While we nap...

So, I woke up this morning to leaking, puffy eyes and a snot-faucet for a nose (stuck in the ON position). Alavert didn't touch it, so I hit the Benedryl. By 9:30, I passed out cold and woke up an hour and 45 minutes later.

As often happens when I turn my back to my laptop for a few minutes, all hell broke lose. Well, kinda good hell, actually, for some guys. Not so much for others.

The big bomb is that the Wild FINALLY got Backstrom re-signed! Four years, 6 mil-ish per. This is excellent news and you could hear the collective sigh of relief in Minnesota all the way from down here in Texas. Or maybe that was all me. But it seems most folks are awfully happy about not only the signing, but also eliminating the prospect of losing ANOTHER guy to free agency for absolutely no return.

As contradictory as this might seem given the brutal netminding I provide my novice team each Sunday night, I'm positively compulsive about my pro teams having good goaltending. After Daum's final season in Houston, with Miro and Swiss as our only goaltending options, I'm scarred for life. Give me good goalies or give me death. Contrast that with be spoiled by our goaltending in Houston last season... well, my expectations are sky high, and it seems Backstrom can come as close as anybody to meeting those.

I guess we'll see tonight how this affects his play. None at all, I would hope. Or he's elated, because it was clear he wanted to be here pretty badly, and will be even better. Nice interview with Backy here.

What is it with these Finnish goalies? I need to find a nice Finnish name to put on the back of my goalie jersey. Maybe I'll suck less?

In addition to this news was a waiver wire that runneth over, including some familiar names like Peter Olvecky. I suspect he'll just clear and return to Houston. There are too many big names on the wire today for him to get much attention. It will be really nice to get him back, especially with this experience under his belt.

Other familiar names... Aaron Voros and Erik Reitz. Doh! I wonder if Sather's still talking to Riser these days. Seems he didn't ultimately find what he was looking for in the Wild's sloppy seconds (really, he could have just asked the fans and saved himself some trouble). And speaking of which, the Rangers DID pick Avery up off the wire. I guess losing AV and Reitz and sending one guy back to the minors was enough to clear cap space for the Mouth.

And now that Avery is back... and Brodeur is back in New Jersey and playing like a MFing beast... how many of you have the only remaining Rangers v. Devils game circled in red on your calendars? March 30. Be there or be square, kids.

Finally, on a totally unrelated note, Justin Bourne, the minor league player/THN blogger gives another divine slice of life. It is a must read, especially if you play or have played hockey for fun. All I'll say is that I'm a little irritated that the boys know they look that good in those suits. Dammit!

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Quick Hits: Fresh Meat; More Hockey for Dummies; Reitzy's first Rangers fight

The Aeros have brought in a little luck of the Irish (I dunno if he's really Irish), signing forward Jimmy Kilpatrick (come on, that's Irish, right?) from the Cincinnati Cyclones of the ECHL, where he just won Rookie of the Month honors for January. Welcome aboard, Jimmy.

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Another installment here by Joe O'Donnell and Troy Ward going over the Aeros' forecheck and defensive schemes. Interesting stuff if you haven't had much exposure to the X's and O's of hockey systems. Check it out (and as usual, I had to watch in Safari to see the video, and even then, the box it's viewed in is too small for the video, but it's good enough to see what's going on).

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Here's a view from the other side of Erik Reitz' first fight as a NY Ranger the other night. He lost to the very familiar former Chicago Wolves player, Nathan Oystrick. Funny that he says Reitz use to beat up on their smaller guys. It's not like Reitzy's a ginormous dude.

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Bobblehead fun

The Aeros are doing a giveaway this season of a collection of bobbleheads of beloved former Aeros in honor of their 15th anniversary, and even though I'm not much of a memorabilia collector, these amuse me.

So far we've gotten Chabot, Boogaard, Reitz, and Wiseman, being the most recent. I finally opened my Wiseman bobblehead box up today to put him in his spot on the nice little stand they also gave for them.

But something is kinda off about the guy. I wasn't around when he played for the Aeros so I don't really know much about him, other than seeing him on the broadcast with O'Donnell Friday night. He seemed pretty normal there, but his bobblehead seems to have an attitude problem.

