January 3rd - Scrimmage vs. Quarry Cats

Mitch, Pam, and I carpooled for the long ass drive up to Little Falls, NJ to play the Quarry Cats. Two hours is a hike for rec hockey. I really don't want to drive that far, but a game is a game and they did drive down to Aston to play us, so it was only fair we went up there. The time of the game sucked though. We had to play them at nine at night. Come on people, that's a little too late at night when a team has to drive over two hours to get home. That's another aspect of hockey that sucks. It could be worse though. I remember my brother having games at four in the morning back in the seventies.

Back to the game. We get there and slowly we have messages that all sorts of our teammates aren't coming. I can understand two of them. One had her stepmom die and the other was home puking. We had four players bag at the last minute. Two said they 'got lost' and ended up some how in Philly. One said she was undecided, but as soon as her friend said she wasn't coming, she didn't want to come either. Don't say you're going to play in a game and then wait to a few hours before the game and say you're not coming. It's rude to your teammates and it screws over the team that you're going to play.

Lucky for us they had a goalie for us scheduled for the game because our two goalies couldn't or in one case, wouldn't, be coming to the game. So here we were with only seven players showing up to play this team. I felt bad that we wouldn't be much for them to play. Two of their loaded bench said they'd come play with us so they could get more ice. They helped us a ton because with them, we had two lines and three defense. It's much easier to do that than rotate through seven players the entire game.

The team we were playing is the Quarry Cats D team. They had two really good players and the rest were average or really beginner players so we probably could have played them with seven players and it would have been more fair because the two players who defected to us were pretty good. :) We ended up winning five to nothing.

I had all sorts of time to shoot in this game and managed to get off some nice shots, but overall I'd say they weren't that good if they had been in a regular game. I nailed the goalie in the head at least three times, I hit one of their players in the back of the thigh because she turned at the last second, and I had a whole section of net open with a screen and I hit the goalie in the shoulder. So in a nutshell, my shot wasn't accurate enough. I need to work more on not winding up so high. I only need to go below the knee to get a hard slapper off and then one of my players can deflect it.

Speaking of deflections...that's how I got my goal. One of their defenseman deflected a low point shot of mine. It hugged the ice and she tried to hit at it. It squeaked by their goalie near the post. I felt bad about it because the poor defenseman looked so dejected and I felt like a big wiener getting a shitty goal like that. I did feel better when I got an assist on a nice pass later in the game so that made up for it.

On to the topic of passing. My defensive coach is telling me to remember to shoot low. Okay, I said I'd work on it because I have a tendency to keep winding up too far. I need the reminders. Then my other coach sits next to me and says I need look around on the point and pass to my forwards instead of taking a shot that might deflect off someone's body. Okay, I said I'd work on it. The problem is I don't like to think when I'm on the ice because when I do, it screws up my play. This means I have to work on this stuff at practice so it becomes more like my normal play, not something I have to remember to do during games.

So the games over, we thank the team for being so nice in lending us players, and I still feel bad for having our team show up without a full team, but hey, we had a great time and everyone was happy playing. That's what hockey is all about. The having fun part. That and going out afterwards and eating. The three of us went to our favorite spot, Taco Bell. :) We love Taco Bell. I'm the only one who got a shower, but when I know I'll be getting home extremely late, I don't want to shower then. So we eat our TBell and drive forever. Two hours later and with a sleepy driver named Mitch about to passout at the wheel, we pull into her driveway.

Pam and I unload our crap and dump it into our cars and Mitch drags her exhausted butt into her house. So off I drive for another half hour. Pam lives about ten minutes or so away. By the time I get home, unload my stuff, hang it up to dry, get the cat in and fed, check my e-mail, and get ready for bed, it's two-thirty in the morning. Oy. Talk about a late night. Oh well, I know I'll get at least six hours of sleep so that's good enough for me.