Today I... (Part 3)

[Goonzilla]

Playoffs today, so we won game 1, and moved on to play the 2nd game one hour later. Our team played terrible in the second game and looked fatigued. Why? Because a majority of players decided that they were going to stop taking short shifts like they did in the first game and take 3 or 4 minute shifts. Even so, we were tied 2-2 going in to the 3rd, when I gave a "speech" about going hard for 1 or 2 minutes and then going for a change because we had more subs then them...Nothing changed in the 3rd, and we let a weaker team beat us because we were lazy on the backcheck due to being tired... It just seems so simple to me, if you're tired, get off! We have plenty of subs!

That story's a little too familiar. Get to the big games and some of the 'better' players take it upon themselves to come up with the big plays and end up trying to do too much by themselves. Inevitably they're not too good to come unstuck, skate long shifts, don't pull their weight defensively and you end up getting beat by a better team full of lesser players.

Even elite level players in any sport gotta let the puck or ball do most of the work. Being really good is about what you do or contribute off the puck as well as on it. You have to pick your moments to go highlight reel or you just end up being predictable.

 

[Ozz]

That story's a little too familiar. Get to the big games and some of the 'better' players take it upon themselves to come up with the big plays and end up trying to do too much by themselves. Inevitably they're not too good to come unstuck, skate long shifts, don't pull their weight defensively and you end up getting beat by a better team full of lesser players.

Even elite level players in any sport gotta let the puck or ball do most of the work. Being really good is about what you do or contribute off the puck as well as on it. You have to pick your moments to go highlight reel or you just end up being predictable.

What happens with one of my teams is that the lesser-talented players try to be that guy and that just causes more troubles from the ground up. We only have a couple devoted role player guys who know better, and they're always doing their job. I love those guys, they often (unnoticed by most, sadly) help keep the game flowing how we like it.


In recent news we lost in a shootout the same way we won our last game. Last time I was the only one to score in the shootout, this time none of us did and they only got one to slip by our tendy. We came out so sluggish, nothing felt right from the get-go. Too bad we have a 2-week wait until our next game, because I want to get this one behind us. Thankfully half of us play in another league Tuesday and can do so

 

[manictech]

Last night I took an elbow to the face. Either I didn't get hit that hard of my mouth guard actually saved my teeth. Feeling very disoriented today tho.

 

[leftwinger37]

Playoffs today, so we won game 1, and moved on to play the 2nd game one hour later. Our team played terrible in the second game and looked fatigued. Why? Because a majority of players decided that they were going to stop taking short shifts like they did in the first game and take 3 or 4 minute shifts. Even so, we were tied 2-2 going in to the 3rd, when I gave a "speech" about going hard for 1 or 2 minutes and then going for a change because we had more subs then them...Nothing changed in the 3rd, and we let a weaker team beat us because we were lazy on the backcheck due to being tired... It just seems so simple to me, if you're tired, get off! We have plenty of subs!

So frustrating. Had a big turnout for pickup last night and it was the same scene. For awhile we were making wholesale changes, which was nice. Oddly enough, when a couple of guys on our side left early to go to their league game, the shifts started getting longer. I hate having to support players that are not pulling their weight only because they are tired but won't get off the ice... Especially when we have six or seven guys waiting on the bench. Nobody can get into a rhythm because they're sitting on the bench for ten minutes at a time, but hey, at least you got your money's worth!

 

[JKinCLE]

My team won our first beer league game last night. Started the HNA school in January. Lost the 8 games we were given to test our new "skills" after the hockey school. Lost all 12 games in summer league sans one forfeit win. Lost our first 5 games this year including an OT loss.

Finally broke through with a 4-3 win last night against a team that has been playing together about 5 years. Its pretty sad, but it felt like we won the cup after all those losses. Finished with 1G+1A and an offsetting roughing minor. Non-checking leagues version of the Gordie Howe Hatty

Nobody wanted to be the first to lose to us so it was definitely a well deserved win.

 

[Sean Garrity]

That story's a little too familiar. Get to the big games and some of the 'better' players take it upon themselves to come up with the big plays and end up trying to do too much by themselves. Inevitably they're not too good to come unstuck, skate long shifts, don't pull their weight defensively and you end up getting beat by a better team full of lesser players.

Even elite level players in any sport gotta let the puck or ball do most of the work. Being really good is about what you do or contribute off the puck as well as on it. You have to pick your moments to go highlight reel or you just end up being predictable.