He's got his tongue sticking out.

Unfortunately for him, bobbleheads Boogie and Reitzy don't take too kindly to guys pulling faces at them.

There's about to be a rumble on the sofa table.

So, you folks who've been around... was he known for skating with his tongue hanging out or something? What's up with that?

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Random Assortment

Got a muffin basket of delight for y'all today:

First off, it looks like our favorite big, blond, Southern defenseman, Jon Awe, is doing just fine over in Korea. NHL.com reports he has 5 goals and 11 points for the Anyang Halla.

Next, thanks to my homeboys over at Hockey Wilderness for the bitchin' shout-out. Check 'em out. There's good stuff going on there.

Also, I just got notification from the Canadian postal service that my goalie mask was shipped yesterday. It's currently in Mississauga, ON. I don't know where that is or how you might pronounce it, but it sounds like a good place for a Canadian-made goalie mask to spend a few hours. How do you suppose it feels about coming to Texas? Suppose its little mask friends are laughing at it? Those smug Montreal-bound masks especially... les batards.

Also, if you don't think I'll spend at least one day wearing that thing around the house and hitting myself in the head as often as possible, you just don't know me very well.

Help me out though... my mask needs a name. Drop a suggestion in the comments. It's like the one pictured but solid black. Six months ago, I would have named it Marty. But, um, not now! Thanks for ruining my perfect mask name, Turco, Biron, and Brodeur!

(ETA: Also just got notification that my Goalie Monkey order has shipped! But it won't be here until next Monday, so no goalie for me this week.)

Lastly, Tomas Mojzis cleared waivers but according to the Russoblog the team has 48 hours to decide what to do about it. Sounds like it's riding on the "lower body" evaluation of Josh Harding today. I'm guessing his lower body is quite fine.

ETA: Oh! Another nugget from Ryan Stanzel's blog:

I got Erik Reitz and Derek Boogaard to record quick clips for the Houston Aeros, who are honoring the duo by including them in their Aeros Legends Bobblehead Series. Both have bobbleheads coming up soon, and they’ll both get a few for friends and family.

Sweet! I took a pass on the Obama/McCain bobbles but these? Oh hell yeah! The Boogie ones, especially, I would expect to be a hot commodity. And no, you can't have mine.

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Kolanos reassigned to Houston; other stuff

Aeros new offensive stud, Krys Kolanos, is returning to the fold as Marek Zidlicky and Pierre Marc Bouchard look to be healing up from their injuries.

Also, it seems the Emmerson call-up from yesterday was to facilitate loaning him to the Rochester Americans.

Andrew predicts doozies against Manitoba Friday and Saturday, and after looking at their roster, I agree. I don't follow other AHL team's players, but boy, I recognize a lot of names. Particularly Zach FitzGerald, who sucker punched Reitz last season and then got completely schooled by a truly angry John Scott. Rawr!

I just ordered up the AHL Live package so I can watch the away games. You can watch the archives for free (so I don't have to watch away games in real time, which is fantastic) so I've pulled up Sunday's game in San Antonio... Looks pretty good! There are obvious compromises in quality, but it's better than not seeing the games at all. Exciting!

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Wild Pre-season Line-up: Game 2

Ahh, more of my boys getting a shot tonight. Very exciting, though I feel pretty sure we're going to lose as the Chicago line-up is better offensively. But at least I get to listen tonight! Huzzah!

The lineup for tonight:

Nolan Irmen - Belanger - Veilleux
Gillies - Pouliot - Weller
Boogaard - Sheppard - Clutterbuck
Kalus - Koivu - Miettinen

Skoula - Zidlicky
Noreau - Johnsson
Bergeron - Reitz

Harding - Schaefer

A quote from Ryan Stanzle's blog regarding the travel plans for the game:

The team will depart from MSP at 2:30 p.m. for tonight's game, then return immediately afterward. Head Coach Jacques Lemaire said that the team is away from home so often during the season that, during the preseason, it's nice to give the guys a chance to stick around a little longer.

Cal Clutterbuck, though, is so fired up to be on this trip that he may just head to the airport right now.

Heh. I'm excited for him. Go Cal!

Very cool that Noreau is getting to play, too. It really is pretty amazing considering he was undrafted just a little over a year ago and now has a 3 year NHL contract and is playing his first NHL pre-season game tonight. Go Max!

Um, and just to be fair: Go Crack Squirrel!

Back after the game with any interesting stuff...

Update: Nolan is scratched so Irmen, who traveled as an emergency fill-in, is in. Very happy for him since the last game didn't go so well, with an ugly (and controversial) misconduct penalty that ended the game with only 3 minutes and change in TOI for him.

Post-Game Update: Nolan was purposely scratched to give Irmen another chance. Boy, that was nice of JL. And he did much better. JL expressed great pleasure with his performance tonight. He even got an assist on the first goal.

On the other hand, Reitzy... oh boy. He had a brutal game and got called out for it afterwards by Lemaire. He's in deep doodoo up there. I feel for the guy big time, but this is what I was afraid of for him. That he just wouldn't be able to think and act fast enough for the NHL game.

Kalus got himself a goal though it sounds like he got lucky. I'm sure they'll have highlights on Wild.com tomorrow, so we'll see.

Didn't hear anything good or bad about Clutterbuck, so I'm assuming he played a pretty conservative game. I did hear his name in the mix a few times. I dunno. Wish I could watch these games with my own eyes.

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Prospect Watch 2008: Defensive Wrap-Up

Here's what weird about the Aeros. As a group, we had (and probably will have again) the best defense in the league. Individually, though, when the Wild were in a severe pinch for d-men at the end of last season, Reitz was the only one deemed good enough for a call up.

So it's understandable that the list of defensive prospects is relatively short, but I still think it's wrong. Scott shouldn't be on there, nor do I think Scandella should be on there. I can't really justify the Scandella decision as I haven't seen him play, but as I've said, I'm skeptical.

Who should be there? I think you can make a case for both Brandon Rogers and Clayton Stoner.

Brandon played 4 years in college and has 3 years of AHL hockey under his belt, where this season he had a career year and secured his first NHL contract with the Wild for the next 3 years. Brandon has great hockey sense and I think his 4 goals/24 assists and +17 (the team-leading +/-) speak to his gifts.

He actually reminds me a lot of Nick Schultz, both on the ice and in the room (allegedly). They both play a pretty low key game but are effective and calm and good leaders.

Stoner had a tough year last year, playing only 56 games due to injury after injury, but he obviously also saw some benefit from the new coaching regime as his numbers went up significantly in 9 fewer games than last season. But like many defensemen, numbers don't really tell Stoner's story. His bread and butter is his gritty game. He's like Reitz without the offensive touch and, IMO, more hustle and self-sacrifice. Plus, he just seems like a really nice, earnest guy. What can I say? I've seen enough aloof, selfish players and I think it matters to have guys like this.

Tomorrow: Dimples!

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Prospect Watch 2008: John "Condominium" Scott

NHL.com sez:

John Scott -- With massive size (6-foot-7 [he's actually 6'8" and change], 255 pounds) and a mean streak to boot, Scott racked up 184 minutes in penalties in 64 games with Houston, his second season at the pro level. The 25-year-old spent four years at Michigan Tech and eclipsed 100 penalty minutes in two of those seasons despite the shorter schedule.

Clearly, his skating will play a factor as to whether Scott can play in the NHL.

"He's come a long way," Thompson said of Scott, who signed with the Wild after going undrafted. "We liked him at Michigan Tech. He's shown some flashes. He's an older guy, but he's huge. He's strong and powerful. Are his feet good enough for the NHL? I guess we'll have to find that out. It's harder for the tough guys to make it on defense. In your own end down low, you can't use your stick and you can't use your free hand."

Ms. Conduct sez:
Scotty Scotty Scotty. This is the player whose inclusion I have a real problem with, particularly to the exclusion of some other players (more on that in the defensive wrap-up).

I'll admit, I watched him the last two seasons with rose-colored glasses on. I loved the way he played and fought with such glee his first season. He defended his teammates but didn't quite fit the "tough guy" mold. He's just enormous and has a huge reach so he's the safest one to use when you need to send a message. All he has to do is grab the jersey and start pounding. The other guy is just flailing around because he can't even reach Scotty's jersey. Very effective and he hasn't fought too many guys twice.

