Black and Blue

The subject refers to the fact that FINALLY someone had the balls to take some real shots at me tonight at hockey. Sutton rifled several slappers at me during warm-ups, two that I stopped with my arms. I've got some healthy bruises developing in the pit of my left elbow and on my right bicep as my battle wounds. The bicep one actually hurts quite a bit. I love it!

Frankly, I'll take those shots and their bruises, any day over the shots I usually see. You novice goalies know what I mean. On the ice, weak little shots, don't know what they're gonna do. Ugh. Bouncers and tricklers. Sounds like some kind of stripper specializations...

Anyway, we played four full periods and an extra 10 minutes tonight. I think the score was 9-9 at the end but they'd quit keeping score again. I had some quality saves and I allowed some real stupid crapass goals, especially later on.

First period was good again, only allowing one goal to 7 at the other end. It was 0 for the Red team until Ray comes over and says, "Hey, you have a shutout!" Are you f**king kidding me??

Anyway.

He played good D, was encouraging, and isn't sick of my weaksauce yet since this is his first game since I started in goal, so I love him anyway.

I poke checked Jessica on a breakaway again, almost exactly like last week, except I got a piece of the puck this time. Sick. But she got a pretty wrap-around on me later. I just wasn't processing the situation fast enough to get to the other post in time. But hey, it was a nice goal.

The new girl, Amanda, got one on me that wasn't my most frustrating but it was really really stoppable. I was screened and I should have just figured she was going to shoot it herself and gone down, but there was a shit-ton of traffic and I wasn't sure whether to stay up and mobile or go down. She was super excited about it though, so that's cool. It was her first real game goal.

But that conundrum is my biggest challenge right now. Stay up or go down. Because I spend the whole game watching the other goalie go down on EVERY save and half the time the puck bounces over or under him. I guess I lean toward more of a stand-up style right now because my current skill set leaves me somewhat vulnerable if I'm down. I feel more capable of reacting to a change in the situation if I'm up. At least I think that's what the nagging voice in my head is saying when I face these situations.

Twice tonight I let in shots from the low circle where I just couldn't decide what to do, so natch, I stayed up. Wrong choice. (I apologize to Sutton for telling him to F**k Off when he asked me if my stick was down after one of those goals... oh sweet Jeezus I was pissed and didn't need his smirking yap in my grill.) I think I yelled at one of my D after another goal, too, when he said something to me. He took it in stride, I hope. I feel badly about it. I don't mean to be a bitch, but it's best if these guys just don't talk to me.

I wonder if there's anger management for goalies, because I also swung my stick behind me as a goal scorer (maybe Jesper... maybe Paul) was skating away behind me. Not sure if I tagged him but it wouldn't have been much and it really did make me feel better. Just a nick. Just something to say, "Get off my lawn, punk."

(As an aside, I do find I play a little better angry. That doesn't jive real well with the sort of Type B nature of novice league. I yelled at my team more tonight than I ever have. Too many instances of just standing there staring at the puck 5 feet from my crease, like they're gonna move it with mental telepathy. I kept thinking it might be totally worth it to just freak 'em all out and go play the damn puck myself. I mean, once you've allowed this many goals, if it doesn't work out, I've at least made my point.)

But on the plus side, I did feel pretty solid in my movement around the crease. That's gotten so much better. Also, I felt pretty confident about my angles tonight. I don't think any of them went in because I didn't know where my posts were or I was leaving a ton of net. I just chose the wrong save. My depth is still not quite right though. I'm too deep on these shots from the circle.

Anyway, it was a lot of hockey and I would have been pretty happy to stay out and play another period. At that point, I think my Gatorade would have run out so that'd be quittin' time for me. But it was a blast as usual.

I remember when I played out, it was like, "Oh SHIT another period!? Dammit. Can't we just get out of this gear and drink beer now?" Now it's like, I'm okay with being done, but also not really ready either if that makes sense, because I just love being a goalie. Someday being a goalie will love me back. I just know it. :)

Next week is our last game before the end of the season, another long one, and it looks like we have Easter Sunday off. Might be good to get to a stick and puck that week... Hmm.