What happens with one of my teams is that the lesser-talented players try to be that guy and that just causes more troubles from the ground up. We only have a couple devoted role player guys who know better, and they're always doing their job. I love those guys, they often (unnoticed by most, sadly) help keep the game flowing how we like it.


In recent news we lost in a shootout the same way we won our last game. Last time I was the only one to score in the shootout, this time none of us did and they only got one to slip by our tendy. We came out so sluggish, nothing felt right from the get-go. Too bad we have a 2-week wait until our next game, because I want to get this one behind us. Thankfully half of us play in another league Tuesday and can do so

This was our problem. I'm one of our better players, but I recognize that I can't play 3 minutes of quality hockey, that I'm out of shape so when I'm tired I get off!

 

[OkimLom]

My team won our first beer league game last night. Started the HNA school in January. Lost the 8 games we were given to test our new "skills" after the hockey school. Lost all 12 games in summer league sans one forfeit win. Lost our first 5 games this year including an OT loss.

Finally broke through with a 4-3 win last night against a team that has been playing together about 5 years. Its pretty sad, but it felt like we won the cup after all those losses. Finished with 1G+1A and an offsetting roughing minor. Non-checking leagues version of the Gordie Howe Hatty

Nobody wanted to be the first to lose to us so it was definitely a well deserved win.

Nice

 

[Summer Rose]

Had probably one of the funniest falls of my officiating career today.

I was the linesman in a 3-man crew and one of the teams got a 2-on-1 break off a point-to-point pass interception. The referee was pinned deep so being the front linesman I was skating hard and fully prepared to continue on to the goal line to cover for the referee until he caught up. However, the attacking team went offside by a few inches as they entered the zone, so I simultaneously attempted to whistle down the offside and make a hard stop from full speed. I succeeded in blowing the whistle, but failed at actually stopping, lost my edge, and fell.

I landed in something actually resembling a goalie's butterfly position about 10 feet inside the blue line, and because I had been skating so hard, my momentum carried me almost all the way to the end boards, all the while sliding on my knees and pointing to the neutral zone faceoff spot where play was going to be restarted.

As I lined up for the faceoff, the coach right behind me on the bench apparently knew about recent events in the NHL and called out, "And that's how Nail Yakupov would call an offside." I literally lost it for a few seconds and had to regain my composure before dropping the puck.

 

[Summer Rose]

Wrist cast came off today. Messed around with a tennis ball and dry land stick in my garage... for about 2 seconds. That was some of the sharpest pain I've felt in a long time (the broken wrist was my bottom hand on the stick).

Guess I have to wait a bit longer.

 

[KyleJRM]

Today was my second learn to hockey skate lesson. The first one was two weeks ago (skipped a week for Thanksgiving) and that was the first time I'd ever been in ice skates.

First lesson had been one-foot snowplow stops and crossover starts. I put in a lot of time at home, on the ice and watching Youtube videos practicing the last two weeks, and I was pretty happy with the results. Got a "someone's been practicing" from the coach during the first drill.

Then halfway through we started on the new stuff. Forward crossovers and backwards swizzles. Sheesh, that wiped the grin off my face. I'll get the forward crossovers with a couple hours of practice, I think. At least to the point where I can reliably do something resembling them. But the backwards swizzle involves bending my legs and twisting my hips in ways they just don't want to go. Gonna have to work a ton on flexibility.

 

[leftwinger37]

Today was my second learn to hockey skate lesson. The first one was two weeks ago (skipped a week for Thanksgiving) and that was the first time I'd ever been in ice skates.

First lesson had been one-foot snowplow stops and crossover starts. I put in a lot of time at home, on the ice and watching Youtube videos practicing the last two weeks, and I was pretty happy with the results. Got a "someone's been practicing" from the coach during the first drill.

Then halfway through we started on the new stuff. Forward crossovers and backwards swizzles. Sheesh, that wiped the grin off my face. I'll get the forward crossovers with a couple hours of practice, I think. At least to the point where I can reliably do something resembling them. But the backwards swizzle involves bending my legs and twisting my hips in ways they just don't want to go. Gonna have to work a ton on flexibility.

This game can be humbling some times, no matter how much experience you have. Just stick with it and put just as much (if not more) time working on your weaknesses as you do working on your strengths.

 

[leftwinger37]

Wrist cast came off today. Messed around with a tennis ball and dry land stick in my garage... for about 2 seconds. That was some of the sharpest pain I've felt in a long time (the broken wrist was my bottom hand on the stick).

