Goaldiggers Game - 2010-02-15

It has been almost three weeks since I was on skates because of my lung. It is a real bummer when something like that happens because not only are you not playing, you're getting worse. Your conditioning goes away quickly, your timing is off, and you become really nervous because of it.

I go hard of every shift of every game I play. It is something I like to take pride in. Sometimes I think that I'm going a little bit too hard and I need to let the play come to me and develop. But part of the reason I do do it is conditioning. I know that if I do it multiple times a week, at the end I'll still be strong while others are winded. Today, I was the one who was winded and I didn't like it.

I definitely lost my timing out there. At one point I was wide open in the slot and I was fed a great pass that I completely missed. I think I played below average for me. I was a factor in most shifts though, so that is something to be positive about. There was one shift where I was so winded that I could not get off the ice. The puck came to me and I tried to just ice it but I dropped the puck and gave up another scoring chance. We still won 4-5, and it was the Goaldiggers first ever winning streak. I wasn't there for the first one.

Overall, it was a positive game just because I was back. Three weeks sitting around and doing nothing is bad for you. For me, a few things have gone wrong in my personal life and not being able to focus on hockey for an hour or two a week had really become a problem. Those issues away from the ice can eat away at you when you really cannot do anything about them. However, when you're on the ice, you're not worried about your job, or how you're going to make your next house payment, the health of a family member, or whatever may be on your mind. You're out there only having fun and keeping your head up. What a solid distraction and fun time away from reality.