Chapter 14

The Suburban House Wife Hockey Chronicles
Chapter 14
Friday March 19, 2010:

Song of the week: Tubthumping by Chumbawamba

Pre-game:
I know I have been sedulous in my approach to my hockey career and it has pained me over the course of this season to miss a day but sometimes “The Husband’s” job interferes with my leisure activities. This was the case last Friday. I was called into action, so I grudgingly took out the mouth guard, donned the pearls and sadly missed last week’s practice.

Thankfully today is our last day at it. We get our team photo taken today; Woo Hoo and that should be the end of it. I wonder how much I will get for my gear when I sell at the second hand store. It will be sad to see Woody and Buzz go but I’m sure they will be put to better use in someone else’s hand.

So, as they do in the big leagues: hair, makeup, diamonds, sprits of CoCo and off I go.

Post-game:
The first order of business was the photo. After we got our gear on and come out of the dressing room we realized the photo would be taken on the ice. This was cause for concern as we had to be on the ice without helmets. This is a very tricky undertaking for some of us. After some negotiations and the Sarge’s stentorian directions we managed to have the photo done without incident.

Coach was missing today but we did have the help of a couple of hubbies. We did one drill; banking the puck off the boards in order to get around the opposing player. This really only works if you hit the puck at the right speed and the right angle. If you hit too hard with no angle the puck comes right out the way it went in, you however have kept going and so the opposing player gets the puck. If you hit it too hard with too much angle the puck shoots off into next week.

After we tried this out a few times we went right into a scrimmage. We have no pinnies so we have to play shirts and skins. I made the mistake of volunteering skins first and not many people followed me. The Terrier took most of the strong players with her.

We tried something new today. We would play positions and shifts. As they do in the I.P. (initiation period) league, we would play for 2 minutes, play would stop and we would have a shift change. This proved to be more difficult than expected because none of us paid attention to the clock to call the shift change and when we did it took us more than a minute to get organized. So the coaches decided to make the shifts three minutes in length.

Playing positions was interesting. It forced us to spread out a little more; we played a little less amoeba hockey. Another effect of playing positions was a lot of clashes. Now that you were acutely aware you were responsible for the puck when it was in your zone you had two women, who have no idea how to stop, going after the puck. The result...WHAM, CRACK, CRUNCH.

I had an unfortunate incident late in the scrimmage. As you know I play defence and I was deep in my end. I attempted a little shake and bake move against this tenacious little ginger that had been dogging me every shift. Well the move worked but not for long. She was back on me and got the better position. My left arm was against the boards, she was at my right, the puck a little too far from my reach. I decided to use my stick to lift up her stick so she couldn’t play the puck. Long story short, I pulled up with a lot of force, she let go of her stick and I kept going backwards, my legs came out from under me and it ended with a spectacular splat. Pride picked me up, but I hurt at just about every point. Back on the bench one of the husbands congratulated me on my shake and bake move and added a little sympathy at how it turned out in the end.

Most of us still do not have name bands so I am not sure how The Terrier did on all of her shifts. I can’t comment on all her little embarrassments but I am sure there were many. The end result of the scrimmage was 5-3 for the shirts and the last, weak, pufter goal came from The Terrier. How does she always find a way to smite me?

Thoughts:
1. There were two spectators in the stands who were in hysterics for most of the scrimmage. The Terrier wondered if they might be scouts.
2. Much to my surprise this was NOT our last week.
Cheers
The Pylon