Summer of ice hockey
I feel like "Summer of Ice Hockey" is probably the name of a teenage hockey-related film, but in this case it's just a blog post, sorry. The "power play" have ended now for the year, and the scrimmages will probably slow down, if not stop entirely, which means there might be a lot less ice hockey than there's been over the past few months. During this time, I played 20 scrimmages and attended 3 power play sessions.
The power play sessions are basically hockey skating drills. I'm not a very good skater, so I find them extremely intense. There are so many things which I currently just cannot do, but I do feel I'm gradually getting better. I attended the last power play session of the year last night. There were some quite evil drills. The evilest was to skate with a puck under one skate, which is basically one legged skating while concentrating on how much force you're putting down on the other. Too much force? You fall over and die (not really). Too little? Oops the puck is now somewhere behind you. The last thirty minutes of each power play session is a sort of free for all to practice and ask questions.
I went up to James (one of the coaches) and said "I have an embarrassing problem. I can only do a tee-stop" - he assured me that this is not embarrassing, but having done over 20 hours of scrimmages and a fair amount more of "just" skating, I do feel a bit embarrassed about it. It's a bit like going back to level zero, but James was very helpful, and while I still cannot claim to do a hockey stop, I have some things to practice and fee like I am heading in the right direction now.
I attended far fewer power play sessions than scrimmages. This is because doing both (one after the other) is extremely exhausting, and the scrimmages are really fun. While the scrimmages haven't really helped with my skating, I am feeling much more aware and last night I scored my first goal! I must confess though, there were no goalies last night and the nets were left wide open, but I did have to get past the other side's defence, so I'm taking it as a small victory. One of the nicest parts of the scrimmages has been how silent my brain becomes, whether I'm on the bench watching others while waiting for my turn, or actually playing. I can't compare it to "flow state" because that (in my experience) is much more relaxing, but it is an absence of distraction which I almost never experience elsewhere.
Since the scrimmages were so much fun, I emailed the ice sports team and asked if they would consider running them year round. I have no idea if they were planning to anyway but they said they would try and fit them in where they can. I'm very glad about that! They were also very kind about this, thanked me for the feedback and gave me a free scrimmage!
Thanks Jon for the pics!
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Comments and feedback are welcome by email (aaron@nospam-aaronsplace.co.uk).