Chapter 10

The Suburban House Wife Hockey Chronicles
Chapter 10
Friday January 29, 2010

Song of the week: Use Somebody by Kings of Leon

Pre-game:
Andrew wasn’t too thrilled to learn I used his stuff last week under my gear. He was even less thrilled to learn I was using his actual clothes and not his sports gear. The only argument I had was that the top and bottom were long and I wore them under my gear. Voila, long underwear.

Buzz is all ready to go today. My son fixed him up last night. We decided to make Buzz a little longer than Woody because I was having a hard time connecting to the puck with Woody. Buzz is red so I hope this will put me on the red team legitimately. It will also be nice to get a few black puck marks on my blade. I have never connected to the puck with Woody so the tape I put on in October still looks new. The only damage to the original tape job would be the handle. I seem to grip the stick too tightly and in the wrong spot. Apparently you’re not supposed to hold your stick in a death grip and the proper position is to have the end of your stick in the centre of your palm. But that feels like I’m going to lose it. I always end up holding the stick about a hands length from the top. It goes without saying holding the stick that far down puts a player in an awkward position.

I’m not sure but I have a suspicion we might be getting the pink jerseys today. Between the emails and the bench conversation it could happen any time. It’s not just that having pink jerseys is such a cliché for a ladies team and it’s not that the colour will clash with Buzz. The thing that scares me most about getting the jerseys is it will be harder to avoid a scrimmage with another team. Not many want to acknowledge that some of us can’t skate, the majority can’t skate with their heads up, none of us understand off side, our goalies can’t pick themselves up on their own, some of us freeze and shut our eyes when another player approaches and none of us can stop. The day we scrimmage will be a very scary day.

Last week I left my skates with coach to sharpen. I’m hoping it will make a difference in my performance today. But, I’m secretly hoping he’ll forget them.

Post- game:
So the Terrier was in fine form this afternoon. The Terrier is a repeat beginner and it all started in the dressing room when she put her socks on before she put on her knee pads. She didn’t realize until she had most of her gear on and the knee pads were still in her bag. Let’s just say it went downhill from there.

In drills we practiced dropping to one knee and picking ourselves back up all while moving forward. Then we progressed to skating forward and dropping onto both knees (good thing the Terrier put her pads on after all). It’s hard to drop to your knees and come back up again; I end up doing a 360 before I slow down enough to pick myself back up using my stick for leverage(which I am not suppose to do). Also, I spend a lot of energy trying not to fall and here we are doing drills for it. We practiced our stops again. The Terrier does a pretty good stop on one side and goes out of her way not to have to try on the other side. Once when she tried to stop she slowed down then did this stutter step using both feet, she called it her River Dance move. We did a stopping drill using our sticks for direction. The Terrier ended up confusing the coach so badly he said she didn’t have to do the drill. It just wasn’t her day.

I was traded from the red team today. Being on the red team one week does not mean you make the cut the following week. Sarge makes the decisions. I wasn’t even traded for a bag of pucks. I was traded for THE TERRIER! I think the Terrier is paying people off.

The score today was a tie 0 - 0. There was only one significant crash. Two players who couldn’t stop knocked each other down. One typically lands on the other. It’s Murphy’s Law that the smaller girl always lands under the larger one. It usually takes a few minutes for the two to get up because they have to sit there for a good 10 seconds apologizing to each other and making sure the other is okay before they untangle themselves. I’m not exaggerating when I say...untangle

No jerseys arrived today so the scrimmage will be delayed for at least another 2 weeks

Thoughts:
1. I can’t believe I have two more months of this. I am so looking forward to the post season. Like all great hockey players past and present I plan on taking up post season golf so I don’t injure myself for next year.