So close...

Exhaustion set in this morning, and I went anyways. Hockey was a tight game today, with many more talented players than usual on Fridays. A gentleman that played for the LA Kings played with us today.
My buddy Jimmy isn't the greatest hockey player, but he does well enough to be respected, and is usually an assist man. His son is good, and so he plays, I think, more to help him out, and to expand his abilities. Today, after an hour and 29 minutes, with one to go before the shut-out was final, Jimmy got the puck. Another drive, like he'd done a hundred times today already, came up on my blocker side (my right, his left). A horrible angle. I set up, good positioning, and crouched for my pre-shot stance. He fired, a rocket of a wrist shot, and the damned puck beat me GLOVE side high... the FAR side that he had maybe a .003% chance to hit. He hit it, top shelf, the opposite side of the net. He was on my right side, only about 2 feet from the crease line leading to the boards. I couldn't believe it!

The man who'd been supportive with his calls all game, and tactics help for the new guy scored! It was something I hadn't seen him pull out of his bag of tricks EVER. In fact, he looked surprised when he made it. Couldn't believe it.

Argh! So close!

Great day today. I was exhausted, but couldn't fall asleep, so I stayed awake all night to just survive until hockey. 1030, hockey started. My blood sugar went low, I managed to chug on a gatorade, and I made it through, only allowing 4 goals in an hour and a half of pick-up.

Amazing game. I had several good stops, with one timers, and an awesome stop on a 2 v 0. I'm very happy with the way I played today, though I still suck at catching myself when I go down and slide, and the puck goes back the OTHER way, I can't seem to grip the ice with my push leg, and shove back the other way.

Just isn't happening.

Regardless, I'm tired, but must stay up until 9 or 10. That was an awesome game.

Alright, having worked my butt off all week on my glove hand, throwing balls with people, playing 'catch the bouncing object off of the wall 2 feet in front of me' games, and all manner of gibberish: I'm excited.

My new glove and blocker will be a fun experience, and my LEG pads are scheduled to come in tomorrow (or later today, technically) and I'll be rockin' with those on!

Woo!

Very ecstatic right now. Just debating one thing: I can go play hockey in the AM with my old pads, and then come home to the new ones, or skip hockey, to get the new ones immediately.

Hmm...

Woo-frickin-hoo!

Taking a few days off was JUST what I needed. My drops into the 'fly were quicker, more responsive, and I was actually WILLING to pop back up to negate my complete lack of butterfly slide ability. The few times they scored today was because of a total lack of defense (4 rebound shots all alone against three forwards... I'll let that one slide off my back) and not because of my horrible play!

I'm improving!

Several of the guys at the rink told me I've been improving steadily over my 25 days of ice skating, and I sure hope so! If NOT, it isn't worth it, haha.

Got my new glove and blocker today, pro quality, so I won't be feeling the shots to my hands any more. New leg pads in about a week or week and a half, also pro quality. Upgrading from street hockey garbage is going to be nice :)

ANYBODY with Butterfly slide tips, send 'em this way, and don't just send youtube video links, I've seen them ALL. I'm not exaggerating.

Thanks guys!

Day off...

Took the day of from protecting the area between the posts. My legs were killing me. 2 Games yesterday, and they absolutely broke my legs. Thats the thing about pickup games: we're free with our big pads, but we're absolutely tortured all game! Pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, shoot. All with unmolested forwards right in front of the net. Talk about practice on my (terrible) butterfly slides!

Though I did piss a couple off with how quickly I was moving, because I caught the down low shots quite often. The rebounds (again, unmolested) tended to go in, but I figure thats a part of pick-up hockey.

Anyways, found this link, thought it was freakin' hilarious:
http://www.visit4info.com/details.cfm?adid=18730&version=1

Check it out. Shows you anybody can do it! Haha...

Ouch

Today was a day that hurt. Not physically, no I feel just fine (besides the usual exhaustion). No, today hurt the pride.

Freakin' OUCH!

The first five, count 'em, FIVE shots I took were 5 goals. Yup, I said it, five for freakin' five. It didn't really bother me at the time, because I get in a weird zone when I'm between the pipes where I really don't give a rip if goals go in. I figure it happens, ESPECIALLY to players with less than 30 days on the ice in their entire life!

