5 posts tagged “ice hockey”

At 1:40PM yesterday we (the Green Chili's) again faced off against SISU, this time for the finals. (note the photos are proofs from the professional photographer that was there, we paid for and ordered the complete set of photos for our team, so i'll have more and higher res photos soon)
 
From the start we knew we were in trouble. Half of our Protein Pair of wings was in the ER with intense jaw pain and was not going to make the game. That gave us only 10 skaters, yet we watched as 16 blue jerseys filled the other bench. This means that while we had exactly two lines, they had three. There was a good shot we were going to be out-skated by fresh legs all game. And that's pretty much how it went.

Just last our previous meeting, SISU was fast, sharp, and intense. They were intercepting our passes, smoothly working together to our skate and out think our defense, and just plain out skating us. We tried hard to hold our own. We made them earn each of their goals, not letting any of the easy ones in. But there was just no stopping them yesterday.

They mowed over us 7-2.

However... as I drove home, I didn't find myself depressed or frustrated or even discouraged. I was stoked actually.

I played hockey!

I just finished an entire hockey season, with a tournament of 4 games in a 36 hour period.

It was not that long ago that my heart condition would sometimes not let me up a flight of stairs. It was not that long ago that I was frequenting ERs and cardiologists due to the frequency and intensity of my heart issues and chest pain. There have been times in the last two years, and many times going further back than that, where my heart was so messed up I couldn't get out of bed.

Yet I played 4 intense hockey games in 36 hours, within a SINGLE off-rhythm heartbeat! Without ONCE taking my pulse! Without a single thought of my oxygenation level or blood pressure! Praise God!

I played 4 intense hockey games in 36 hours. My heart was healthy. My lungs were healthy. Heck, only my hamstrings are a bit sore today. It's pretty unbelievable.

In high school when all this heart stuff started I had to drop most things I was involved in, and couldn't even run the mile for fitness testing. I knew my time in athletics was over. But God's redeemed that!! Talk about amazing!

Well folks.. here you have it.. the recap of game 3.

For their third game (and last round robin game) of the tournament we (the Green Chili's) faced the AmaZambonis who were wearing orange.

This was a pretty good game. The AmaZambonis have some solid skill, so they kept us on our toes all game.

Having already decompressed and slept since the game I don't remember what happened in each period... but the basic run down is that early on in the game it was close, though thankfully we always led.

We led 1-0. Then we led 2-0. Then they scored to bring it to 2-1. Then we scored again 3-1. Then they rallied to bring it to 3-2. And then we started pulling away. 4-2, 5-2, 6-2, and finally 7-2.

To my credit I managed a few decent plays this game. Including one nice break away assist to PorkChop. And a few sweet defensive saves. It was also pretty interesting with the bench gate got stuck and so we had to start jumping over the wall to get on and off the ice. Praise God that this rink has REALLY long benches.. so you can fumble tossing yourself over the wall and not deck anyone else in the head with your skates!!

I did managed to get clobbered twice this game. Once was a mess against the boards that resulted in three of us tangled on the ground and we slapping the puck away with my glove. I knew I needed to get up quick, but was stuck between other skaters and the boards so I literally rolled OVER an orange skater to land up on my feet and skate off. CRAZY!
The second clobbering was against the far boards and it all happened so fast i don't even know what happened other than two of us ended up flat out on the ice and I saw stars and had a little trouble getting up but I managed and finished my shift. After that one my teammates were all like "you still with us??" but after a single shift of resting on the bench I was good to get back in the game.

Throughout the game I caught sight of Melody up in the stands cheering me on, which ROCKED!

And after the game as we collected our stuff and were heading off the ice, something caught my eye... and I look up into the stands and BAMM! KB is there!!! CRAZINESS! She lives like 4-5 hours drive away. But she had promised a friend that she would visit them at some point soon, so she was in town and since I had informed some folks about my tournament schedule, she knew the details and just showed up as a surprise! Well it worked! I don't think I've seen her since before my own graduation last May. It totally rocked to see her. So we all went out to dinner after the game and got caught up and mostly they laughed at me on my "hockey high" laughing and babbling away, and then laughed at the pure volume of water and lemonade I consumed over dinner *smiles* Good Stuff!