Guess I have to wait a bit longer.

Yikes! I know that feeling... Had fusion surgery on my top-hand wrist a year ago and it's still healing. I've been back playing since February, but once a week is about all I can handle pain-wise. When I try to stickhandle on my dry land tiles I'm good for about 2 minutes. Don't rush it, it will be worth the wait!

 

[Sean Garrity]

Wrist cast came off today. Messed around with a tennis ball and dry land stick in my garage... for about 2 seconds. That was some of the sharpest pain I've felt in a long time (the broken wrist was my bottom hand on the stick).

Guess I have to wait a bit longer.

Haven't followed your story, but I'm going to assume you broke your wrist and go off on a boring story about myself. I have broken both of wrists, at separate times. After the 2nd break, the doctors took x rays on both wrists and noticed that neither had set and healed properly(basically the bones are still somewhat on top of each other so I lack range of motion). They offered to re-break them for me and set them properly, but I was a high school senior who wanted to get back on the mat(wrestling) at that time so I declined. To this day, after every hockey game both of my wrists burn and are sore for the next day or so. If it was a broken wrist, make sure it set properly!

TLDR - If it's a broken wrist, make sure it set and healed properly or else you'll regret it in the long run!

 

[Outl4w]

We had a guy on the opposing beer league team grab our players stick skate fifteen feet then through it out of the rink. He only got two minutes and a 10 minute bench penalty. What a joke of a guy.

 

[Summer Rose]

We had a guy on the opposing beer league team grab our players stick skate fifteen feet then through it out of the rink. He only got two minutes and a 10 minute bench penalty. What a joke of a guy.

That's actually the right call, which is kind of weird.

637 (c)

A misconduct penalty shall be assessed to any player who throws any portion of his stick or any other object outside of the playing area. A game misconduct penalty shall be assessed if done in protest of an official’s decision or if thrown at or in the direction of a spectator.

I'm assuming the extra 2 was for grabbing your stick since that's kind of the epitome of holding the stick penalty. Perhaps he deserved an extra 2 for unsportsmanlike for 14 PIM total, but I probably wouldn't make that call myself.

 

[Tacks92]

We had a guy on the opposing beer league team grab our players stick skate fifteen feet then through it out of the rink. He only got two minutes and a 10 minute bench penalty. What a joke of a guy.

Hahaha. That's awesome.

 

[KyleJRM]

Public skate to try to work on the stuff from the second skating class earlier this week. Forward crossovers and backwards swizzles.

It was a bit more crowded than I expected and the ice sucked by the end (I'm spoiled by going some weekdays when there's almost no one there for the daytime public skate), but I made a little progress. I've gone from "lol are you even kidding me" to being able to execute something resembling a useful crossover maybe 1 out of 4 times. Backwards swizzles are still brutal for me because of a very slight congenital hip defect that makes pointing my toes inward hard, but I got a little bit better. If I can get maybe two more public skate sessions in by next class, I think I'll be keeping up.

Two people voluntarily skated up to me and gave me tips, which was neat. Both of them told me I was staying too high in my stance and need to bend my knees more, which is probably true of every new skater ever. One of them in particular told me that it seemed like I knew the footwork of what I was trying to do, but it wouldn't work because my balance was off, and my balance was off because my posture wasn't staying correct, so fixing that would solve all the other problems. I didn't suddenly become perfect after he said that, but it definitely helped.

 

[Maccas]

My team won 25-0 last night,
We were up against a team that had previously beaten us 10-0 a couple of years back but they obviously brought a lot of new players. We were 8-0 up at the end of the first period and playing D I had hardly broken a sweat. I felt so sorry for the opposition as they were struggling to keep control of the puck and just couldn't get shots on goal but my team kept running up the score. I refused to take a single shot on goal until towards the end of the 3rd period where I tried a backhander off the goalies pads to get a rebound for one of our lads who hasn't scored his first goal yet.
At the end of the game they had managed 2 shots on goal total and looked completely dejected.
To say that I felt embarrassed doesn't even come close, I hate watching teams run up the score and hate it even more when my teammates do it.

