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Category: fall
Sunday Clinic
I made it through about half of today’s clinic before leaving the ice with an equipment problem.
First we started off skating the face-off dots forward – two reps of that, then another two reps carrying a puck. With the puck, I concentrated on either keeping my head up or at least looking up at least half the time. I wasn’t the slowest in either of these and no one passed me, which made me happy.
Then we had two reps of skating the face-off dots where we skated forward east-west (cross-ice) and backward north-south. At the start of the second rep of this, I lost my edge transitioning from forward to backward and hit the ice hard. Head bounced off the ice pretty good, but the pads, helmet, and mouthpiece did their job, so I hardly felt it.
The right skate hadn’t felt quite right last week either, so I decided to get them sharpened after the clinic, but midway through the next drill it seemed to have gotten worse (or I just noticed it more), so I left the ice.
In the pro shop they confirmed my concerns and noted that the inside-edge of my right skate was mostly not there. Since that’s my cross-over leg, my stopping leg, and my transition leg, it’s inside edge is somewhat important.
Game 2
So game number two for me, after skipping last week due to taking an ass to the groin.
Even strength teams tonight and we lost 3-4 in overtime. I wasn’t on the ice for any goals against and was out there for one of our goals, so I feel better about my performance than I did last time.
The goal I was on the ice for was a nice little wrap-around. I was left wing and I think I was in good position to take a pass from him when he was back there or pick up the rebound. Maybe a little too close to the goal, though.
I think I played my positions better – tonight I was mostly at wing, with one shift on defense. After the first game I found a site that lays out the proper position in different situations, something I probably should have learned before the first game.
One confusing situation that kept occurring was in our zone, where, as I understand it, I’m supposed to keep an eye on their defenseman at the point on my side.
But he was never there, he was more down in the slot, so I spent a lot of time in this big box of open ice.
My instinct is to head down their too and keep him off the puck, but our center said, no. Let our defense clear him out and stay where I should be to take the puck for a breakout.
One thing about the boy-child, who’s still on a bit of a hiatus from hockey, is that he plays his position well. Having been in a game, now, and felt the temptation to get down there into the play, I have a lot of respect for him doing that.
As in the first game, I think my best shift of the night was a clear that set up a breakaway. I got the puck in our zone and saw a clear lane out to our center at the blue-line and the other wing almost there. My pass was on target to the center and I wasn’t too far behind them down the ice. No goal, but it was a decent play on my part.
I think I was also able to put more pressure on the other team than last game. I was still behind people a lot, but rather than trying to catch up and touch the puck, I lifted a lot of sticks and kept them in mind that I was back there.
I fell less in this game. All but one the result of being bumped off balance by other players – it’s no-checking, but you can’t avoid all contact. The one was rather spectacular, as it involved my leg giving out while I was trying to climb over the boards to the bench – pancaked onto my back right there. My goal now is to make it through a game without the ref having to say: “You okay, man?”
With about 5:00 left in the third, my right thigh started aching on top. Twinging from moderate to muttered-obscenity. Weak and worse when I put weight on the leg, I made it through a last shift in the period – they scored 0:30 into overtime, so I didn’t have to see if it would handle that.
It was an unpleasant ride home, with lots of grunts and mutterings, but the pain subsided after a stop at Friday’s, so all it needed was a bit of rest. Or vodka. Rest or vodka, one.
The late end to these games is unfortunate, because there’re no massage places open on my drive home (well, no legitimate massage places). I would so pay for a massage after these games.
Clinic Catch Up
There was no Sunday clinic last week (4/8) because the rink was closed for Easter. Monday’s clinic ended abruptly in the following manner.
After a brief skating drill, the first puck drill was to carry the puck from the goal-line, down the ice to the other zone, take a shot from just inside the far blue-line, and then pivot to skate backwards to the starting point. Not entirely difficult.
