| 01.26.04
Adventures at Hockey School: Session Four – Slapshots
& Simians
Another Monday night full of hockey had arrived, and I was rarin’
to go. We began the evening with an 8-3 Team Stanley victory
over the usually more challenging Crease Monkeys. I managed
to put up a goal and an assist, as well as a few nifty passes
and stick-handling moves that had the other team staring gape-mouthed
in amazement and disbelief. Yup, the ice hockey training was
starting to manifest itself off-ice, and it was good.
Then it was time to jump into AJ “Washington Regains A
Carter” Brandt’s Jeep and head out to Bensenville
for some quality ice time. On the way to the rink, I realized
the importance of having some sort of snack in between the game
and practice. My stomach kept reminding me of this by letting
out growls reminiscent of an American made car with a faulty
muffler.
This week, the Cobras had the night off and we were sharing
the rink with the Icemen. One of said Icemen asked me to fill
him in on what we did last week, and wondered aloud whether
or not we’d get to scrimmage. Instead of recapping previous
events for him, I considered asking for his email address, but
thought the better of it.
When we finally got out on the ice, the first part of the practice
unfolded just as the ones before it. Coach Bruce told us to
work on our stopping, and I made incremental progress, one stutter
step at a time. Just when I was starting to get really frustrated
at the seeming lack of communication between my brain and my
feet, I saw something that brightened my spirits a bit. Looking
over at the Icemen’s side of the rink, I noticed more
grown men strewn across the ground then after the Battle Of
Atlanta in Gone With The Wind.
Skating drills were up next, and we curled, pivoted, jumped,
dropped, and careened from one end of the rink to the other.
I felt relatively comfortable executing the various skating
techniques, save for some ill-timed 180-degree turns at center
ice.
From there it was onto a bit of stick handling and passing.
The passing drills were entertaining, as we played an ice hockey
version of “monkey in the middle.” One unlucky soul
skated to the middle of a faceoff circle, while the rest of
us surrounded him. His job was to intercept one of the passes
we were sliding in, out, and through his legs. If the “monkey”
got control of the puck, then whoever had made the pass would
take his place.
I was the second monkey, due to a weak backhanded attempt at
trickery. However, I wasn’t in the middle for long, as
I quickly figured out some of my teammates tendencies with the
puck. Now if I were only this good at reading people at the
poker table I’d really be onto something.
AJ got in on the action, making solid passes off of his goalie
stick. He later admitted that he wanted to be the monkey for
a turn, just so he could suddenly sprawl out on the ice to block
a pass. At which point he would look up and say, “What?
I’m the freakin’ goalie.”
While the Icemen continued to work on their passing techniques,
Bruce instructed the Phantoms (that’s us, remember?) on
the proper physics of a slapshot. We lined up facing the boards
and spent the next ten minutes rifling shots one after the next.
Now, honestly, while some of the guys rifled, I kind of hand
gunned. But after a few pointers from co-Coach AJ, my form was
excellent. Besides, I’m more of a sneaky, wrist shot kind
of a sniper anyways.
Now the time had come to combine everything into a series of
drills. We practiced our stick handling through a slalom course
of cones, as well as triangle passes to our teammates, and even
some blue line jumping. Each element culminated in our ripping
a slapshot at AJ in net. While some guys shots were a bit underwhelming,
one of them got our attention quick. With something akin to
a sonic boom, a portly but potent Phantom launched a shot on
net that AJ managed to block to the side. The puck then bounced
off of one our guys and into my skate with the force of a pissed
off pit bull. “Well, at least we know who’s going
to be playing point on the power play,” I commented, rubbing
the outside of my boot and sliding as far away from the side
of the net as possible.
As we waited in line to go again, one of the guys commented
that AJ was looking a bit tired. Always looking out for my netminder,
I pointed out that not only had we played a game at 8pm, but
while we were standing around waiting to go again, AJ had not
seen a break in the action. The poor bastard faced a barrage
of non-stop shots from two different lines of skaters for a
solid fifteen minutes. To his credit, very few made it past.
Except, of course, the one or two I slid under and around his
pads…
Bruce wrapped up practice by reminding us to start thinking
about who was going to play what position. He pointed out that
it wouldn’t be a bad idea to make your best skaters defensemen,
to help out the goalie. While AJ nodded his head slowly in agreement,
I made a mental note to try and master my skating techniques,
but maybe keep some of it to myself.
As we have next week off, several Phantoms mentioned organizing
some sort of impromptu practice. We are also creeping closer
to selecting our captain and alternates, and eventually getting
our game jerseys and numbers.
Discussions of the aforementioned topics dominated the ride
home, as did dreams of trainer’s tables, hot tubs and
massage therapy. But in the end, I settled for a seat warmer
and a bottle of water. |