Tally it up
Scrimmaged with some of my team and some D7 players on Wednesday. That was a lot of fun – up and down the ice, playing with guys who could skate and stickhandle pretty well. I managed to eke out a goal and an assist, but I missed two clear chances on net.
Last night was my first game in a long while, and I was still recovering from being sick most of Friday. Most of us finally got our jerseys, so we look more like a real team rather than a collection of ringers. I now wear number 30 (the Sled Dogs have a D7 team as well, so the numbers are scattered through the divisions). Added bonus: my name is actually spelled correctly on my jersey.
We played the Hotshots, who are currently atop the D8 league standings. I guess everyone was feeling a lot of New Year cheer, because it was probably the chippiest game I’ve every played in. Bryan got tossed midway through the 2nd period (in his defense he was just retaliating after being hacked and slashed the entire first period). Darrell got his skates spat upon by a charming gentleman after a little bit of yapping back-and-forth. I think we were on the penalty kill three times during the game. Still, it was 1-1 at the end and after a scoreless overtime Andy won it for us in the shootout.
No points for me (I had a clean breakaway chance in the third that the goalie stopped) but I did rack up quite a few other stats: I took a puck off my inside thigh (where there’s minimal padding) while stepping in front of a shot. My right ankle got crunched when someone sat on it in a scrum. I caught the follow-through on a guy’s clearing attempt right on the cage (the world on mute for about 2 seconds). And, finally, a bruised knee after I swiped a puck off a guy’s stick and then fell awkwardly to the ice. Thankfully we won, otherwise getting up this morning would’ve been a lot harder.