Thursday, September 4, 2008

Revival of the amatuer, somewhat sucky new hockey player, minus Douglas

We were late. And it smelled like lip stick. Crisp and cold; waxy? My dad had chosen to take the super-highway but that ended up being longer than through Geneva. Practice had started at 10:15. It was like 10:23. We had gone in like every entrance in the sports-complex, and were in the completely wrong part. I heard "Shut up and let me go" on the speakers. Eventually we found the locker rooms, after walking around the perimeter of the rink, with no way to get down to the rink level. I saw the players, rather big, stretch and warm-up. I rushed putting my stuff on, having not done it in 6 months. The locker room was probably the woman's one because there were only 2 bags. I walked outside, my dad only in his skates, just wanting to work on skating. The team was now doing some drill where they passed and deked the goalie. The goalie was wearing an Ann Arbor jersey, amazingly. I walked on the ice, and this guy in a white jersey floated toward us. My dad introduced me and he shook my hand, which still had my glove on it. I still need to work on taking off my gloves to shake hands. Eh. So then he told us (he was the coach) to just warm up on the other side of the rink and then join them when I was ready. The ice was already pretty worn, so I had issues stopping. But I hadn't forgotten my skills. Not all of them anyway. I stick-handled, took some shots, did cross-overs.... etc. Then the players floated over here and were split into two sides. One side was the really good one. I was in the ok/amateur one I guess. We did some drills, making me sort of confused at first. We passed to the person across from the rink and they passed back and you went an scored. I went second, after this guy startled me by saying, with an American accent, "Hey you wanna go first?" I just nodded and muttered a small thanks. There was this other woman there, and she was supposed to be like my partner. We did some drills I knew about, like passing to each other while we skated back and forward. I like that one. Then we did shooting drills. Well. I must say, some of those guys really had a powerful slap-shot. But some of them couldn't quite slap it even. And for most of them they couldn't really even manage to slap the puck. Huh. I had some ok shots, but had to really propel the puck, since we were like 5+ feet from the blue line. Which is pretty far from the goal, if you didn't know. But I have an ok wrist shot I guess. My stick was pretty good too.
At the end we got to do a five-on-five, which I love. I was wearing my white A2 jersey so I was on the white team. That had the coach on it. There were some really good guys on the team. This one guy, on the other team, spoke English and I had sort of broken the puck free from the people so I was sort of on a breakaway. Problem was, I couldn't control the puck- it was too fast. So the American guy was like, "Yeah that's your puck! Protect it!" He said in a half-mock voice to be nice/mocking/whatever. Anyway. It was a good practice I guess. I started off on left wing at first, then somehow changed to defense which I didn't mind. I was so tired at the end. I hadn't stretched so I had a cramp. I drained my water bottle and was so sweaty. We talked in the locker room, and the one woman with the Ann Arbor jersey was the goalie and said she learned to play hockey there for 3 years. She was French though. And the other woman was Slovakian and was surprised I had only played 1 season.
I was very sweaty. It was 11:40 when we drove home. We listened to the radio and I heard "Lovesong" AGAIN. It's not a bad song. But yeah. I was going to take a shower when I got home but decided to do it in the morning. I was so tired. And sweaty. We got home at like 12:10, and I got to sleep at like 12:30 maybe, so I got like 6 hours of sleep. Not good.
That's like the only practice I can make- Wednesdays at 10:15-11:15. The other ones would be during the morning during school. I think Wednesday will be like my favorite day besides hockey. It'll be tough doing that and school, but hey- I get to play hockey!

4 comments:

Tina said...

Sorry this is off topic but how do you get such a cool title?

Amelia said...

Um well thanks I guess for thinking it's such a cool title. Oh wait- was that sarcastic? I'll just assume it wasn't. For creative titles, you gotta sort of distort or think more about what you'll write about. See a new angle. Maybe stretch it. That's how I do.

Tina is the hero of my day because she commented! 'Course the comment was.... could be... better but hey, All Hail the Teen-ster! Or well Tina. Seriously. You rock!!!!

Becca said...

Still insecure, are we? Asking Tina about whether she was being sarcastic with the title I mean.

It was a good title. No question.

I realize my comments don't do your posts justice, but try to cope, all right?

6 hours. Whew.

The half-mocking-voiced dude uses sarcasm as a anti-drug or way of life, as I do. It's what we thrive on, see. But I wasn't being sarcasm about the other stuff I said..before this I mean.

Amelia said...

Oh. Uh ok. Thanks.