Tales from the beer league part 2

[beedee]

It wasn't pretty but we pulled out the W last night, in a shootout, with your compadre scoring the only goal....in the 5th round!

We jumped out to a very, very early 1-0 lead on the first shot of the game! From there we were outshooting them by a lot, not quite a 2-1 margin, but close. I was stoked to be playing with another solid D partner, we passed well and knew where each other would be and would cover for each other in situations that called for it. This made for a fun time since we didnt have to worry about one of us (a la another D on our team) randomly jumping into plays and getting stuck on the forecheck deep in the O'zone, WTF?!!. They eventually tied it early in the 2nd, then we went up 2-1 late in the 2nd. Their goalie was coming up big as we kept the shots coming, just weren't able to bury rebounds. Things were looking good until 4 seconds left in the game when the slowest dribbler rolled in during a scramble in our crease. I was on the bench so I couldn't really see the details, other than it was beyond frustrating! That lead us to the shootout. I have never participated in one since usually they are settled by the time the 3rd shooter (they are always set for 3 rounds in our league). Welp, after our top 4 guys (forwards and centers) went I said that I'd go. During warm-ups and at stick-times I practice a Datsyuk style breakaway move. It isn't overy fancy, but it worked for him a lot and I had been getting pretty proficient with it so I figured what the heck. I came in with a few wide stick handles and made my way to the left of center ice as I moderately tightened the width of my puck movement width, changing the angle, I moved towards the right post, pulling the goalie with me. Opened up the stick blade as if I was going to shoot to get her to drop and slide, pulled the puck back a bit on my back hand then lobbed in back towards her blocker side over the pad and in! All the boys were really stoked and said that it looked silky-smooth! Then said I had to shoot first in the next shoot out, lol!

That win put us in first temporarily with 11, as there are games to be played tonight, with two of the teams having 10 points.

 

[beedee]

Just wanted to check-in here to see how everyone is doing in the BHL.

My main team, Bronze Division (Wednesday nights) has playoffs tomorrow night, we finished in 4th (out of 8) for the regular season. The team we play tomorrow has a few really good young guys that have played together for awhile, and they are quick lil bastards! Even with my head on a swivel, they still are over my right shoulder one second, then I look again and they are gone! Last week we only had 7 guys, so I skated almost the entire game, had one break per period. My D partner iron-manned it, no breaks!

I've been subbing (playing D) pretty regularly on a team one level below in the Copper Division (mainly Saturday evenings) and that has been pretty fun. The level of play is a little slower, but there are a couple teams that could easily be in Bronze. It's been nice to get on the ice twice a week, or in some cases just once with this team if I missed my Wednesday night games. The captain is really cool and I'm only paying $20 to play, so its way better than paying the $40 that the rink charges (if the team didnt pay the team fee).

Mrs. Beedee's team has been killing it and is in 1st place in the Tin South division. She had her first goal and multi-point game last week (1 goal, 2 assists) she was stoked to say the least!

 

[jammer06]

Just skating in our friday night skates and dropping in on wednesdays this summer. The guy who runs it has been cool and let me bring Mini a couple of times when we were short. Did a Father Son camp with Mini. It was amazing. They even had some daughters there. Hockey and Sons Camp Was great but grueling. 3 ice sessions per day from sunday through tuesday and then weds morning was the kids vs parents. Mini is a bantam now and it's pretty much the only "competitive" game if the dads really want to push it. By the time they're midgets the dads are getting slaughtered. One of the dads in the mite game was a former college player and actually pulled a lacrosse goal from behind the net. Still it was so much fun. There was one dad there that flew in his 4 kids from Florida for it. The rules for the dads are that you can have all the fun you want, but you are expected on the ice with your kid. They also had the college training room open for ice and treatment. I was living in that thing. Great experience. Coach Constantine told great stories about Jagr and what he was like to a coaching staff, along with stories about Ian Moran who was his bottom pair team guy. Kids were eating it up. In any case tryouts for mini are in three weeks and my beer league starts back up in Oct.

 

[jammer06]

I also didnt know this but they have a camp for dads and daughters too http://www.hockeyanddaughters.com/

 

[Nyssa42]

I also didnt know this but they have a camp for dads and daughters too http://www.hockeyanddaughters.com/

dang....I'm gonna be pretty old before I can do the "grandma & granddaughter camp"....might not make it.