So I go … and the puck slips off my stick back to my feet, so I kick it up. It goes off the back of my stick to my right where one of the guys coming back to the line sees it and taps it toward me, so it’s now over to my left.
I’m trying to regain the puck and people are skating backwards toward me. Do I really need to say any more?
My head’s down and I slammed right into the back of this guy. He went down and rolled over to give me a “what the fuck?”-look, which I richly deserved.
Now for me, I didn’t go down, but since we’re both crouched and skating, his ass and my cup were at a level. Unfortunately, my cup was not entirely cupping correctly. It had ridden up a bit and the left one was, apparently, a bit out. So the left one was caught between the edge of the cup and my thigh, and the top of the cup pounded into my lower gut. It was a two-fer.
I spent the rest of that clinic on the bench clutching myself.
Today’s drill went better.
First off, three skaters each take a puck and head the length of the ice. First skater enters the zone and takes a shot. Second skater hangs at the blue-line to center, then heads into the zone for a shot. Third skater hangs along the blue-line to the left side and then heads in for a shot.
Next up was a little thing that I can’t even begin to draw a picture of. Two groups at either end of the ice. On the whistle, three skaters from each group each take a puck and head for center ice, where they enter the center face-off circle and skate around puck-handling.
Yes, six crappy, beginning skaters all trying to control their pucks while they skate around in that little circle. On the second whistle, the survivors exit the
Thunderdomecircle and take shots on goal.An easy one’s next – from behind the goal-line, take the puck out of the zone, pass it hard to the far boards, then skate over to pick the puck up and take a shot.
Then we did some four-person passing, follow your pass to your next position.
And finally a drill with cones. I don’t like cones, they make my ankles hurt. Which probably means I need to do more drills with sharp turns and stop skating just in straight lines.
First Game
So a month and change shy of my forty-fifth birthday, I play my first hockey game.
It. Was. Awesome.
I haven’t had so much fun in a long time. But, damn, having the clinic and game on the same night makes for a long night. Six-plus hours.
6:00 30-minutes of yoga to stretch and warm-up, because my balance sucks and I’m not as limber as I used to be 6:30 A quick shower, make sure all the gear’s in the bag, fill the water bottle, take an Ibuprofen as a pro-active solution to the coming pain 7:00 Leave for the rink 7:30-7:45 Arrive at the rink, depending on traffic 7:45 Gear up and bullshit in the locker room (particularly nasty story from the other rink about a guy’s earlobe getting sliced off – yay, hockey!) 8:00-8:15 Wait for the kids to finish up their practice and the Zamboni to cut the ice 8:15-9:15 Clinic 9:15-9:30 Wait for the ice to be cut again 9:30-11:00 Game: 12-minute periods, 5-minutes between periods 11:15 Leave the rink 11:45 Stop at Friday’s, because, damn it, I just played a hockey game and I deserve a sandwich and a drink 12:30 Home And that would be an optimal night where the kids don’t run long and the Zamboni doesn’t drop a ton of water on the ice that we have to wait on.
The rookie game at this rink is sort of a formalized pick-up game. It’s not a league with set teams. The rink manager sets the team each night, depending on who shows up and lets you know if you’re Red or Blue. Tonight I was on Blue.
Fifteen skaters showed up, so Red had seven players and Blue had eight … well, seven and me.
A quick conference before the game starts and we decide on three defensemen and five forwards. I’m one of the forwards, but not starting.
The puck drops and before I know it one of our guys is skating for the bench yelling “Right wing!”. Shit … I’m next on the bench, so I go over the boards and start my first shift … which I don’t remember at all …
It’s all a blur, and I couldn’t recount what happened in any kind of order to save my life, but certain events stand out.
I was surprised at how tired I was when I got to the bench at the end of a shift. For the most part, I didn’t notice it on the ice, but then I’d sit down on the bench and start gasping for breath.
