Tales from the beer league part 2

I dropped out of my beer league for this season....too much going on for me in the next few months, and the 2-13 and 4-11 seasons we just finished were disheartening. 2 guys having babies in the next few weeks, so they're out for a bit, and a couple other guys who had said they were in for the full season last season but never showed up. So, it was becoming very frustrating to be the team captain.

I'll still be doing clinics - there is an awesome adult clinic at Pano now on Mondays - and then my ladies pickup on Tuesdays at Simi.

Gotta keep skating so I don't turn "old"!!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nyssa42

I dropped out of my beer league for this season....too much going on for me in the next few months, and the 2-13 and 4-11 seasons we just finished were disheartening. 2 guys having babies in the next few weeks, so they're out for a bit, and a couple other guys who had said they were in for the full season last season but never showed up. So, it was becoming very frustrating to be the team captain.

I'll still be doing clinics - there is an awesome adult clinic at Pano now on Mondays - and then my ladies pickup on Tuesdays at Simi.

Gotta keep skating so I don't turn "old"!!

---

I remember those days when only like 3 people would show up... it's rough. That said, I gotta get back into it haha.

Subbed last night on my full-time team from last year. We didnt have a goalie, and the other team was the first place team. They were cool though and took it easy and did a lot of passing before finally putting the puck in the net. I think the final score was 6-2? It was a fun game though, kind of a good way for me to ease back into the swing of things. The game had a very low-key feel to it, which was good, but then also kind of bad because I found that I didnt really care as much as I would have if we had a goalie....guessing most felt that way.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by beedee

Subbed last night on my full-time team from last year. We didnt have a goalie, and the other team was the first place team. They were cool though and took it easy and did a lot of passing before finally putting the puck in the net. I think the final score was 6-2? It was a fun game though, kind of a good way for me to ease back into the swing of things. The game had a very low-key feel to it, which was good, but then also kind of bad because I found that I didnt really care as much as I would have if we had a goalie....guessing most felt that way.

---

Those games are always the worst when you're on the other side. I mean there's no honest way to play the game, but you still want to have the win. So you risk getting it testy by pumping in a few quick ones to build a margin? Take it easy thinking you can turn it on? Even just holding possession is rubbing it in the other teams face. I wouldn't read too much into the emotions, there's competitive beer hockey, and then there's too competitive for your own good if you thought being on the other side of one of those games said anything about your competitiveness.

So last week we were the team WITH the goalie, and the other team didnt have one. They started with 6 and we took it easy, tried to make that extra, extra pass before putting the puck in the net. That didnt work out all that well and I think we were tied 1-1 after the first period. However, we decided to let our goalie play for them in the second so we could shoot on a goalie. This was a lot of fun actually, we had one shift where we kept them hemmed in their zone for what felt like two minutes (clock was on the wall behind me), no joke, I must have had at least 5 shots from the point on that one, including another two shot passes. I managed to fire a nice one-timer from my left point to the far post area in which our goalie made an amazing blocker save, pretty much fully stretched out (he is "full-right", a la Cal Peterson). I gave him crap for making that save! :ouch: I forget what the score was, but we kept leap frogging each other. For some reason some guys on our team thought that they had forfeited since they didnt have a goalie, thus pretty much just messing around the entire game with the goalie switch, etc. The ref came over late in the 2nd period and told us that it was a "real" game, d'oh. Granted, it was the first consolation playoff game of two for us, and they were the last place team, and we were second to last. As you can see, the F's were not really given my us, we just wanted to go out and have some fun. Third period roles around, and someone decides to have our goalie get back in net for us, we were bummed. Prior to that, the other team started shooting on the empty net from just inside the blue line (classy move) and scored a few on us. At that point we didnt want to douche it up and decided to try to just play keep away from them and work on passing, which was fun.

So we took the L, but even they said they had a lot of fun with playing the game in the fashion that we did. Next game is tomorrow night at 9:30, then the new season starts up after the new year I think? I'll be back full-time.

