Category: injury

  • 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.

    image

    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 Thunderdome circle 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.

    image

    Then we did some four-person passing, follow your pass to your next position.

    image

    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.

    image

  • Monday Clinic

    I skipped blogging about the clinic the last two weeks, but might make the posts later.  Tonight’s clinic was lightly attended with only nine skaters.  Coach went easy on us for the skating drill, just a couple times up and down the ice and then on to shooting.

    So we started by simply skating into the slot at the hash-marks and taking a shot off a pass from the coach.

    image

    Next we changed it up into two lines.  Coach dumps the puck around the boards while one skater heads for the slot and the other gets the puck along the boards, then centers it for the shot.

    image

    And the final drill split us up into three groups.

    image

    The new skater carries the puck behind the net, passes to the wing, who then centers it for the shot.

    This was a good night for me – I made it through the whole clinic and actually felt pretty good at the end of it.  I even considered staying to play in the game after, but it’s probably best I didn’t.

    During the last drill I was coming along the boards to get the first pass and it looked like the guy behind the net was going to pass more into the circle, so I angled that way.  Then he passed along the boards, so I had to turn to get the puck.

    Unfortunately, that’s a turn to the right and I still don’t do that well, so I ran into the boards.  Still got the puck and made the centering pass, but something hit my upper ribs.  Not sure if it was just my arm or if the stick was between me and the boards, but it’s tender today.

  • 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.