I has a trophy

Ahhh.... blissful 4 days without the pads on. I love playing and I'm so so SO grateful that I get to do it, but like a lot of awesome things, I was teetering on the edge of too much.

Especially since I was running for several days on too little sleep. I ended up taking a sick day today and sleeping for probably 6 hours on and off through the day. Needed the rest badly to head off yet another cold that was threatening. Vitamin C is a miracle drug.

But I had a very good drop-in tonight and heard lots of "AW COME ON!" and "DAMMIT!" as I shut those shooters down. So it's a positive way to go into a little break.

Another positive thing is that Bonnie brought me the TROPHY I WON at the tournament this weekend. It's the Unsung Hero Award (Female) for showing up on short notice and getting a solid win.

DILLO, it says. 

As I told the girls tonight, my entire goaltending career relies essentially on being reliable and showing up when I say I will and not having kids or a difficult/travel-heavy job so that I'm generally available even on short notice. I may not be all that good, but by god, I'll be there and I'll try hard.

Anyway, I don't think I've gotten a trophy for playing a sport since I was about 8 or 9 playing soccer. I was a fullback and mostly stood around and trash talked girls when they got close to the net. So my defensive mentality and mouthiness comes naturally.

But since they didn't give trash talk awards to 8 year old girls, the trophies we got were basically participation awards that everyone got at season's end.

In fact, I think I've won a trophy for writing more recently than those soccer trophies. First place in some writing contest about going to see the Peter and the Wolf symphony concert with my class. Dorky.

I know it's silly, but this little gal may finally be the thing to get me to buy a shelf for my hockey nicknacks to go in my office, which I'm secretly trying to turn into a Den of Hockey. Don't tell Mr.C. I'm trying to find a Hextall Fathead to put on my wall and then I'll be in business. :)

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Long, boring, as-if-you-cared post

Daylight Savings Time can kiss my round goalie ass.

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So, what was looking to be a fairly sedate weekend turned super duper busy at 3 p.m. yesterday when I got a frantic email from one of the folks at the Paddy Dillo tournament down at SLICE. One team lost their goalie, who is a doctor specializing in radiation and had to leave for Japan (as good a reason as any to ditch a hockey tournament). So they needed someone to fill in.

Game at 4:30. Yipes! Especially considering I hadn't really eaten much yet.

So I go with really no notion of the level I'm playing or anything. But I figure I'm better than no goalie at all (which has pretty much been my motto since I started playing).

Anyway, the hockey gods shine on me and give me the best puck luck I've ever had. The other team must have hit 10 posts. An inch here or there and I woulda been lit up like a roman candle, but we got the win 3-1.

Knowing that I played okay but mostly survived on luck left me feeling not very satisfied with my game. Not bothered really but not cranking the tunes on the way home either.

So, I guess I passed muster and they asked me back for the 9:15 a.m. Sunday game. They'd lost their first two games so there was no chance of going to the finals. We were basically just acting as spoilers for the rest of the teams. I think they had to beat us by 5 or 6 goals to get into the finals, and they did.

All that puck luck I used on Saturday was long gone for Sunday. I think I got a piece of nearly everything that went in but it would hit my stick and bounce over my head in to the net. Shit like that.

And in these Dillo tourneys, goals by women count as 2 points. It's smart in terms of encouraging passing to the ladies, but shitty for goalies as it can quickly make them look way worse than they were. Fortunately folks don't seem to take things too seriously, which makes it a pretty fun gig for a goalie and makes up for the statistical downer.

Anyway, the second game, in spite of the 7-1 loss, was actually more satisfying to me. Not sure why. I actually didn't feel like I had as bad a game as the score showed. Plus I was done with a rather grinding 18 hours of goaltending responsibilities (3 games, including one for the Willowbrook novice league Saturday night). I think having that off my shoulders was part of the light feeling after that game.