I made all of my shifts except one. With about 7:00 minutes left in the third, I returned to the bench and it hit me hard. Out of breath, feeling like I’d vomit, scrabbling at my facemask to open it up and get some air (because a metal cage stops airflow?).
By the time I was up again, I just hadn’t recovered enough and someone else had to take that shift, but I did recover my breath and managed one more before the end of the game – unfortunately, as we’ll get to later.
The coach from the clinic referees the game and provides feedback to the teams between periods. I listened … I really did … and today I don’t remember a word he said. Something about the D not pinching so much and maybe not letting one guy carry the puck behind their net and get mobbed by the entire other team without any help.
I cannot count the number of times I fell, but it was easier to avoid flat-out running into anyone than I expected it to be. Falling I don’t mind – it’s usually the result of pushing my skating skills a bit too far, which is the way to improvement, and it doesn’t hurt with the pads. Running into the boards does hurt, which I have now managed to do three weeks in a row. At least this time it wasn’t my left side, so the ribs there got a break.
So on one shift we were in our own zone and the puck went behind the goal-line. One of the opposing players got to it and one of our guys went after him, but there was a tangle and ours went down. I was on the other side of the net and went behind it toward them. I got there before the opposing player got control of the puck and whacked at it. I actually connected and got it away from him.
The puck went more to the center than I’d have preferred – it would have been better to send it back along the boards, but I managed to get there and keep the opposing player from making a controlled pass, so I’m happy with that.
Later I wound up at center … which means face-offs … which I’ve never done before and it showed. Lost both of them. I need to read up on how to take a face-off and find some drills to practice.
My best effort of the night was again in our zone. I was at right-wing and got to the puck, turned to cut off the opposing player and had open ice to clear it to the other wing. He was hanging at the blue-line and picked up the puck for a breakaway. Didn’t score, but it was still nice to be a part of.
I even managed a shot on goal. Coming in at left-wing, the right-wing carried the puck into the zone, got stood up by the defense and the puck came across the slot to me. Unfortunately, it came to my backhand and the shot was slow and pathetic, but it was on net.
The last shift of the game was the worst. We started the third period with the score 4-4 (I think, tied at least). Near the end it was 4-7 … we’d had a bad third period.
I’d sat out one shift with 7:00 left, but figured I had one more in me. Everyone on the bench was exhausted, but I’d been there the longest, so when a defenseman came in and no one else moved, I went out.
So one of them gets the puck on my side and gets around me. I chased him up the ice and it was incredibly frustrating, because the fucking puck was right there. Two feet. I needed two more feet of reach to poke it away from him and I couldn’t pump my legs enough to get them. We hit the top of the circles and I had to let up a bit, because I know I’m not going to be able to turn or stop in time to avoid the boards if I don’t, and he scores.
Just a little more speed and I’d have been able to do something. I managed to stay with him, but just couldn’t make up those two feet. Also he was inside of me, so I think if I’d managed to move to his other side, I could have interfered with his shot, at least. My mistake there was that I was playing the puck and not the man – if I’d been inside, I could have lifted his stick or something.
Next I just got out of position. The puck was deep in our zone and went back and forth between the net and the boards a couple times – I played more wing than defense and wound up outside the puck and they scored again.
So a couple of decent plays, a couple bonehead mistakes, and a hell of a lot of fun.
Monday Clinic
Tonight’s clinic was a lot of fun and I’m happy with my performance, despite a number of falls. Since the falls were because I was pushing things, I’m good with that.
Skating drill started with coach putting us on the goal-line and having us crouch as low as we could – then skate to the other goal-line in that position. And back. His point being that everyone is typically standing too straight while they skate. Then down and back at speed, followed by sprints from goal-line to blue-line and goal-line to center ice. His point after the sprints that what we’d just done took a little less than a minute and that’s how long shifts should be in the game – not the two or three minute shifts that are typical.
The regular drill was three skaters on the attack, this time with one of us dumping the puck in, rather than relying on the coach to do it.