But the reality is, he's just too nice to be the full-on bad ass you want him to be. You get the distinct sense that unless a guy has done something pretty egregious to him or his teammates, he really doesn't want to hurt anyone, nor does he want to get (yet another) penalty. And get penalties he does. There have been games where, no sooner does he come out of the box for boarding or tripping or making a guy shit his breezers in fear, that the ref slaps him with another 2 for something else. It's PAINFUL to watch, especially if you have a particular fondness for the player. Because you know he's just gotta be frustrated as all hell, and as a fan, it's just frustrating for the team's performance.

So, I really don't see Scotty in the NHL. Yeah, he's huge and tough and has amazing reach, all of which are useful, but he's just gonna get his ass handed to him by the speedy forwards in the league. And if he's not into the enforcer role all that much, what else is there? He did play forward a few times this past season and seemed to have fun letting loose a little bit, but I'm not sure converting him to forward is the answer and I don't think he'd want that anyway. But who really knows. I know the guys in Minnesota love the big galoots so we'll see what kinda look he gets at training camp. But I don't see Lemaire trusting him over others.

Finally, here's my favorite Scotty story: Last season when Reitz was injured and sitting in the broadcast booth with Shaver during a game, somebody on the other team was hassling one of the Aeros forwards (can't remember who). The game was close but Scotty decided to defend his teammate anyway and take the instigator. Reitz questioned the decision but said, basically, that's just Johnny and his "big teddy bear heart."

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Prospect Watch 2008: Erik "Who Are You?" Reitz

NHL.com sez:

Erik Reitz -- He spent the entire 2007-08 season in Houston before joining the Wild for the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Wild were so thrilled with Reitz's play that they rewarded their sixth-round pick from 2000 -- who just finished his sixth campaign in Houston -- with a one-way contract for next season. Reitz, who's 6-1 and 215 pounds, had 34 points and 99 penalty minutes in 49 games for the Aeros.

"He was the best defenseman on the ice in the games I saw. He finished the year with us in the playoffs," Thompson said. "We intend for him to be one of our defenseman this season. He has a good, solid two-way game. He's a feisty guy. He can shoot from the point. He's physical. He's a good player."

Ms. Conduct sez:
You don't think "thrilled" might be a bit of an overstatement? Then again, with the skanky level of player loyalty (to everyone but Gabby) the team has demonstrated this summer, the fact that he got a contract at all says they were at least "really really happy." Well, that and he came really cheap.

Anyway, Reitzy. Get this: I've never been to an Aeros game where Reitz wasn't on the roster. That's a long ass time to be in the AHL and not get a cuppa, my friend. But he did finally get his shot and he did play solid in his few minutes on the ice. I'm glad he was rewarded for his patient time here in Houston and I hope he knocks 'em dead in Minny.

But do I think he will for sure? I dunno. He spent a lot of last season battling injuries because he does play a pretty physical game. Fortunately, they signed him early in the off-season so he's hopefully been able to rest easy and recover from last season and train for next season appropriately.

Of course, the other thing is that I don't even really consider him a prospect any more. He's not OLD but he's not one of the "yutes" anymore either. I think he's either going to be good enough or he's not and we'll know it pretty quickly. The frosted side of me thinks he's going to rise to the occasion. The wheat side of me says thinks he may not be fast or durable enough. As I often say, the truth is probably going to be somewhere in the middle.

Bottom line: He's a good hockey player who's hard to intimidate, doesn't take any crap off anybody, and, while he's not a "tough guy," he'll drop the mitts without a whole lot of hesitation. He just needs to bring HIS GAME to the NHL and make the most of this chance.

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Prospect Watch 2008: Marco "Polo" Scandella

NHL.com sez:

Marco Scandella -- The converted forward was grabbed by the Wild in the second round in the 2008 Draft. The Montreal native has grown remarkably over the past few years -- he's now 6-2 and 190 pounds -- and the Wild are excited about his potential to be a stay-at-home defenseman. Scandella had 14 points and 35 penalty minutes for Val-d'Or in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League this season.