Oh yeah, over the weekend I got my skates profiled. I had never had that done before. Basically I wanted them to take some steel off the toe, since I found myself toe-picking still (taller steel). They recommended I go with a "Zuperior S" profile (my skates are a size 7), so I did. I public skated Sunday afternoon on them and there certainly is more forward pitch than before. I got used to it, but then it was reminding me of why I wanted to get out of my Grafs many years back because I didnt care for the forward lean of those...even after 3 years, it still bugged me. So we will see how it goes tomorrow night, but since I play D and am skating backwards a good amount of the game, I'm not so sure that I want to be on my toes quite as much as this profile puts me on them.

https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/c...ionversion.jpg

I loved the pitch of my grafs, but yeah its a workout playing D with them. Gotta really squat. That ellipse profile looks like you better have your skates sharpened at all times or you're going to need it with no margin for error.

I'll be on the shelf for a while, got the results back from the MRI and they are not good. First things first have to calm down the bone bruise in the knee. Then its off to Mexico where they will shoot shark piss up my nose or something.

Welp, we finished the season with a bang, 7-3 win! The game was back and forth up until late in the second when we blew it open. It was a fun one, not chippy at all and we could tell the refs just wanted to get the hell out of Dodge. Many icings waived off, etc. Our goalie had three friends that joined/subbed this season that I'm hoping return for next season, as they do add the punch that this team is missing. They all play pretty high-level ball hockey together, and have played ice hockey as well. It is obvious by watching them that they have chemistry out there together, so next season should be exciting. They also did a great job at feeding me at the left point many times throughout the game, which meant more shots for me! (selfish I know, hehe). No goals for me, but plenty of shots of all varieties. Two apples though, both secondary assists on the breakout and/or stretch pass from our zone. Gosh it feels great when the team can connect two or three consecutive passes and finish with a goal!

Now regarding my steel. Granted this was only the second time I've skated on them since getting them profiled, but I'm not so sure I'm liking it. As my other post mentioned, I'm a bit more pitched forward and it has forced my toes a bit more forward in the boot too. Causing them to slightly more than feather the toe-caps. A feeling that I don't like. Not only that, I felt myself consciously noticing that I needed to be leaning back a bit more on my heels or I felt off balance, too far forward. Sharp turns felt a bit better since I could lean on my heels a bit more when apexing a turn without feeling like I'd loop out backwards. But other than that, blah. No toe-picks happened though!

I think the new season starts next week. :drunk:

Game 1 of the Winter BHL Season is in the books, 2-1 win for the good guys!

We got off to a quick start, our younger "ringer" scored on the first shift of the game, sweet! Not much longer after we scored again, were I was given the second assist. The final score definitely didn't reflect the effort and amount of SOG's we had. Their goalie was solid, a big guy who knew the position well. Granted we didnt have much traffic in front for many of our shots from the point, and our forwards weren't able to finish a handful of golden opportunities. It was a really fun game in which we controlled most of the play. Again I was able to get quite a few shots off, our new guys are really good about controlling the puck and keeping their heads up so they fed me many pucks, including a few where I was able to cut in from the point towards the high slot for a quick feed and shot. Unfortunately none went in, but we had a good thing going.

Late in the third I was squaring up to block/challenge a shot towards the middle of the circle and I m use have barely turned or the D changed the angle and I took a lazy writer right off the inside of my right knee. The area of the shinguard still has plastic with padding there, but not as much as taking one square. My knee instantly went numb and I immediately fell to the ice. It was almost like getting hit in the "funny bone", but in the knee. Refs blew the play dead and after about a minute or so I was able to skate to the bench under my own power. There was about 5 minutes left, I took one shift and it wasn't too bad, but since we were only up by one goal I didnt want to be a liability out there and just sat the rest of the game out. I got home and iced it off and on for an hour, and luckily this morning it doesn't feel too bad, just a bruise!

And my steel felt much better to me since I got them re-profiled. They no longer feel too pitched forward and I dig it!

We won last week, 9-0, but I didnt play since my knee was still jacked from the shot I took to it the previous week.

More importantly I just scored some Bauer Nexus Pro-Stock Washington Capitals pants! These things are tanks, the padding is ridonkulous, especially the thigh pads! Can't wait to wear them Thursday night! I'll hand down my Bauer S29's to my wife. Hopefully someone on my team will want the Caps pant shell I wore.

https://i.imgur.com/AAzYQXZ.png
https://i.imgur.com/tlSvLBw.png
https://i.imgur.com/XDT477U.png
https://i.imgur.com/I2bnnyu.png

......