second Monday clinic and it was a much better experience than the first one.
Coach started us off with laps because no one had stretched – four times around, but I was able to stay with the pack and had no foot pain, so I was pretty pleased about that. The new skates remained comfortable throughout.
The drills concentrated on screening the goalie and deflecting the puck around the net.
He and another guy set up at the points and we were to skate in from the side of the net and stop – screen the goalie and try to deflect a shot from one point, then move quickly to the other side for a shot from the other point.
I’m new to the drills, but part of this I don’t understand completely. The explanation was that if the first shot misses it’s likely to go around the boards to the other point, so that’s why the move to cover the other side of the net. That makes sense to me if it misses wide, but it seems more likely to me that there’s going to be a rebound from the goalie in this situation, so we should be “training” to turn and try to pick that up.
We moved from that to skating straight across the slot and deflecting a shot on the move, then to circling behind the net and coming in front to deflect a shot.
I have no idea if any of the shots I was working with went in the net or not, I was too busy concentrating on moving to where I needed to be next. I figure that’ll fix itself as I get more used to the environment and working with the puck.
I fell once during the drill where we were crossing the slot – I think the shot was more in line with my skates than my stick and trying to adjust backwards to deflect it sent me off balance. I went down and hurt my right elbow a bit – I was worried at first, because I’d broken that elbow in the past, but it’s getting better.
After the clinic one of the guys asked if I was going to start playing in the rookie game they have afterward – I demurred, but he said he thought I was skating well enough to join.
I’m still going to hold off on a decision, though – I plan to stick around after next Monday’s clinic and watch a game to see what it’s like. Maybe start playing by the end of January, which will still be sooner than I expected when I started this nonsense.
Months of Updates and My First Lesson
So … long time since my last post. Personal issues have kept me mostly off the ice and I won’t get into too many details except to say that if your marriage counselor ever recommends this book:
Accept that life as you know it is over, then find yourself some good Prozac and a great lawyer.
With that going on, money was tight over the summer and any skating fees went for the boy-child, not me – which is as it should be when you’re a parent.
Over the last few months, T got on his first team, got his first assist, and his team won the league championship. Three teams in the league, but still.
He’s improved a lot since starting. He’s still the slowest one out there, but ever time he listens to me or his coach and takes our direction, he improves a little bit. His skating’s gotten much better. The one thing he needs to work on most is to gain the confidence to be more aggressive. Both his coach and I have told him to challenge the other players more – even if they get by him, he’ll be able to disrupt their play.
So his first season’s over and one of the local rinks is running a special … for $100 he gets a month of their youth programs. Five nights a week – 3-on-3, pond hockey and skate & shoot. A good deal just for the ice time.
But enough about him and back to me.
A couple weeks ago I took him to skate and shoot and fell hard for the first time. I was in the middle of trying something very complicated which requires a great deal of skill: skating in a circle.
Yes, I was practicing cross-overs around the center face-off circle and busted my ass.
Actually, it was my head that I busted. I was trying to lean more in my turns, something I don’t do properly. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough speed for the amount of leaning that I did … or something. Anyway, my feet not only slid out from under me, they completely left the ice, winding up, near as I can tell, at about waist level before I plummeted to the ice completely horizontal. At least that’s what it felt like.
The momentum of my fall didn’t let me keep my head up and the side of my helmet hit the ice with a rather impressive crack. My first thought was:
Good helmet … barely felt that.
My second thought was:
Why does my jaw feel like somebody just drop-kicked me in the face?
Then my inner-retard
spoke up:
Duh-oh! Didn’t need a mouth guard yet … just doing skate-and-shoot right? Dumb ass!
So, yeah, jaw hurt for a week and a half. Ow.
Now when I sign T up for his month of skating, the guy mentions that on Mondays they do the kids’ 3-on-3 on the main rink, then let them have extra time on the studio rink while the adult clinic’s on. So I ask him how good a skater I’ll have to be before I can reasonably sign up for that.
He tells me that’s not a problem, they’ve had people who good barely stand up on the ice.
Hah! I think to myself. I can stand up. I stand up good. Mostly.
So tonight I signed up for it. What the hell.