"Our doctors said he had as athletic a body as any of the prospects he'd seen," Thompson said. "This guy is one of these late developers. Three years ago, he was undrafted in the Quebec League as a 5-foot-9, 140-pound center."

Ms. Conduct sez:
Aww, he has ReitzHair! Cute! (Not the best picture though. He looks like he's in some kinda Wild-branded prison.)

Beyond that, I got nothing on this kid. There's no video. There's no nothing. So, why is he listed so high? Maybe these lists aren't meant to be in order, but it seems the forwards were. Of course, just because I don't know boo about him doesn't mean he's not better than every other defensive prospect except Cuma. *skeptical face*

But since I haven't seen him play, I'm just gonna focus on what I know: He has the very cute ReitzHair, a great "wing span," was drafted way higher than anyone expected (too high?), he's too young to play in the AHL for 2 more years (but he's already almost big enough to go pro... how huge will he be in 2010-11?), and he's fluent in English, French, and Italian.

It's not often in hockey that we are blessed with our very own:

Ciao infermiera!

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Prospect Watch 2008: Peter "The Librarian" Olvecky

NHL.com sez:

Peter Olvecky -- In his third full season in Houston, the Wild's third-round selection from 2004 set a career high with 17 goals in 61 games. Regarded as a solid two-way player, Thompson believes Olvecky's late development is partly because the franchise didn't know where he was best suited.

"He's a guy that turned things around," Thompson said. "We didn't know what he was. We didn't know if he was a center or a winger or offensive or defensive. We never really knew. The second half of the year, he played a lot better. Hopefully he'll give some people a run for their money in camp."

Ms. Conduct sez:

Again, a frustratingly vague analysis from TT. He poses all these questions and never answers them. How'd he turn things around? Is he a center, winger, offense, defensive? I sure don't know based on watching Peter play last season (and apparently the prior TWO season, which I don't remember him at all).

And frankly, I can't fill in those blanks. The most I can say for sure about Peter is that he's a solid, even-keeled hockey player who will get you 30 points a year regardless of the system. The thing is, he apparently missed 29 games this season, but I had no idea. That's only 5 more games than Stoner played, but his absence I was keenly aware of.

In fact, if someone took the stats away from me and asked me how many games each guy played, I would have said Stoner played 50 and Olvecky played 70 (and wow, isn't he durable?). I'd be wrong all the way around on that guess, but it just demonstrates that whatever impact Peter has, it's a very, very quiet one. Shhhh!

Also, he had by far the worst plus/minus of the top 5 scorers for the Aeros. Ten below Reitz, who was +5 in 49 games.

I don't dislike Peter, but he's got "warm body" status in my mind. I haven't seen him make any big improvements (though his goals were up a bit this season) in his 3 years here, where some of the previous low key guys made fairly large strides. TT seems to think he has found his mojo, but I until I see evidence, it seems to me he's really just meeting the basic requirements:

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Waiting for Edouard

As if Houston summers aren't fun enough with the $500 electric bills and heat stroke, we also get hurricanes. This one doesn't look to be too big a deal. I filled up some water bottles and margarita pitchers (all four of them) and bought some Dos Equis for when the water runs out. ;) I'm all set for whatever comes our way.

Anyway, I never did recap yesterday's game. But this should sum it up pretty well... before yesterday, I couldn't tell you the last time I went to sleep with a smile on my face. I went to sleep with a smile on my face last night. And not just because I was tuned into one of my favorite guilty pleasure movies (Robin Hood: Men in Tights... I know, but it's a Cary Elwes thing).

It was just plain fun last night. Not the Festival of Intimidation that it was my first week. I did more than one thing well, I tried to hustle when I was sure what direction to hustle in, and I got a shot on goal from a really pretty pass my center sent me in the slot. I even blocked a clearing shot in our offensive zone. Some would call it just being in the way, but they can suck it. :)

I'm still amazed by how nice and patient and encouraging everyone is. The littlest thing done right, the smallest successes are cheered. Of course, my cynical nature doesn't know what to do with that on a rational level, but I appreciate it none the less. Fortunately, Coach Stalin gives me the straight dope.

