Too cold, too cold

Lots of hockey this weekend and today. Practices at Willowbrook and SLICE Saturday and Sunday and then goalie clinic and drop-in tonight.

Couple of things to talk about:

First is that I've been playing around with my nutrition over the weekend, upping my carbs quite a bit to see if it helps with keep my legs energized, and it really does! Glycogen, bitches!

Not to say that I'm not sore, but my legs could have easily kept going after the hour and a half practice/scrimmage last night. Still felt lots of spring in them. So that makes me feel good about camp coming up next week. I've got a fighting chance at keeping myself fueled and at least surviving the first day. :)

Have I mentioned the first day is 3 hours straight of ice time? Sweet buttery Jesus.

Second is that I really sucked Saturday night. Timing was off, skates felt bad, no kick at all.

Sunday night, I think I tipped every single warm-up shot into my own net. Everything hit me, and everything went in. It was the very definition of sieve. Luckily things got better once we settled in to the drills. One of the coaches took some shots on me during a no-shooting drill and that helped settle me down.

Then one of the drills was a 2 on 0 drill and I find that that kind of drill in particular gets me in the groove really well. It kicks in all the tough elements of goaltending: reading shooters, lateral movement, patience, timing. I've been doing all of those badly, so it was good to get clicking a little bit. Nice confidence boost.

The only thing I don't like about that drill is that it encourages me to play too deep. Without any defense, I feel so helpless on my back door, so I get deep so that the other skater can't get behind me for an easy shovel-in.

Another drill, one of the better players asks me, "Has anybody scored on you? I haven't gotten anything past you!" They had, of course, but not much and it was nice to at least be giving off the impression that they hadn't at all! :)

Third, is, of course, the injury report. :) Dumb injury of the night was making a save while in my stance, but somehow it fell into my pad and I didn't want it to fall out and get knocked in, so I dropped into the fly.

Well, if you've butterflied ON a puck in your pads, you know the joy of smashing that frozen rubber into your shin. Got me a nice puck-sized bruise started. Even felt it when I slept on my stomach last night.

Hips and quads were a bit sore when I woke up this morning, but nothing I can't stretch out, I think. Knee is a bit swollen, too. Got my brace on to give it some support today.

My skates, OTOH, didn't fare so well. I crushed the edges on one of them badly. It was so bad, I actually got a metal splinter in my finger wiping them down after. They are just wrecked. So I have to find someone who can sharpen them today. Unfortunately, unlike in Minnesota where they have drive-thru sharpening, it's kind of an ordeal to get same-day sharpening here, especially if you only trust a couple of people in town to do it.

But I have to get it done. There's no chance I can skate tonight on what I've got. Memorial City says they can do it. They better not let me down. Apparently they do punching, too, which I need to get done. My original punching to give my forefoot more room has sort of shrunk back to normal and my feet are hurting again. Probably not good when staring down the barrel at super long ice times. Even if they can't do that today, it's good to know I don't have to go way out to Willowbrook to do it.

Anyway, looking forward to clinic and my game tonight. First time I've played a game in like 3 weeks? Hopefully my grasp of timing will stay with me. And hopefully Scott will forgive me if I half-ass it a little more than usual at clinic in order to save some juice for the game.

One thing I can say definitively: The ice is just terrible right now everywhere. Normally SLICE has the best ice in town, but even there, it's lumpy and rough and slow to dry up. It's like skating on gravel. I'm so looking forward to skating at Parade next week! I hear the ice there is great.