I had fun at novice (and won 3-2) even though I was crazy tired and didn't really want to be there. It was fun to see the guys I was having so much fun playing with the last couple of seasons (in spite of sort of zoning out on the league in general). A couple of them begged me to come back next season but man, I hate playing Saturdays.

And to be honest, it's hard to get up for the practices. It's just skating lightning or some other warm-up thing, and then a million shots that I don't learn much from and just end up with aching knees from all the up and downs. It's great for the skaters but by the end, I was getting more damage than benefit.

But my knee is a lot better lately so we'll see. They're trying to expand to 4 teams, so there is a goalie need for sure and the potential for a ton of ice time. Maybe if I could work into my contract that I don't have to do skating drills. :D

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Anyway, after all that hockey, and then an incredibly-dull-until-the-third-period-6-goal-avalanche Aeros game, I was a zombie tonight. Went to bed at 9:30, watched OTF, fell asleep for 20 minutes and then Mr.C woke me up to show me the Aeros highlights on the news (solid!). And now I'm a zombie but can't sleep.

And the soreness has set in. I've got bruises everywhere. Ankle, shins, the BACK of my right arm, all up and down the inside of my left arm, my hip (from ramming into a stick holder peg on the wall... broke it clean off. Oops. Sorry SLICE.) My groins are sore, my lower abs are sore, my quads are tired, my stick hand is aching.

And I get to go do it again Monday night at drop-in. And then again Wednesday at Harpies (which I signed up for because I'm missing Tuesday's women's league game and wanted to make sure I got enough ice time... uh... yeah, pretty sure I've met the quota).

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Vacation was good. 10th anniversary come and gone at our usual spot in Fredericksburg. Hot tub, running around in the river with the dog, hiking the trails in the woods, disconnecting a bit. It was good. Twitter felt pretty overwhelming when I got on Friday afternoon. :)

My old dawg <3

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Swiss Goalie (full of holes but neutral)

I survived the 3 on 3 tournament and actually had fun. I think I played 5 15-min games in 5 hours, though it felt like more.

As much as I was dreading the effort level of 3 on 3, I really didn't see more shots than 2 goalies would normally see in 15 minutes of play. Which, at the novice level, isn't a tremendous amount. There was effort defensively (which I'm sure my high-quality goaltending inspired) and in general, apart from a few ringers, was relatively not-insane work. It was just more constant work, so from that perspective, it was pretty fun. I was busy but never "pleasegod, someoneshootthepuckovertheglass" exhausted.

What was really interesting was the mental side of it. Obviously for pride's sake, I wanted to play my best regardless of which team was shooting on me at the moment (and honestly, I wasn't always sure). But it was so easy to let go of bad goals and really, the outcome of the games was almost entirely inconsequential to me, at least objectively.

In this type of play, where you're the goalie for both teams, assuming you're doing the best you can do given the level of fatigue (which got pretty bad as the night wore on, even though I buzzed on adrenaline until well after sun-up), it's a pretty even match. I can honestly say, from my perspective, the team that won the championship was, on average, the most skilled team. They capitalized on my weaknesses a few more times than the other teams did, and that was enough. I let in soft goals, but I let in soft goals for both teams.

They were organized, too. A cheering section with signs and t-shirts. They had a warm-up routine and seemed to know each other well on the ice. I didn't know any of them, but knew just about everybody on the other 3 teams, so I was personally biased toward my friends. Yet I had this team in Every. Single. Game I tended. Which is how I know they were better, because even if I had subconsciously favored the teams with my friends on them, they still managed to win or tie.

Ah well, good for them. They worked hard and had fun and earned their medals. And their cheering section was loud and proud. And they liked me a lot, too. Go figure. Would have preferred some boos or something.

Anyway, once that was all done, we had some breakfast at about 5:30 a.m. at Katz's. Apart from not having bacon (kosher!), I delighted in stuffing my face and then coming home and crashing for a few hours. I think all I did today was sleep, eat, and do laundry. Lemme tell you, I've had worse days.