So each rep was both different, based on how well whoever had the puck could dump it in, and more realistic to our level of play. Especially since some of us, including myself, simply don’t have the oomph to wrap the puck with any kind of power. For us, the dump in was cross ice
This was because the goalie had been instructed to play the puck if it was piddling along the boards from a sucky attempt to wrap it, and our rep would stop if he was able to.
The other thing he stressed was to form a triangle, not a straight line, on the attack. With the straight line, a defender can move out to the center man and with two players there a pass likely won’t make it to the player in the far circle. With a triangle there are more options.
My first rep at left-wing was very successful. I got the puck off the boards and made a nice backhand pass that was right on target to the right-wing and he scored with it. Yay!
My second rep at right-wing was less so. After I dumped the puck in and headed for the net, the left-wing passed it behind me.
I don’t turn to the right so good still, so this had the predictable result of me hitting the boards at speed. Much like last week and with much the same result – some ribs that are still tender.
A bit later, the coach upped the ante and announced that he’d be playing D for the rest of the reps to put pressure on us. “You all know who I am. If you shoot the puck through me … I will kill you.”
So on my first rep at left-wing for this change I got to the puck in the corner and the blade of my stick went right through the slot in the Zamboni doors. Before I could back up a bit to pull it out, the coach was on me with some gentle jostling and crosscheck or two. I got my stick out, but went down on the ice, but was able to whack the puck back to the high slot area. Of course, the guy I thought would be there had moved to the point along the boards, so the puck sailed out of the zone.
What I should have done is left off with trying to free the stick and protected the puck with my skates until I could see a teammate along the boards and just kick it free to him. Or at least looked up to see where someone was before I whacked it.
For the final instance of my ass hitting the ice, I was again at left-wing and dump in was cross ice. The puck rebounded from the boards to the goal-line and rather than trying to pass from there, I decided to scoop it up as I went by, take it behind the net, and pass from there. Good idea, poor execution. My skates hit a rut behind the net and I went down, but managed to scramble back to the puck and pass it.
Blame it on the Blood Bank
So … Monday night clinic … yeah …
Not a good performance this week. I knew going in that it would be bad, but had no idea, really.
Last week I donated blood. And it was a double-red donation, so they took twice as many red-blood cells as a regular donation and I got a bunch of salt-water in return. It’s a fair trade, except for the part where I noticed a significant difference in my visits to the gym.
Each interval was much harder and took much longer to recover from. Not unexpected, but disheartening, so I expected to have poorer performance this week.
Before heading to the rink for the clinic, I drank a 5-hour energy. Now … I know that my problem is not solvable with an energy drink. I know this, but I drank it anyway … and it did not agree with me. I was queasy before I left the house.
So tonight I was drenched in sweat, out of breath, nauseated, and had burning calf muscles before the end of the warm up. It was bad. We went to the goal-line to line up for skating drill and I had to take a knee to rest my calves.
Skating drill tonight was goal-line to goal-line – first backward, then forward.
This was followed by a second rep, but this time carrying a puck. I can generally keep a puck with me (at least skating forward). I can generally skate backwards at a not too embarrassing speed. Tonight I learned that I cannot combine the two.
We were divided into two groups for this drill. I was in the first. So the coach would send the Ones and when we (well, everyone but me) got to a certain point (I don’t know where, because I wasn’t there yet), he’d send the Twos.
In the backward puck-carrying drill, the Twos passed me at the blue-line. The first blue-line. Yeah.
I fell somewhere in the neutral zone. And when I say “fell”, I mean that I lost the puck, stretched for it, and body-slammed the ice.
By the time I passed the second blue-line, both groups were at the other goal-line, lined up, and listening to the coach describe what the next drill would be.
I face-planted again at this point and noticed that the coach had stopped talking. I’m not sure if it was because of me falling or because he’d run out of ways to not say “as soon as that last guy makes it to the goal-line, we’re going to skate forward with the puck”.