Last night I took a long hot shower, a few Aleve, and went to bed early. This morning I'm not in pain, but I SURE AM SORE! I mean, man... 3 games in 25 hours.. thats pretty nuts. Who would have thought eh? I'm gonna need to do some SERIOUS stretching this morning.

So... the results of the Round Robin were...

Green Chilis over NEWHL (6-0)
SISU over AmaZambonis (roughly 6-2)
SISU over Green Chilis (2-1)
AmaZambonis over NEWHL ( roughly 6-2)
SISU over NEWHL (roughly 7-1)
Green Chilis over AmaZambonis (7-2)

So... today at 1:40PM is the final playoff game which will be
SISU (3-0) vs. Green Chilis (2-1)

This morning at 11:20AM we (Green Chili's) played SISU for our second game of the tournament.

We walked into the game knowing that SISU was a good team and that it would be a tough game. Man, were we right. We basically spent the first period playing "chase" SISU. We just let them dominate. We were "wack-a-mole"ing the puck all over the place and they were just intercepting it and taking it to town.

To the credit of our goalie and some great defense moves, we managed to keep them to only one goal in the first period.

The second period we calmed down a bit and started to re-discover our own game. The game was much more balanced, but also much more physical. The hits started getting more frequent and harder. We allowed a second goal to bring the score to 2-0 (i think that was early in the 2nd period, though a lot of the game is kinda mushy in my head at this point) Finally we managed to score a point bringing the score to 2-1 at the end of the second period.

The third period was BRUTAL. The game was fast, close, and intense. At one point myself and what I think was 3 or 4 others ended up in a mess against the boards in our offensive zone. Someone managed to get my feet out from under me and i took a knee in the pile up. The puck eventually got loose of the group but not until after a big swing brought a stick up and into my head. I can't say it hurt... cause really it didn't. But I had trouble getting up, my whole body was shaking, my heart was pounding like nuts and my lungs felt like i couldn't get any air into um. I could not WAIT for that shift to end. I hit the bench and tossed off my gloves and pulled off my helmet and gasped for air much to my teammates concern. But I managed to get my body mostly under control (except for the shaking) just about in time for me to get back onto the ice for my next shift.  I managed to finish the game, though I can't say I finished strong, cause I didn't. Thankfully it was already late in the third period.

Sadly, we never did score another goal. So the Green Chili's lost for the first time this morning. But, I must say, it was a good, well fought game that really challenged both teams to take things up a notch, so I'm not toooo sad about the loss. We really played hard.

Some of my housemates, Melody Ruben Elushka and Sophia, came with to cheer us on too. Melody also remarked that this game was much more intense than last night's game.

We got back after the game and I was still shaky. So after spreading out my gear to dry, and tossing the clothes in the laundry I had a mug of hot chocolate and then Oxana tucked me into bed for a nap. I think she was worried maybe I hit my head harder than I thought.  But I've had a concussion before, and this wasn't one. *LOL*

Now I'm awake, post-nap. My gear is repacked into my bag, and I'm just about ready to head back out to the rink for game 3.  If we win tonite I'm pretty sure that we are in the finals tomorrow. The current prediction is that the final game will be us and SISU again. So it might be an interesting day!

OK.. time to go get my head in the game.

So... if you don't already know, I play women's ice hockey on a team called the Green Chilis. I'm a defenseman. We are a intro team, meaning for all of us this is our first year playing ice hockey. It's been a crazy season. Most of the year we just had practice about once a week. But since January, we've had a few scrimmages and this weekend our season will end with a tournament.

There are 4 teams at our level in the tournament. This means that we played one game last night, will play 2 today, and then the top two teams will play each other in a final game on Sunday. The tournament is set up pretty well, and they even brought in a professional photographer, so I may have some pictures to show you of me in action this weekend.

Last nights game was pretty darn awesome. I mean, how can a game NOT be awesome when your offense scores on the FIRST PLAY OF THE GAME!

