I went to my first practice with the Galaxy last night out in Oaks. (Did I mention that the league director placed me on the Galaxy, which is Al's team in the Fall/Winter?) Weirdly, I wasn't particularly nervous; now that I think of it, I wasn't nervous (for perhaps the first time ever) in Vancouver, either, so it's not just that I got the jitters out of my system up in Canada. Maybe it's that after taking so much time off, I'm more relaxed on the ice? Maybe motherhood has mellowed me? I'm not sure.
Anyway, I skated fine. Didn't do anything hugely impressive, and only had a few minor embarrassments. Since our captain, Mattias, couldn't make it, Fred (the assistant captain) ran the practice. We did two drills, horseshoe and 2-on-1, and then scrimmaged "to get used to playing like a team." The horseshoe drill went pretty well, but the 2-on-1 was pretty half-hearted (or maybe that was just me); I got the feeling nobody really knew what we were doing (or rather, why we were doing it).
The scrimmage was fun, though I'm not sure it really got us used to playing like a team. I made a mental note halfway through it that "drills are no indication of skills." What I meant was that the very players who weren't very good at either drill were actually much better when it came to playing. I then realized that what these guys were good at were two things that I suck at—namely, protecting the puck and dekeing (how do you spell deke-ing, anyway?)—which are more individual skills than team skills. So this should be an interesting season... I wonder if anyone will pass?
Speaking of passing, I had one nice moment when I managed to knock Fred off the puck (perhaps because he was tired or because I'd lulled him into complacency with my hitherto underwhelming puck-stealing skills) with a good forecheck, and then managed to pass to the fellow (Alan, I think) I saw streaking into the zone out of the corner of my eye. He caught the puck as he came through the slot, shot, and scored. I heard someone whoop, "THAT'S how it's done!" I said to Alan afterwards, "that's what I'm *always* looking for: someone coming through the slot." Seriously guys, I'm an assist machine. I love nothing better than to dig the puck out of the corner and zing it into the slot. Be there or be square. :)
Some more thoughts on passing before I move on to shooting: I noticed that the player I think is probably the strongest among us passed a little softly to me, as most strong players do. If I miss a pass from a stronger player once, he seems to think I can't catch passes at all—and he'll pass softer and softer until I have no chance of *ever* catching one because I have to keep slowing down. Pass harder, please—I'd rather try to work up to your level than have you come down to mine (and pass me on the way down, so to speak, in the process). Meanwhile, just about everyone else who passed to me passed off the boards rather than to my stick. My first choice would be tape to tape, but failing that, a pass to the boards in front of me is much better than one to my skates, so I'll take it. I don't think I ever had any trouble getting the puck off the boards.
I do remember picking up the puck in the neutral zone once, however (I'm not sure if it was from a pass, or from someone losing/abandoning the puck), and immediately being confronted by an opposing player. Having no moves with which to deke him, and not wishing to get the worst of a collision, I put my shoulder down and managed to take us both out. (I'm not sure who ended up with the puck, but it was neither one of us.) It was only as we were going down that I realized it was Doug, who's over 70 (seriously!). Matt gave me shit for it when I came off the ice several minutes later: "So you took out the old guy. Nice going." (I apologized to Doug later, but he said it was no problem; he recognized that I was just trying to protect myself.)
Now, to shooting. I had some fairly decent shots during the warm-up, two 5-hole goals during the horseshoe drill, and fart all the rest of the time. I really need to relax and take my time in order to shoot well, and if there's a goalie in the net and defenders advancing from all sides, I tend to spaz rather than relax. Luckily just about everyone else on the team seems to shoot well, so if all goes well I can just rack up points from assists, as usual, rather than from goals.
If there's one player whom I expect to score on a regular basis, it's the super-nice guy I think of as Happy Gilmore (although his personality is more happy than Happy's, and I think his name is Derek :). His skating style is... well, it reminds me of those car-chase scenes from the 70s where one of the vehicles would invariably go up on two wheels. But man, he's got a great shot—and it's all the more surprising because he can make it from off balance on the wrong foot. No one on an opposing team will expect it, but I bet he'll top-shelf the puck at least once a game.
I'm not sure what position I'll be playing in our first game (which is tomorrow night in Warminster), but I hope it isn't D. I also don't know what number I'll be, or even how to get to the rink (I suppose I should look that up on Mapquest). I think it probably is motherhood that's chilling me out, because I'm more worried about getting Austen to go to sleep before I leave for the game than about how well I'll play in the game itself. I do hope I do well, though. My goal is to be playing as well as Inga (from Gang Green) by the end of the year, and if I'm going to accomplish that, I'd better buckle down and skate hard.
Posted by Lori in Galaxy ~ Summer 2005 | June 14, 2005·10:37 AM