Saturday Skate

AMAZING skate yesterday. Especially in contrast to such a bad skate the weekend before. Seriously, go back and read how down I was last weekend! Oh don't. It's too sad.

I think the thing for me was that I felt as strong as I ever have on the ice. It was an hour and a half before my legs finally gave out on me (but when they did, they DID... I could barely get to the rink door, I was so tired).

Anyway, we worked on the usual swizzles, but mostly concentrated on stopping and backwards. Coach Stalin had a brainstorm about teaching me stopping and it helped a lot. I need to do some work off the ice to get my "stopping" leg rotation stronger. Backwards is getting better. I think working on it in my goalie skates really made it seem easier in my player skates. I just need to learn to relax because I tense my feet up in my boots and they ache like crazy.

Also did my usual dumb-leg shuffles from goal line to goal line. Did them much faster and better than ever by imagining there was a shooter in front of me and I was shuffling in my crease. :) Worked pretty well at making me hustle down the ice instead of plodding as usual. Also got it over with faster!

The other weird thing is that Chilly, the Aeros mascot, was there for a couple of birthday parties. Not sure if it's the real Chilly, but he came up to me once and then sort of hovered nearby another time. If you know me and mascots, you know this wasn't good, though of all the mascots in the world, Chilly is the one who skeeves me out the least. I've just been around him so much at Aeros games. It was more funny than anything, but kinda weird to see him there.

Anyway, I'm pondering going skating tomorrow since we'll have the day off, but might wait until mid-week and go to the Galleria. I think doing a skate in my goalie skates really helped me on the weekend.

Oh and the punching I had done to deal with my stupidly wide feet seems to have worked. I had very little pain after quite a long skate and no pain while skating. That was a new experience!