He was grinning, so I said: “Dude, go ahead and laugh.”
He wanted to make me feel better, so he asked everyone who’d ever done that before to raise their hand and announced that everyone who didn’t raise their hand was a liar.
Now, let me tell you this, I know funny and me face-planting into the ice after everyone else has been finished for half a minute or so? That’s fucking funny. I deserved a couple laughs.
Unfortunately I don’t know what the rest of the drills tonight were, because, yes, after three lengths of the ice, I was done. I made it to the locker room and spent several minutes giving serious consideration to puking into the garbage can. Got my gear packed and into the car. Stopped the car on the way home to puke beside the road.
Fun night.
Lesson Learned: No energy drinks ever again. That’s not my problem and they don’t agree with me.
Sunday Skate
RDV had four hours of public skating today, so four 45-minute sessions. I made it through three of them.
I broke each session into two 10-minute skates with a 5-minute break and ending with a 15-minute skate.
The first ten minutes were painful again – my upper shins hurting like the lower did last time. Skating was slow and awkward and I felt off-balance crouching, especially in cross-overs.
After a break, though, the pain went away by the second ten-minute skate. Everything felt better and smoother.
Had a minor fall during the second session.
A girl in front of me and a bit to the right fell and splayed her left hand out flat on the ice. I edged left to avoid her, winding up right behind a woman and her little girl, who both slowed down, looking at the girl who had fallen.
So, right up on them, I couldn’t go left without clipping the little girl and couldn’t go right without running over the girl who had fallen, so snowplowed and almost made it. I wound up just barely contacting the mother of the little girl and going over backwards as I leaned away from her.
Overheard during a break — two pre-teens were at the table next to me reading flyer for the rink’s ‘80s music skate this week:
“’80s music. That’s like disco. Music for old people.”
Lots of Pain–We’ll Find Out About Gain on Monday
As I embarked on my plan to get in shape and start taking lessons again next week, I probably should have added actual skating to the mix before this week. Oh, well.
Today was probably the fifth time I’ve been on the ice in the last six months – the second this week. So, while a lot of muscles are getting better due to my exercise this month, they’re not necessarily the ones I’ll use for skating. But that’s okay, I’m not so much interested in getting more speed or power out of my skating right now – my goal is simply to be in better general shape so I can make it though the clinics.
Today’s skating session was 2:45 – three forty-five minute skates, with fifteen minutes between them to cut the ice.
The first session was absolute hell. The last time I skated my calves hurt, so I’ve been trying to target them more in my off-ice exercise, but today they were okay. It was the front of my legs that hurt.
Why this part of my leg would hurt while skating, I don’t understand, but it’s painful as hell. This lasted throughout the first session, but after resting while they cut the ice, it went away in the second.
Three five-minute breaks for water in the first session, two in the second, and one in the third, so I was on the ice, skating steadily, for over an hour and a half.
They’ve finally, this year, started reversing directions at this rink, so it was counter-clockwise/clockwise/counter-clockwise. Reinforcing my knowledge that I can’t do a crossover clockwise. There’s something about the lean – I’m very uncomfortable leaning in that direction for some reason.
After the skate, I had to deal with my typical, left-foot pain.
These pains I know the source of. I have some inflammation of my Achilles at the heel. Pressure on it is painful when I’m skating, so my left foot has to go forward in the skate, rather than being flush against the heel (I’m working on some kind of padding that might work), but this presses the top of my foot into the laces. So after a skate I can count on both hurting.
All I concentrated on today was skating forward – I was really just trying to work the muscles, rather than trying to improve any skills. At the end of the last session, with everyone leaving the ice, I skated to the goal line at the door end and did a simple hockey stop. Then, since people were lining up to exit the ice, I decided to skate backwards a few feet. And prompt fell on my ass. As soon as I started backward, my muscles just gave out and it was like someone had cut my legs out from under me. Not the ending I wanted.
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.
