Goalie brain in overdrive

I just have to say, after how stressful the home buying/selling stuff was all last year, I feel such warm fuzzies when I pull into my driveway now. After 8 years in a 3 story house, my little 60 year old rancher just feels like home. Totally worth all the grey hair.

Just had to get that gratitude out there into the universe.

So, check this one out: Tonight I had my usual Monday drop-in. Wasn't feeling super awesome after a physically taxing day, so I was kinda in, "Whatever" mode.

I'm awfully tired early in the game and one of me D is pulling a Scott and telling me to "GET UP! GET UP!" while the puck is still in our zone, but... like I said: Whatever mode. And now you've bossed me around, so now I'm really not getting up. Punk. No problem though. My d clears it out.

Then there's a scramble in front and the puck is sorta laying in front of me but between my d-man's legs and he's saying "Cover! Cover!" and again, I'm thinking, "Shut up. I know to cover, dummy."

And then someone shoots from the neutral zone, kind of an easy dump-in but it goes on net and I butterfly and corral it. Guy on my team says, "Good job." Yeah, because that was hard. *grumble*

So by this point, all this bossing and (perceived) condescension, I'm feeling like the worst goalie ever.

Game carries on, I switch ends with Neil midway, let a few goals in but nothing horrible and it's drop-in so whatever. I'm used to getting lit up, but I'm feeling like this has been a pretty decent game for me, actually.

We finish up and head off the ice and Neil goes, "Wow! How about that shutout you had going?!"

"What shutout?"

"The whole first half!"

"Really?"

"Yeah! You were a wall!"

Uh. Okay.

Drove home thinking, "How on earth did I not notice that I was pitching a shutout?" And then I realized, it was those comments from my team that kinda made me feel sour that kinda tricked my mind into thinking I wasn't playing well.

I was so distracted by this perceived disappointment from my team (presumably from my historically mediocre to bad play against this group) that I just sort of assumed I wasn't playing well at that end and not playing well = goals against, right?

Anyway, I kinda laughed at myself because my pathetic goalie self-esteem basically pulled the bad-goalie-wool over my eyes! How goofy is that?!

Of course, I have awesome goalie brain when it comes to goals against, but not so much for relatively harmless comments from my team. Tonight it actually paid off.

So, if you've been wondering, in spite of my not posting here, "Is she still a fucking headcase?" The answer is obviously, Yes.

BTW, if you haven't been keeping up with the writing that's causing me to neglect this blog, you can go catch up here: http://blogs.thescore.com/nhl/author/msconduct/

I'm not totally unproud of it. Response has been good. This week's was about beer league goaltending, so it's kinda fun and "on topic."