My team is off to a better start than last season (2-3 so far....we went 1-14 last season). Got a couple more good players this time....let's see how we fare tonight against a team we should be able to beat.

 

[beedee]

Our team finished 4th out of 8 this season and last night was our first playoff game. We knocked off the first place team in our first playoff game last night, we were seeded 4th. Score was 6-1, everyone played great and we actually played with some structure for once! It feels good to be heading to the championship game (can't even remember the last time I was on a team that played for it).

League sent out the email about next season, of course it went up another $20. When dividing it by 13 full-time players, it is now $498 for 15 games. fft:

 

[beedee]

We lost in the championship game, 2-0. I didnt play though, unfortunately my surfers ear was acting up, causing me to feel "off" and a little nauseous.

Decided to take this season off and get in on some organized pick-ups here and there. I just don't find any value in a $500 season at this point.

 

[jammer06]

So I just ponied up my $500 for next season, 20 games plus playoffs. Really hoping I get to play at all. I have a drs appt on Friday to get cleared for an MRI. Been doing physical therapy for the last 6 weeks and while those guys have been great at giving me exercises that show just how out of balance my legs are and getting it more even, they also have discovered my range of motion that my body won't do. The easiest way to to describe what hurts is I can't step up a staircase sideways on my right side. The leg can't bear the weight to load like that. Basically when I'm turning right on the ice, I can only load my left leg which is a problem in competitive skates. The PT guys are also concerned that its only a matter of time before I blow my left knee out from the strain its taking to hide what's wrong with the right.
True to form right after my drs appt on friday I'll be going to a lunch skate because hockey.

 

[jammer06]

So I've played 2 of the 3 games to start our season. Both games against C2 teams (we play C3) and they were tough. The first game we didn't have a scorekeeper so it was running clock. We were down a goal late, pulled the goalie with about 1:45 to go. The ref whistles us for too many men, then realizes we don't have a goalie. Clock is running the whole time and we don't get the puck drop until 30 seconds to go, half our team still arguing to put time on the clock (it was a 9:30pm start time, I was like fat chance guys). Anyway the knee held up but oh man was I sore after in my glutes and calf trying to compensate for my knee.

Game 2 was last night at 1030 start time but we had a scorekeeper. 10 skaters and they needed me at center which I tried. It's hard to take faceoffs when you can't bend your knee. Anyway had a couple breakaway opportunities but their goalie got me. End of the game I stole a puck behind the net and made a pass to the front while tangled up and went down hard on my knee. It SUCKED. I could barely get off the ice to the bench. Sat out the last 4 minutes. After about 20 mins I could put weight on it again but i'm pretty convinced this is my meniscus and cant wait for my MRI next week (insurance has been postponing me). On the plus side the rest of me is not nearly as sore.

 

[beedee]

How ironic that you posted an update! Glad to see you back on the ice JamDawg! Hopefully your knee isn't feeling too wrecked this week!!!

I played for the first time in a couple months yesterday afternoon. The team I sub on from time to time needed the D, so I got a text mid-morning asking if I could play. Since we didnt have anything going on as a family, said F it, and played.

Little bit of rink-rust, but not nearly as bad as I anticipated. We only had 3 D, but we all managed our shifts accordingly and were too overly gassed, sans the 2nd period with the long change. I got a few shots on goal from the point, and also had a few blocked shots, luckily they hit me square in the shins, and one glanced off the mid-foot area skate eyelets, outer shell so no pain felt! I was feeling it though cardio-wise after making a rush from the top of our circles deep into their zone for a decent shot on goal. Told myself Im not doing that crap for the rest of the game!

We were up 3-1 in the third and they found their mojo, scoring 3 goals in the final 4 minutes of the game! One came on a result of me turning the puck over as I got hooked at our blue line and pulled down to the ice, no call!!! Anyhow, it was fun to be back out there and I had to renew my USA Hockey membership so that means I'll be subbing for the rest of the season on my normal team, including this Weds at 9:30pm!

 

[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"!!

 

[Luc SkyBomba]

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.

 

[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.

 

[jammer06]

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.

 

[beedee]

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! uch: 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.

 

[jammer06]

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 p*ss up my nose or something.

 

[beedee]

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:

 

[beedee]

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!

 

[beedee]

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.

 

[beedee]

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