Though after nap #3, the soreness set into my legs, especially the left one with the bum knee. I only have about 90 degrees of bend in that knee at the moment, which sucks. And it hurt pretty bad all night during the tournament. Butterflying is NOT my friend right now and I'll definitely be wearing knee pads Tuesday.

It's so swollen that if I press at the point where my quad connects to the knee cap, I can feel the fluids or whatever moving all the way down at the base of my kneecap. Eww. But I'm icing and Adviling and really, it 100% feels like an overuse type of thing rather than a pull or something acute. So I'm not too worried. It's mostly just annoying and uncomfortable and makes me wish I didn't live in a 3 story house.

Even better is the nice bruise just above my knee where a line drive from the high slot beamed me unprotected. I yelled so loud when it hit, everyone around the net started asking if I was okay. I was, but the pain startled me and left an immediate bruise. Good to have a war wound (other than the swollen knee) commensurate with the battle. :)

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I'm even bored by this post. Sorry. I was reading back through some old posts during the season, and find that I'm more interesting when crusading about something. Fired up, passionate, indignant, etc. I got nothin' at the moment. Just little ol' me playing some hockey, hobbling around, being a dork. Summer in Ms.Conductland, limping through to October.

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Naptastic and Cecilicious!

Just when my knee is starting to feel like I don't have aliens living in it, I get to go wreck it again tonight. First with a novice game at 7 and then with a 3 on 3 tournament from 11 p.m.- 8 a.m.

I've never met a goalie who enjoys a 3 on 3 tournament, but I'll do my best. At least I'm only playing against myself, so if I suck for one team, so does the other goalie. :) Never done a tournament of any kind before, and certainly not one like this where I don't have a a single team relying on me. I really don't know what to expect, but I'm sure it will be more fun than I'm expecting.

Also getting started with the women's league out at Space City on Tuesday, but at least I have Mondays off for a couple of weeks. I SHOULD go to Scotty's goalie clinic Monday, but not this week. As much as I get out of those, I need to rest as much as possible to get my knee recovered from camp. I still can't sit cross-legged and it hurts like hell to kneel on it, so getting dressed is going to be fun.

Honestly, I'm a little burned out but I don't see a break coming for ... ever. I just need to be careful and cry "uncle" for a week if I get too fried.

One thing that was awesome about camp was that my whole life, for one week, was about being a goalie. I don't know any goalie (amateur, anyway) who doesn't wish they could just focus on that. No work, no family obligations, nothing but stopping pucks. Heaven.

And even when the stopping pucks was less successful than I'd want, there was always another chance to redeem myself right behind it. I think that helps you not obsess so much on one ice session. A clean slate is just hours away. I guess that's the trade-off for the grind that pro goalies experience?

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When I play Tuesday, I should have my new chest protector on, assuming I like the Vaughn Epic 8606 as much as the 8800 I tried on in person. I sure hope so. My old Brian's is hanging together by a thread.

Speaking of which, apparently the glue in my mask doesn't like going on airplane rides because a couple of major pieces fell out. Fortunately I was able to kind of wedge them in place and get by last week, but I finally glued them back in yesterday. And a piece inside my glove has come unstitched, too. Less sure what to do about that since it's in a not very sewing friendly spot, but it makes my glove so loose, I keep losing it. More super glue? :)

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But never mind all that. Right now, the Jays are on and Brett Cecil is pitching. And this new kid Escobar has flair to spare, so you know I like that, even in my baseball boys. Go Birdies! And I apologize if I sleep through half the game. Got a long night tonight.

(Have I told you I have all these KC Royals shirts from when Mr.C went to "free shirt night" there and ended up bringing me 3? So when I wear them, I pretend they're Blue Jays shirts. I'm not sure if that's more sad or brilliant.)

And because I know I have readers who love this song:

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