In the locker room beforehand, I get a little boost of confidence. I was expecting this to be all young guys – teens and twenties – but the four suiting up with me are all around my age and one of them’s only been coming for three weeks.
Out on the ice I’m a little confused about what to do – everyone’s skating around doing their own thing, so it’s looking like a skate-and-shoot, not a clinic. I was expecting an instructor to start things off first-thing, but apparently there’s quite a bit of warm-up time included.
During the warm-up, the coach stops me and asks me to skate across the rink for him, which I do. First advice: keep my arms in closer (apparently I had my elbows way far out from my body) and I’m holding the stick too far down when I handle the puck.
I feel a big difference in my skating and puck handling with both these things, so that’s worth the price of admission all by itself.
Next up is skating drill. Now, I’ve never had a clinic before or taken a lesson, so this is all new to me.
First off is goal-line to goal-line, push with the left foot only and glide on the right. I can do this one pretty good, I think. Same with the second and third: same with right foot, then both feet, respectively.
Next is goal-to-goal as fast as we can, and this one just kills me. I’m the slowest one out there, but not by too much – I mean I get there last, but I’m close enough to touch the next slowest, so that makes me feel okay about it. What’s really bad, though, is that I’ve been on a couch for the last ten years, with little or no exercise, so my endurance sucks. Bad. We do this four times and by the time we’re done I’m drained and ready for the thirty-second break he gives us.
I take more than thirty seconds.
In fact, I sit out the first rep of the next drill, because I don’t want to puke on his ice. Clearly this is a problem and I need to do some serious cardio. I knew this already, intellectually, but having to leave the ice while a bunch of other guys your age keep going drives it home quite pointedly. The new apartment has a gym and I need to be there every morning.
I make it back on the ice for the second rep of this drill: around the circles, left-crossovers, right-crossovers … one circle to another. I’m a little tentative about this one and don’t do as well as I think I should. Might be because my inner-retard
Didn’t buy that mouth-guard yet, did you? Here it comes! Going down again and it’s gonna hurt! Dumb ass!
I make it through without falling, but I can do this better and I’m disappointed in myself. The only reason I don’t have a mouthguard already is because money’s tight right now, so I really need to get one before the next time.
Next drill is down to the far blue-line and form two lines – if that was all that was involved, I’d be pretty good at it. But, no, there’s more.
We’re going to skate in pairs (I feel bad for the guy paired with me), dump the puck into the zone, pick it up again, then skate to the other zone and take a shot on the goal. Obviously passing as we go and appropriately to each pairs skill-level.
First time through my guy dumps it in around the boards and I head over to get it. I know I’m not going to be able to take it up the ice well, so I pass to him – a bad pass, he’s not where I thought he’d be at all. We head up the ice and I cross the blue line where he passes to me on the left side.
Now my shot is weak. Way weak, so I don’t even bother, I just pass back to him as he’s coming across the blue line and let him take the shot. I have no idea if he got it in, because I’m too busy trying to turn before I hit the boards.
Second time through this drill, I start with the puck, so I dump it in and immediately turn for the other end. I’m too slow yet to do anything else. He yells, “Boards!” and this is the first time I’ve ever heard this on the ice, but I understand it and take his pass off the left-side boards short of the zone.
I skate the puck into the zone and make a back-hand pass to him at the blue line. Again, I have no idea what happened with the shot, because I fell after the pass. But I do know that it was a pretty decent pass, at least as far as direction goes – power could have been better, I think, but it was there for him.
I sit out the next rep of this drill because I’m out of gas again. And my legs are really weak, so I call it a night. I know enough to realize that if I try to push myself, I’m probably going to fall badly enough to hurt myself if I keep going, even though it’s even more embarrassing to leave the ice.
But I talk to the coach afterward and ask him what, aside from finding a treadmill, I should do – basically whether I should keep taking the lessons or if I suck too bad for them to do any good. He says he’s seen suck and I don’t, which is encouraging.
Obviously I need to work on my endurance, because right now I have the endurance of a little girl (which I retract, because I’ve seen the little girls who play hockey and they could all kick my ass), but my skating’s good enough to stay in the lessons. So I’ll be back next week.
But right now I’m starting to ache from tonight, so I’m going to bed.
Ow.