Nonetheless, now, sitting at home, it stings a bit. I'm trying to over-analyze the saves I didn't make, and I realize THAT is a slippery slope to start sliding down, so I'm not going to anymore...

Nope...

Not any more...

Alright FINE, I'm still dwelling! What the hell, man!? I mean, granted, my first five shots were three breakaways, a 2 on 0, and one 3 on zero, but still man, even fate should have helped me there!

Blah, regardless, I'll figure it out eventually. One BIG flaw I've noticed that I have is on breakaways, often I'll skate out between the face-off circles, to challenge the shooter, that much I've gotten good at. Skating backwards with them, I'm alright. However, where I get beat are the quick dekes, and the snapshots through the five hole. What happens is I'm skating backwards quickly, matching their speed, but I'm SO close to them that if they cut outside of me, I open my legs to move, and they snap it through before I can drop to my butterfly.

Any tips on this? Its killing me, and letting in (no exaggeration) 65% of all the goals I allow. Any help at all?

Ouch, the legs of a dead guy...

My legs hurt after today. We played a nice little pickup game with only one goalie today... Me. It was a painful experience in what 'half-ice' hockey is.

We had 10 players, split them into two teams, and they played 4 on 4 hockey, in which they only had to take the puck to the red line, then they could come and attempt to score. What this accomplished is allowing both teams to shoot at a goalie (again: me) with only 1 goalie total available.

Now, although this may sound great, these little bastards can skate! I mean I was facing 2, 3, sometimes even 4 passes RIGHT in front of my net. Poking at them to stop the passes only stopped maybe one out of every 5 or 6, but I was getting better at it (even though I knocked one into my own net!). Sliding side to side in the butterfly, attempting to keep a full body in front of it in case of a deflection or shot turned out to be WAAAAY too exhausting, because I was constantly going up and down, up and down, pushing off of my weakside leg repeatedly to move. T pushes were what I settled on, but they left my 5-hole wide open for a few easy chip ins, and I paid the price with exhausted legs.

I'm thinking of a new strategy for the weight lifting: butt-loads of endurance lifting.

Perhaps 15-20 reps per set, 5-8 sets for each workout, no matter what I do...? I sort of do this already with my 10 sets of 10 German powersquat workout, but I think more reps will train my muscle fibers to be able to endure repeated exercises more, which I need. I seem to have trouble standing or skating quickly an hour into any hockey session.

Anyways, not a bad day, again. I don't let goals get to me, I just try to learn from them. Any info is appreciated!

No defense?

Granted, no defense in pick up adult hockey is probably to be expected, but ouch! It hurts! I've been working on being extremely aggressive (in my eyes, it probably truly isn't THAT extreme) but my basic stance begins between the center of the two red face-off circles, and I work my way backwards when they approach. I'm playing more aggressive to take away the angles, but passes slaughter me like this. I'm just not a fast enough skater to keep up with cross ice passes.

Thats where the defense comes in.

With a good position, I can force the pass, and with a pass, opportunities are there for defense to bat the puck away, lift their stick, get in the way, do all manner of things. However, my defense today took things a bit differently. Instead of batting away their shots, I had ONE defenseman who knocked not one, not two, but THREE pucks into my net all by himself! Pass came, he slapped at it, and wham, in the open net.

Now, granted, I'm sure I'm expected to get in the way, even during a pass, but I've been ice skating for 20 days now. I'm having a rough time moving about IN my crease, much less outside of it!

Despite all of my complaining, I don't mind. It was a great game, myself and the other goaltender stuffed the majority of things (we let in 6 goals each over the course of an hour and a half with countless breakaways, 2 on zeros, etc.). I had a blast, and now my legs feel like I tried to ride a bucking bronco for a couple of hours.

Sleep tonight, hopefully skill tips from somebody later!

Yesterday...

Yesterday was a horrible day...

...

...For Defense.

I am not that good of a skater, I've got a total of what, 20 days skating, and 20 days goaltending under my feet? That does not leave me to be the greatest sliding butterfly goalie around the net, not nearly in fact. When I tend to make a save, if a pass is made, I'm forced to scramble to get in the new shooter's way, though I like to think I do alright when asked to. Anyways, after yesterday's fiasco, I decided that I needed to work on some things.

One) Movement while in the butterfly.

