Three Months Later...

It has been three months since the last post. So where have I been?

I've only been on the ice a handful of times, and as a result, very rusty. Not only was I rusty tonight, I was out of shape and I played exactly how I expected. I totally expected to be out of breath in warm ups, after 30 seconds. Doing all of the little things that you have to do to be successful comes natural to most players who have been playing for +5 years. For me, I guess I don't have that just yet. I had to think about how to breath. I had to think about how to hold the blue line on the rush. And because of that I missed a lot of basic things. I totally messed up a pass, was bad on line changes, and so on. But the good part of this was I skated as hard as I could. I want to get back to that. I want to be a player who isn't afraid of contact, and will make it on the forecheck if necessary.

So where am I going with this? I need to focus on getting back into shape. I cannot do all of the things that good players do if I'm constantly exhausted. I want to get back to the time where I could skate for +80% of the game, and not be so out of breath that I can't speak.

I am going to try my best to focus on conditioning over the next handful of weeks, and get to where I know I can be. I'm too young to be as exhausted as I was tonight.

Goaldiggers Game 2010-11-01

I haven't played in nearly a month. I hadn't done much of anything. See, I was having issues with my lung again. Usually this is two weeks and I come back, but when I tried to do an open skate, I made it worse. This with the combination of all the recent injuries made me question if I even want to play the game anymore.

I got to the rink, suited up but was still fairly nervous. I could feel myself just out of it and wobbly. The team had 7 forwards, so I said I'd just rotate through lines when I could. In the first, I tried to play my regular amount of ice time, or rate. It was tough though. My shifts were 30-40 seconds max, but I went as hard as I could on them. I had a couple of rushes, and got good shots off, but no goal. It was clear my balance was off twice. The first was about six minutes into the first period when a shot from the point rebounded to right behind me. I tried and reached for it to get the shot off right away and whipped it as hard as I could at the net. Problem is it was so far behind me after I shot, I fell over on my butt. The other time my balance was really bad was a chip in our own zone. Our d-man chipped it from the slot to my wing up on the boards.. it was right past me. Unfortunately , I was going the other way. I stopped, but I couldn't move. All of my weight was on my back heels, and I felt I couldn't even turn to get there and make the opponent work for it. I played maybe two shifts in the third, and then felt like I was going to vomit, so I called it a night. It was nice though to make a little contact, skate hard and not feel bad doing so. I feel fine a few days later, so I think I'm fully healed.

The team won 5-2, and I was a -1 with no points. Bad statistically, but all things considered, I couldn't be more pleased with how the night turned out. It was exactly what I needed. I now just need to get into shape and that'll happen over time. You can't expect to lay around for a month, and come back and be where you were.

Open Hockey 2010-09-09

I’ve been really out of it the past month or so. I haven't skated, I haven't moved, I have only really slept and gone to work. Even my dog gets pissed at me that I'm just laying around. I don't know what it has been, but it isn't a good thing. Despite this, I have been feeling better the last two weeks. Lat night, I went and played rat hockey at cheap rink, nice and close to home.

I had only been on skates once in the last four weeks or so. I was somewhat nervous because the guys were really good, and my last outing wasn't very flattering. I felt well rested and such. My back was slightly sore, but that is normal for me. On warm ups, my shot had nothing. Considering I lost 8 pounds in the last little bit, I sort of expected this.

The ice was good and my skates were almost too sharp. I wasn't sliding as much as I normally would like but I have to live with it. Fore checking was almost useless for me because these guys could make such decent passes. I played D most of the night as well, and that was a wasted cause, simply because the skaters were so fast that I couldn't do much. The sad thing was, I wasn't the worst one there.

Overall, it felt nice to have skates on and play a little with better players. I need to do it more, but first I have to get all of my energy and strength back.

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.