Sunday, October 21, 2012

Piranhas vs. Mastodons


First game of the season for the Piranhas, and I'm really not nervous about it. The Mastodons though were the worst possible opponent for us. I know they play hard at all times, and they practice regularly. There is no way that this team would not be in shape and prepared for the game.

The Piranhas would have as full of a bench as I'd have ever seen. Warm ups were a huge problem as it was difficult to find space to actually warm up. I tried doing some passing drills with another skater at the red line, but still no space.

My first shift was not a good one. One of the d-men pinched,, and I went to the other side to cover for him. Sure enough the puck comes to that side, and the winger has more speed than I do and I knew I wouldn't catch him. I'd try to put a shoulder into him and stop him, but instead I missed and grabbed him. I took the interference penalty. First shift of the game. We'd take a couple more penalties, and end up being down 4-0 just 12 minutes into the game.

Despite the full bench, I was fairly tired. It has been about two months since I had any sort of real scrimmage on a full sheet of ice, let alone a full game. I still had speed at some points. I did handle the puck well a few times, and looked for some great passes despite not connecting. I had physically beaten a much bigger player in the corner, which caused not only a solid scoring chance, but we maintained possession of the puck and eventually scored a goal. I wasn't aggressive as I would have liked, and as a result, I felt as if I was ineffective. I wasn't covering points, I wasn't helping the defense men out. I was doing a crappy job of taking away passing lanes.

I'm going to focus on being in better shape and having targeted aggression next game.

The Mastodons would beat the Piranhas 6-3.

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