The puck dropped at 6:20PM which meant it was a stretch for some of my teammates to get there with traffic and whatnot. As a matter of fact our goalie didn't make it to the rink until the rest of us were already dressed and walking out onto the ice. Consequently we played about the first 5 minutes of the first period without an actual goalie. So that meant that of the 4 of us that play defense, 2 were on the ice as defenseman, 1 was on the bench, and 1 was playing goalie. I got to be part of the pair that swapped between defense and goalie. So I was on the ice the whole first part of the game. I'm very proud of my teammates because the whole time that Jackie and I had to play goalie, our teammates did not let a SINGLE shot be made on goal!! This was huge as neither of us had ever been in the net and neither of us was in goalie gear. I was mighty glad when that goalie finally stepped on the ice, I was exhausted.

The rest of the game went pretty well. I really felt like we were dominating throughout the game. The puck really spent the most its time down in our offensive zone and the other team had very few shots on goal. Actually, I managed to personally block one shot on goal..... off my shin guard. That was a fun moment. I'd never managed to do that before, but I just managed to get in front of that puck about 8 feet in front of the goalie and deflected it. It bounced off my shin guard about half way up and ricocheted off to the right.

I also had a few good moments of intimidating the offense. Not too many players at our level can skate backwards proficiently, but with my background in figure skating its not a challenge for me, so I like to stare down the offense as they come at us instead of turning around and running with my back to them. It's fun stuff.

I also made some pretty good attacks, getting the puck back or just seriously slowing down their offense. I even got my teams first ever penalty. I got to spend two minutes in the box for tripping. When I got back to my bench later all my teammates cheered for me and asked if I had managed to get the obnoxious one with the pink stick *LOL*

The other team was not as skilled as we were, we have some AMAZING offensive players that are small, fast, and have a lot of spunk. But man, that other team sure had attitude. At two points in the game they played so inappropriately that I LITERALLY thought I was gonna see some gloves come off.

But, as we joke, our offensive Protein Pair of PorkChop and Bacon served it to um! We ended up winning the game 6-0

In the last period our coach even decided to mess around with our lines a bunch and make most of our forwards play defense. It caused a lot of confusion on the ice till we figured out what coach was trying to do, but it was interesting to see people attempt different positions and watch our game play adjust to it.

The game was interesting. Usually we start strong and finish exhausted. But last night we started slow and just built all night. I walked out of the rink last night calm but solidly excited. I wasn't even sore, and usually my lower back is pretty sore after a game.

All that said, last night ROCKED and I'm totally stoked for today's games.

Last night my friend and housemate, Melody, was cheering us on from the stands. She plans to come to today's games too. And late last night another housemate, Ruben, asked about my game schedule, so he and his son, Elushka, might come out for the first game this morning as well. It would rock to have them cheering us on as well and for Elushka to get to see me skate.

All right, time for me to get my gear together and start getting my head in the game.

I've always loved to be on the ice. I grew up figure skating. After that I tried speed skating. For awhile I just skated for fun and taught some of the homeschool kids how to skate. And these days I'm playing hockey. I have learned a TON about life on the ice.

Consequently, I just LOVE the new set of posters put out by OneGoal, a coalition of youth hockey folks. Check these out! There website has larger PDFs you can download. I downloaded a bunch of them and took screen shots to turn them into backgrounds for my various computers.

The quote on them are particularly excellent. They include:
Growing up has its obstacles. A kid better know how to weave.
There's nothing like ice to teach kids about standing on their own two feet.
Ankles get strong on ice. So do hugs.
Turn Dad's pancakes into rocket fuel.
Protecting the net from bloodthirsty dinosaurs, evil knights and flying hockey pucks.
Hockey rinks are a lot warmer than you think.
Hockey eliminates Boy-Girl germs fast.
Friendship. Frozen boogers and all.
Determination. It can't be measured by the size of a jersey.
Fall. Get Up. Fall. Get Up. Hockey teaches a kid a lot more than how to skate.
Self-Confidence. Like many things, it crystalizes on ice.