Moving while I'm on the ground is difficult to me. I've tried doing what internet videos show, which is pull the AWAY leg up, plant it, and push off towards the puck. Problem is, I don't stay square to the puck, I spin a little half circle and end up with my back facing the puck with almost no actual MOVEMENT at all. Its killing me.

An intelligent guy like me tries to think it through a thousand times, and I haven't come up with anything better, so I'm asking for assistance. Anybody has any ideas, hit me up. After a day with 20 Two on Zeros, around 10 Two on Ones, and at least 15 breakaways (all in less than an hour and a half) I'm exhausted, and pissed off. I know the basics of playing the shooter, forcing him or her to pass, but once they pass, I push off, and if they pass AGAIN, I'm screwed. Just plain beaten.

Anybody?

New day's update (August 3rd, 2009)

And it's official: my legs are killing me. The other day when I played, I was the only goaltender available for a decently sized game (20-30 players). As a rookie skater, as well as goalie, I tend to get a bit tired rather quickly, as the small muscles in my legs aren't used to being forced to control my balance and position on ice. That being said, I'm also not a quitter, so I ended up playing nearly three hours straight, because these goofballs kept trying to score! Before the game, however, I had done something stupid. Something so dumb, it makes a brick look intelligent by comparison alone...

I did squats.

Not just any amount of squats, no, Matt enjoys beating on his body, so he decided to do a full leg workout: 10 sets of 10 German 'power' squats, followed by 5 sets of 12,12,10,10,8 on quadricep extensions, then the same for hamstring curls. DUMB.

This, of course, led to my legs feeling quite loose, and rather good, to be honest, for the game, but AFTER the game, I just about died. My legs went annoyingly tingly and dead tired, and so I went home, iced them, and slept. Waking up for hockey the next 2 days, there was absolutely no way in the frozen over section of hell that I was going in to skate. I couldn't hardly move! My legs now (5 days later) have a strange exhausted feeling to them, even though I've been doing nothing but stretching for an hour a day, eating a butt load of protein, and resting!

Any suggestions?

Anything that involves training your legs to be a tad more helpful when you ask them to please support your bodyweight walking down a flight of stairs?

Anyways, I'm exhausted, so more later...

The first period...

Alright, so I'll admit, I've never 'blogged' before, but hopefully that won't prove too obvious (unless people read this sentence I suppose... Hmm...) and we'll be able to get past it and on to the interesting stuff.

First off, my name is Matt, though you can call me Eebs, like half my friends do, or Ebias, like one random one does. Since this is a blog, there probably won't be too many people calling me much at all, but I just don't feel right without introducing myself before I go rambling my dangerous inner thoughts and feelings when I'm between the posts.

Alright, secondly, what is this all about? Well, I'm just a random guy who decided one day (very recently) to pay a butt-load of money for a decent set of ice hockey goaltender pads, and go out and begin skating. Granted, nobody told me the goaltender needed to be the best skater on the ice, but let's face it: that just would have made me want it more. I enjoy the fact that when somebody looks at a goalie, he is one of the very few people in all of sports that, when he is on a roll, can completely 100 percent shut down an opposing team. Completely, without a doubt. It doesn't happen often, as when they're beaten by a great pass or shot, its almost impossible to stop it, but when they ARE on a roll, and they do come through, there isn't anything in the world that could stop them from crunching down on an offense like a two ton brick!

Now, that being said, I've just recently started defending what lies beneath the posts. In my mind, nobody will ever score... ever. However, luckily for forwards in the game of ice hockey, my mind is imaginary, whereas in real life, I am scored on all the time. Not very easily done, but done quite a bit nonetheless. I play in Las Vegas. A horrendous city to live in if you like ice, but if you like ice hockey, there are 2 outlets to play at. The Fiesta is one, and I don't go there, because I ride a motorcycle (yes with ALL of my pads on the back) and its too far of a trip. I instead go to a place named the Las Vegas Ice Center, which is quite popular, and has adult pick up games just about every day, sometimes twice a day. I'm going to be rambling here about all of my random adventures and various things that have happened to me while playing, and hopefully some people reading will have random tips and tricks they can throw my way. Until then, I'll just be poke-checking my way through life, hoping to get a pad on any shots coming my way.

And yes, I started this blog right now, because the game that was supposed to happen today died on it's feet, with 2 skaters, and 4 goalies. In the words of Charlie Brown: AAARRRGGHHH!!!