 

[Goonzilla]

My team won 25-0 last night,
We were up against a team that had previously beaten us 10-0 a couple of years back but they obviously brought a lot of new players. We were 8-0 up at the end of the first period and playing D I had hardly broken a sweat. I felt so sorry for the opposition as they were struggling to keep control of the puck and just couldn't get shots on goal but my team kept running up the score. I refused to take a single shot on goal until towards the end of the 3rd period where I tried a backhander off the goalies pads to get a rebound for one of our lads who hasn't scored his first goal yet.
At the end of the game they had managed 2 shots on goal total and looked completely dejected.
To say that I felt embarrassed doesn't even come close, I hate watching teams run up the score and hate it even more when my teammates do it.

I just hate those games be it on the giving or receiving end, playing or coaching. It's just so unsatisfying no matter what because there's just no contest or competition. You really shouldn't even be playing them. Neither team benefits from it and you never win by that much because you are that good, but rather because your opponents are so weak. It's sad that some dudes still feel like they have to be burying every chance when you're up by double figures.

 

[Summer Rose]

I just hate those games be it on the giving or receiving end, playing or coaching. It's just so unsatisfying no matter what because there's just no contest or competition. You really shouldn't even be playing them. Neither team benefits from it and you never win by that much because you are that good, but rather because your opponents are so weak. It's sad that some dudes still feel like they have to be burying every chance when you're up by double figures.

Don't like reffing big blowouts either. When the score is so lopsided that the result really isn't in question, that's when people (more often than not the trailing team) start doing stupid ****. Means we take a long look behind the play instead of a quick glance, and has in the past caused me to blatantly miss a routine thing like icing or offside. Like a battle in front of the net, the puck gets swept away, I'll keep an eye on the crease/slot area to make sure everyone separates calmly and there are no frustration hacks/punches or anything. Then once I'm satisfied I'll head up into the neutral zone to follow the play, and suddenly one bench is screaming at me about icing and the puck's sliding towards the goal line. I have no idea who shot it or if it was tipped, so I can't call it an icing. I'm not going to take a bench's word for it, you know?

 

[cowboy82nd]

Last night I took an elbow to the face. Either I didn't get hit that hard of my mouth guard actually saved my teeth. Feeling very disoriented today tho.

I take it, no cage then?

 

[Ozz]

My team won 25-0 last night,
We were up against a team that had previously beaten us 10-0 a couple of years back but they obviously brought a lot of new players. We were 8-0 up at the end of the first period and playing D I had hardly broken a sweat. I felt so sorry for the opposition as they were struggling to keep control of the puck and just couldn't get shots on goal but my team kept running up the score. I refused to take a single shot on goal until towards the end of the 3rd period where I tried a backhander off the goalies pads to get a rebound for one of our lads who hasn't scored his first goal yet.
At the end of the game they had managed 2 shots on goal total and looked completely dejected.
To say that I felt embarrassed doesn't even come close, I hate watching teams run up the score and hate it even more when my teammates do it.

Wow! No mercy rule, huh? Brutal.


A few weeks ago we mercied a team that had the most recent win between our teams (10 goal diff). Normally after 5 or or so we tone it down but we owed them one.

 

[Summer Rose]

Wow! No mercy rule, huh? Brutal.


A few weeks ago we mercied a team that had the most recent win between our teams (10 goal diff). Normally after 5 or or so we tone it down but we owed them one.

None of the adult leagues around here have a straight out mercy rule, but have rules on when the game is switched to running time for the rest of the game. It's basically either 6 goals in the 3rd period, or one rink does 8 goals regardless of the time remaining. The leagues that do 6 in the 3rd also have a rule that 15 penalties by both teams combined make the rest of the game running time as well.

The most lopsided game I've ever reffed (well part of, was one of 3 games I've been knocked out of, this one with a concussion) finished 21-1 and was an over-35 adult game.

 

[pz29]

Last night, around midnight, so, technically, not today, I swatted a net-bound puck out of the air to prevent a goal. It had gone off our goalie's shoulder and he had lost of sight of it. I don't think I can pull that off again, if I tried. Felt good, though.

 

[Ozz]

Two funny goals last night in the same shift:

1) chipped a puck past a defenseman behind his net, he got it and cleared it out front...bounced off his goalie and in.

2) Goalie grabbed the puck from behind the net, went to clear it up the middle, I just got my stick on it to intercept, and ripped it. As simple as that seemed, it was tougher because I had a bad angle and him out far to cut it off further. Was lucky to shoot it hard enough to slip between his arm/body where he almost caught it.

We ended up winning in a shootout, our 3rd SO game in a row for this team. Yikes.