Minnesota Day 3

This is the day that was awesome, and then it sucked, and then it got awesome again. So much better than the reverse, isn't it?

Started my day by sleeping until 10. Booyah. That was nice. Yay for black out drapes at hotels. But then I had to hustle because I had to return the chest protector to Hockey Giant and buy some skates, or at least try to.

So I go to Panera for brekky. A cinnamon roll AND a power breakfast sandwich because you can eat like that when you play hockey all day.

Then I jetted down to Bloomington to return the c/a. No problem. Looked at their goalie skate selection, nobody offered to help me, so I said, "Fuck it." and headed to Blaine back to Hockey Central where the guy'd been so helpful before.

The guy being Jason. At Hockey Central. Love that guy. I felt bad because he was SO helpful the other day but I just wasn't seeing anything that was just right. But I knew exactly what I needed for skates: Under $300, widest skate you got.

He measured me and determined I needed a 6.5. WHAT? I'm currently in an 8 and I wear a 10 or 9.5 in street shoes. So I thought, NO WAY are these gonna fit. He brings out some RBK something or others. Bottom of the line, basically, but whatever. I'm no diva.

Well, they fit perfectly. He said one of the reasons my skates were killing me is because of the size difference. Everything was hitting my feet in the wrong places.

The wide 6.5s were still a little crunchy across the forefoot so he stretched them and that was better. And then we heat molded them and that was even better.

I was nervous about jumping them into such intensive action, but it turned out absolutely great. They're very comfortable. Only a bit of lace bite on one foot, but I think I can fix that with a different lacing technique. Nothing to worry about and LOADS better than my old ones. I can't even tell you. There was a bit of adjustment to the shorter blade in terms of my balance but half an hour in, I was fine. They also seem to weigh about half as much, which was kinda weird, too, but I certainly don't mind.

So anyway, I got all that done and hauled back to Parade for my ice times, which were a 75 minute and 60 minute session back to back. I thought that was going to be it for the day, but the goalie wrangler asked me to come back for the open ice at 8 because the campers wanted to scrimmage.

Well, I sucked pretty bad in both my sessions. My net was filled with pucks on the drills they were doing. I was being kind of hard on myself about that and feeling a little low and just wanted to come home and lick my wounds.

But the hockey gods smiled on me in return for coming back and putting on a wet sports bra (worst piece of wet gear ever) and blessed me with a really good game that lifted my mood again.

So much so that I'm completely exhausted physically but still buzzing. It'll wear off soon enough, but it definitely gives me the mental energy to face tomorrow and not be worried about everyone thinking I'm a huge sieve all the time. Just most of the time. :) Gimme some defense and real game action and mayyyybe I can turn it on a little bit. I did tonight anyway.

Tomorrow is another very busy day from top to bottom. Have to be on the ice at 11:45 but I also need to find a Play it Again and sell my old skates. Figure they'll go for a bit more up here than in Texas. I think I'll just eat lunch at the rink and stay there until my later session, unless I'm feeling energetic, in which case, I'll drag my soggy ass to the Hockey Lodge at the X and get a new Wild t-shirt to replace my stupid Gaborik one. Pfft.

Then tomorrow night, after the coach's scrimmage, which is supposed to be a lot of fun, I'm heading out to the Blue Fox in Arden Hills (wherever that is) to see the Russoville house band and hang with the Russovillians. That is my reward for surviving the day on the ice. :)

And somewhere in all that, I need to find a damn drugstore to get some bandaids. I ripped a big hole in my finger from lacing up my new skates so many times today. There's something about the slimy interior of a goalie glove that makes you not want to expose your open skin wound to it, you know?

Okay, nearly midnight. Time to give the old bones some rest. Thanks for reading. I know it's all been rather self-indulgent lately, but it's summer and I'm incredibly self-absorbed and that's how it goes. I still want to do posts on the Wild goalies and on Brusty signing with Binghamton. I think Baby Sens and Jackals fans should know how lucky they are and I'm pretty sure I'm equipped to tell them. :)