It was a big game for her, as well, as she switched to playing D, which I've been telling her is her calling in hockey. She's a mean little defenseman, which is great since she's on my team. I laughed about Reitzy's autograph on her stick giving her special hockey powers, but I swear, she's a different player since he signed it.

We played 3 periods, practiced for a bit, and then played another 15 minutes to run out our ice time. Next week is a full stop time game like the first game and my parents are going to be in town so I'll have an audience. Yak! Of course, it's nearly impossible to tell who I am out there. In fact, I think there are two of us on the green team wearing #6. All my gear is black, except my socks, which are red. I guess that will have to be the cue. The one in red socks who's behind the play. Pfft!

Anyway, it's 3 a.m. and I've been writing this post the entire length of that movie Body Heat. Apparently it's some kind of theme night on HDNet because there have been lots of women killing men, including The Last Seduction, in which the guy leaves to play hockey. So, you know. Hockey. Cool.

I think that's enough for tonight. Been up so long, I'm hungry again.

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"So, tell us about... hockey!"

Oh dear. I ran across this video and it's just painful. Welcome to hockey in Houston.

Though I will give Erik credit for keeping a straight face.

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Congrats Wolves

All of you except Deveaux, who can bite me. And probably would. :P I kid... I'm sure Andre is a swell guy.

Also, congrats to Erik Reitz as it sounds like he's signing a one-way contract with the Wild for next season. He may not have been given much chance to earn that spot in Minny but he earned it in Houston none the less. I'm delighted for him and can't wait to watch him next season.

Tamitopia alerted me to this fabulous t-shirt. If I had to pick a logo to represent me, that would come about as close as anything possibly could.

Didn't work out today. Bad Ms. Conduct. Time for bed. Past time, really. But I'm watching a Detroit/Toronto game from 1971. Looks like video from the 50s. Cool to watch. The beauty of the game never changes. Plante got his bell rung. Thank god for modern goalie masks.

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Getting back

I haven't posted much but I've been watching lots of hockey. I have been slacking big time on the workout front, but that's about to change.

Pro hockey

My Wild got knocked out of it by the Avs. We have one less loaf of bread in the house because I took it all out on Mrs. Baird. The boys played hard all playoffs, but we were just out played, out experienced. I respect what the Avs did, but I still hate Floppa and likely will not root for them in Round 2. Many questions on the Wild side of things, so it's going to be a very interesting off-season.

I'm particularly interested in the decisions they're going to make around goaltending. Backstrom is expensive and average. Harding seems to be the "future of the franchise" even though he's frighteningly inconsistent from my perspective. And then we have two stellar AHL goalies in Houston who both deserve an opportunity to move up in the world after their amazing play this year, yet I don't want to lose either of them from this organization. I would lose some serious sleep over this if I was GM.

The Aeros are playing game 3 of the first round of playoffs tonight. Right now the series is split and they're home for 3 games. I don't expect them to win it out here at home. We're too bi-polar to pull that off. One of these nights (probably tonight) will be bad. However, it's nice to have Reitzy back from Minny and we'll see how it goes with Pouliot. All these guys are playing team hockey and if he's not bringing that to the table, I'd rather he just go sit in the press box. But I'm excited about the game. Gotta savor these last few home hockey games... never know when it will all be over.

Amateur hockey

So, I've been basically doing nothing towards my goaltending ambitions other than that terrible skate on Thursday. And it's been eating away at me, so I sat down last night with a spreadsheet and put down all the workouts I'd like to be fitting into a week and made a schedule for myself. That worked well when I was marathon training because it wasn't this, "Oh, what do I want to do today?" thing I've been doing. Plus, it takes care of the overwhelming feeling that there's SO MUCH I could be doing to train and how the hell can I fit it all in? I still wish I could work out twice a day, but that's really not a realistic expectation of myself for the long haul.

