Sled Dogs 3, Tigers 1
We won our second game in a row, a 3-1 tilt against the Tigers (to whom we lost in our opener). Thanks to Jordan and Evan for coming out to watch the graceful ballet of D8 hockey. I’m trying to get Evan back into hockey, hopefully it’ll take and we can wreak havoc next season. I didn’t get on the scoreboard, but my line had some decent opportunities. I was back on RW for the game, essentially switching places with Harry who moved to center. Not too many highlights – I had a few rushes down the wing where I centered the puck, but there was no finish at the end. My best play was probably the neutral zone pass I made to send Stiff (our 1st line center) in on a clean breakaway that their goalie stopped.
One thing I definitely want to work on next game is defensive coverage for my position. I kept leaving my point/half-board zone to try and “help” out the D, but that left the points wide open a few times. After the game we talked a bit about trusting your teammates to make a play, and sticking to your D responsibilities. The other thing I want to work on is being stronger on the boards. I kept losing battles along the boards when we were trying to clear the zone. I’m fine skating the puck out, but I have to get better at chipping the puck out when the pressure’s on.
The game was complicated by the fact that most of our team had attended a free session at Chelsea Piers’ Bluestreak program and we were still feeling lingering soreness from that. They split us into groups of five, and ran us through three separate segments. My group started on their artificial ice surface (feels like skating on waxy plastic) to work on passing, shots, and stickhandling. The stickhandling drills were particularly intense – they had us start by sliding a short length of PVC pipe onto our stick, which our lower hand gripped. That done, we worked on stickhandling with these heavy ‘cannonballs’ – a large one, then down to a smaller, lighter one, and then finally the puck. Then they had us remove the PVC pipe and stickhandle normally. By that time the puck felt like nothing and we were moving it around with ease.
We then moved to the hockey treadmill, where they strapped us to harnesses and then had us skate at varying inclines and speeds. If you look at some of the video on the Bluestreak site you’ll see what I mean. The coach started to point out different things that we could do to get more power in our individual strides (he mentioned that I swing my arms too far out when skating, instead of forward-to-back).
We ended with some core exercises with the medicine ball and balance platforms. I wish we had started with this section because by that point I was beat. By Saturday my right shoulder was killing me, and my abs felt only marginally better. Thankfully my legs felt ok so I could at least skate hard, but I definitely felt that my stickhandling was a ton slower (and weaker) than its already dismal state.