Force / Mastodons Practice 2011-06-23

It had been a week and half since I last been on ice. The break was nice, but it goes against my recent ideals of play frequently and play well. Tonight followed the pattern. I practiced with the Force and Mastodons in HNA.

Watching the ice be resurfaced, I was quickly reminded that it was June and ice sucks from June to September. Bensinville is the worst of the worst. During warm ups, the puck was sliding like it was on smooth concrete. Even then still bumpy. You really had to work to move the puck. As the night went on that got better but holes developed in the ice. Good skaters would just fall for what just seemed no good reason.

The Force did a drill for about 15 minutes that I found confusing at first because it was a 3 on 2, with everyone wearing the same colored jersey, and I didn't know anyone, or the drill very well. After my third attempt, I did better but I dropped the puck a lot.

The scrimmage was interesting. It was clear the Mastodons were intense, which makes me wonder how they play in games. They played hard the whole night, and I liked that because they were the less experienced team. The force had a few players that could move, but I was able to keep up. I played center, which was nice because I had planned on perhaps switching there sometime down the road. I was so tired though that I couldn't keep up. The ice just seemed bad, and the Mastodon's physicality was just too much for me after not playing for a while. Several times I would try and stop but the ice was just so jagged that I couldn't get the blade over. There were multiple times that my laziness and poor ice just caused me to trip in addition to me not picking my skate up cleanly.

I wasn't going to play physical. Not when I'm tired, in something meaningless on bad ice. I was chasing down a puck and a Mastodon was going after it as well. I let up and let him pick it up. But when he went to stop, he went flying and dropped the puck. I took my time, picked it up and passed it to the winger who bounced it off the post.

It was a good workout because of my positioning, and how difficult it was to skate. It was a great reminder of what the Piranha's summer league will be like. I enjoyed playing against the Mastodons, and with the force.