Chapter 13

The Suburban House Wife Hockey Chronicles
Chapter 13
Friday February 19&26, 2010: Double Edition
Song of the week: I believe by Nikki Yanofsky

Pre-game:
OK folks, yes I did not post last week. Blame it on the Olympics. I did go to hockey last week. Not much happened. The Terrier gave it a miss, everyone wants to play another team and I got the wind knocked out of me by Lacrosse’s ass, but other than that it was business as usual.

I don’t know about the rest of you but I have Olympic sleep deprivation. The action is so exciting I have missed my bed time for the past 2 weeks. I just finished watching Canada win 2 gold medals within 5 minutes of one another. Amazing. Shame on the big wigs running the “Own the Podium” program who, last week, publically said how the results/athletes were not meeting their expectations. Obviously they have never played competitive sports. No athlete would take their marbles and go home half way through a game. Canada is rockn’ the gold step of the podium.

In my quest to play hockey I have, for the most part, only watched men’s teams for pointers. This week I avidly watched the ladies hockey team trying to pick up ideas and skills. In the gold medal game on Thursday I finally figured out what I was doing wrong.

Every game day since the beginning of my season I have laid around the house. Thought about all the things I could be doing on Friday at noon, drank copious amounts of coffee, read the paper, maybe attempted some housework (lie), searched for my hockey underwear, lamented I hadn’t got hockey tape again and an hour out from the game started on my pre-game write-up for the chronicles.

I watched the woman’s game from start to finish and it wasn’t until the 3rd period when I realized that, with the exception of Hayley Wickenheiser, all the women were done up to the nines; like they were about to attend a prom. Some of them were wearing pearls!

This was my “ah ha” hockey moment. I was attempting to play hockey looking like a slob. Shame on me. I decided to make an effort today. It will be hard since our practice has been moved to 9:15am instead of noon due to our provincial March break. Now I will miss 3 hours of pregame, aka drinking coffee, rituals.

Post-game:

Well, I woke up early in order to get the proper amount of caffeine in the system, showered, put on deodorant, brushed my teeth, broke out the diamond earrings and put on mascara and lipstick. My hockey underwear was still in a ball in the corner of the mudroom from last week, but I felt that was a minor detail.

This week our practice was just before a major midget hockey tournament. My son is playing in this tournament. I have to drop him off, go to my practice and then watch his game. The kick in the pants is that players are always dropped off early. TODAY WE ARE GOING TO HAVE AN AUDIENCE!!!!

The good news is I am wearing a jersey with my maiden name on the back so I won’t embarrass my son. The bad news is my son’s first name is my maiden name. Oops!

In the locker room I tucked my socks into my knee pads because I forgot to replenish my tape again, I put on our ridiculously hideous team clothing and I head out the door. During warm up coach has to fix my neck protector, I fear my mascara is running down my face because my left eyes has decided it wants to tear and my nose, well since this venture has begun, my nose starts to run from the moment I put my foot on the ice until I get in my car when it’s all over. I am probably a mess but I do have diamond earrings on!

As you know I wear my maiden name on my jersey because I am pathetic and do not want to besmirch the family name. I have told coach I cannot use my name until I can skate backwards. Well ladies and gentlemen. I can now skate backwards, slowly. Coach said I can have my name back! I am proud of myself, I have come a long way since October but, I will stick with the maiden name for now because, although I can skate forward and backward, I can’t transition between the two. If I am skating forward I have to come to a complete stop, turn, and begin to skate backwards. I have a long way to go but I think before I am in the grave I will figure it out.

Drills went well, there were spectators but none seemed to be laughing in hysterics. My son’s team paraded past us and in respect for him no one made eye contact.

Because we all have the same outfit on and our names (except mine) are on the jersey our scrimmage is shirts and skins. Today I am on skins, we actually look like a bunch of transformers, and we manage a 2-0 win.

Today coach says we are played at a Pee Wee AA level. Andrew (my husband) says coach has taken too many hits to the head.

Thoughts:
1. The Terrier is still AWOL
2. No practice next week.
3. Two weeks to go!!!!!!!!!!
Cheers
The Pylon