So, here's the plan, though the days can shift around, since getting out to skate can sometimes vary:

SUNDAY
Interval training: Running and walking, followed up by a plyometrics session

MONDAY
Yoga

TUESDAY
Upper body strength training & Pilates

WEDNESDAY
Skating and Stretch-a-Flex*

THURSDAY
Lower body strength training

FRIDAY
Rest

SATURDAY
Skating or spinning and Stretch-a-Flex*

*Stretch-a-Flex is this device that helps you increase your flexibility using this long band and your body weight. Comes with a DVD, as well as some goalie-specific stretches.

So, that's the plan. Of course, I'm screwing it up immediately by skating on Friday this week. I'm taking the day off for my birthday and going to the mid-day public skate at Willowbrook. Yay! Very much looking forward to that. I need to see about getting my pelvis adjusted again though. I'm back to being shaky on the ice for the first half hour. I need my balance back. It makes such a HUGE difference, it's unbelieveable.

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Thursday Skate

Sometimes the skating gods hold you aloft, steady you, allow you to suddenly do the thing you've been tearing your hair out over for weeks, and give you beautiful ice....

And then some days, they dump 50 teenagers on your tiny Galleria rink, screeching and falling everywhere. They give you The Worst Ice EVER. Melting and scraped to pieces, even after the "Zamboni" has gone over it. And then, after you've spent an unproductive hour and a half skating in these miserable conditions, they knock you on your ass while practicing stops.

I'm pretty sure my blood pressure was off the charts by the time I got home from this skate last night. I basically told Coach Stalin as soon as we hit the ice that this wasn't a lesson skate. It was a "survival" skate. Don't bother bossing me around tonight.

I will say, it's a lot easier to stop on that soft ice, which is why I fell... I'd been practicing on the soft (melting, slushy) ice at the end of the rink and then went to the center because all the figure skaters had left, but the ice was harder there and I just bit it. Not nearly as hard as last time, thankfully. Coach skated over and said, "You worked hard enough today." :)

But as I said, I worked on stopping a bit, skated most of the time working on keeping my knees bent and using good stride form. The rest of my energy was spent dodging falling teenagers and giving them all as much stinkeye as I could muster.

Though at one point, a group of guys was skating past me toward Coach and they were crowding her in a way that sent up a red flag in my head, and I instantly knew what it felt like when teammates stand up for each other. My only thought was, "If you f'ing touch her, you're all going down." Hah! Like I would have really done anything but that was the very visceral reaction I had to seeing that. Of course, I was seriously worked up at these youngsters anyway, so it wasn't a far reach to want to beat the snot out of them.

I'm resting up today, because tomorrow I'm waterproofing the deck and that's going to be backbreaking. Though if I feel so inclined, I might do a little yoga so I can make it through the Aeros first playoff game tonight. Pondering whether to just listen on the radio or invest the $6 in watching it on B2. Hopefully I can get a quality report from other subscribers before I go in for it. It's bad about 80% of the time, it seems.

Wild are down 2-3 in their playoff series. It sucks but Theodore is just f'ing lights out right now. We just couldn't get the puck past him. Backstrom is average as usual, particularly considering our depleted defensive corps. However, Reitz did a good solid job for his first game in over a month AND his first NHL game this season. Pouliot needs to gain 10-15 lbs so he isn't shoved off the puck so easily. Strong on the puck, Pouly! Strong on the puck!

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Monday in Swampville

It's warm and humid out today, January 28th. I'm SO glad I've taken up ice hockey!

Had planned to go skate at lunch today, but I think I'm going to do stuff at home instead. Some light plyometrics, squats, lunges, abs, groin stretches. As much as I hate that Gratton a-hole from the San Antonio Rampage, the boy is LIMBER. He does splits and other huge stretches to warm up before every period (right in front of us with his butt in our faces, so we can't miss it). And he's not a goalie. I'm guessing he's got a grumpy groin so that's how he keeps it in check. I thought I saw Gabby doing the same thing at the All Star Game. Mr. Groinitis himself.

Really enjoyed the AHL Skills competition last night (actually finishing watching it while I eat lunch today since Com(plete idiot)cast cut the game off for a Patriots press conference last night). Reitzy and Schaef looked terrific and pretty happy to be there. The game tonight should be fun. Nice to have something positive happening for the guys during this slump. Maybe they'll bring some renewed enthusiasm and go-get-'em-ness back. :)

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