dirtystylus

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. More…

Victory!

We picked up our first win of the season over the weekend, a 12-1 win over the Rockets. I was centering the second line, after playing right wing last game. My line generated five goals, four coming from left winger John K, and one from our right winger Harry. The LW on the top line, Scott, picked up a hat trick.

I ended up with four assists on the night — I only realized after the game that I hadn’t taken a single shot on net, but most of that was due to the fact that my wingers were constantly parked all alone in front of the net. It was nice to have lots of time to take a look around and make a play with the puck, a luxury we didn’t get last week against a much better defensive team. Patience is definitely key at this level, because it seems everyone is rushing to make a play. On Harry’s goal two separate Rockets players were battling me for the puck to the left of the net, and I just waited for both to whack and whiff at the puck before sliding the puck over to Harry at the right post, where he buried it. On the bench he told me, “I wasn’t quite sure what you were waiting for there” because I waited so long to make the pass.

Strangely enough the play that I keep rewinding in my head is one that didn’t result in a goal. In the second period I broke in on a two-on-one on the left side, with JK on the right. I slipped the puck past the defenseman right onto JK’s stick, but their goalie made the save. It was one of the few times where all the stuff they drilled into our heads during the 13-week instructional came together — I had my head up the whole way, and made a tape-to-tape pass. This is something we often couldn’t pull off during two-on-none drills in the instructional session, so I feel like I’m making small bits of progress.

The official Sled Dogs jerseys for new team members haven’t arrived yet, so we look like a patchwork quilt out there with numbers taped on the back of practice jerseys. I’ve been wearing number 17 (Jari Kurri!), because it’s easy to tape onto the back.

Hockey Weekend

Played my first game with the Sled Dogs Saturday afternoon, a 4-2 defeat to the Hotshots. We played without our goalie for the first 5 minutes or so, allowing one goal, so it was a bit closer than the score would make it appear. I felt like we played a lot better towards the end of the game, as we got used to new linemates and their speed/tendencies. I didn’t register a point despite being double-shifted on RW during the game, but my line got some good cycling chances in the last few shifts during the third period. I think once our roster settles down we’ll be a lot better. The next game is against the Rockets, 8:30pm this Saturday. I can’t wait.

I also managed to swing by the new Rbk/NHL flagship store in midtown on Sunday, after Evan and I caught an afternoon showing of Blade Runner (more on that limited re-release later). The store was ok – a bit dissapointing in that it was mostly a showcase for the new Rbk Edge jerseys, but nice to see the NHL at least try to pretend it’s still a major sport in this country. Evan and I got in a few periods of NHL 08, which they had running on an Xbox 360 (the PS3 was running NHL 2K8). I’ll have to get that game at some point. Which system to buy and play it on is still up in the air. Play Russian roulette with Microsoft’s dodgy hardware, or go with the PS3, which is having one of the most muddled console launches in history (you get the feeling that Sony felt the gaming part would just take care of itself while they established a beachhead for Blu-Ray, and gamer’s haven’t been convinced). If that rumored $400 PS3 comes about, though, my dilemma may be solved.

NHL 08

Played the NHL 08 demo this past week on the resurrected office XBox 360. I was very impressed. Graphics and sound were eye-poppingly good. I hadn’t played NHL 07 so the control scheme was new to me, but I found it to be very intuitive. The puck mechanics feel very realistic, and thankfully the checking is closer to reality, with fewer of the explosive checks that seemed to come so easily in previous years.

The Kings are already two games into their exhibition season (they started camp/exhibitions early because they’re off to London to start the season in October). They recently split a home-and-home against the Ducks. It’s nice to hear that they might actually have a proper second line with Handzus centering Nagy and O’Sullivan. That’ll take some pressure off Kopitar/Cammalleri and Frolov. That does leave Dustin Brown on the third line, however, and I was thinking late last season that he was just starting to put some scoring touch to his hard-hitting game. Hopefully he won’t regress in that area playing with guys like Armstrong and Calder.

I ended up getting the Supreme One90 gloves (I probably should’ve stayed away from nikebauer.com, they make the One90s sound like I’ll suddenly turn into Dany Heatley) and the Intake helmet; both should arrive in time to get broken in at this Wednesday’s clinic.

Breakaway Drills

I’ve signed up to play Division 8 (aka the Slip ‘n Fall division) hockey at Chelsea Piers with the Sled Dogs. I’m looking forward to a season of flubbed passes, accidental goals, and weak clearing attempts.

At last night’s clinic we ran a few different drills, including breakaway drills where they drop a puck at center ice and two guys on opposite ends of the goal line race for it. It appears I’ve lost a lot of acceleration in the last few years, because I only won the puck two out of four times. In my defense one of the guys I lost to was about 6’4″ and he just out-reached me. It was like Theo Fleury against Mario Lemieux out there, reach-wise.

I also tried on a few helmets at the pro shop, hoping to find a candidate to replace my old Mission bucket. I first tried the Bauer 8500 (which Joseph uses) but I couldn’t get it to fit comfortably. I then tried the Mission Intake, which felt a lot better. As for gloves I tried on the Vapor XX pair, but the cuff on those is huge! So it looks like the Supreme One70 or (if I splurge a little) the Supreme One90. I know, hockey gear is so fascinating.

NHL 08 got released this week, and it’s getting some pretty good reviews. I’m tempted to get a system just to play this game, but it looks like I’ll be sticking to the real thing for now. I realized the last version of the game I owned was NHL 98, a decade ago. This is the first year that EA seems to have gone for more realism as opposed to arcade-style hockey.

Speaking of systems, the office XBox is still in the shop arrived right after I posted this, which makes this shirt oh so very appropriate: