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bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe

Kevlar v2.0 posted:

So my first ever league game went about as well as possible. :D



The biggest reason why we won was our defense, especially our captain, who was the best player on the ice for either team. We completely dominated possession for the whole game. Our goalie isn't very good, but it didn't matter because I would guess he only had to block like 8 shots the entire game. We won 5-1. Mine was goal number 3, our only goal in the 2nd period. I caught a pass from the point with my back to the goalie right in front of the net, did a quick turnaround backhand that found the 5-hole.

Next week's game is against the team full of ringers that apparently wins every year, but we crushed an above-average team tonight, so I'm feeling pretty good about our chances.

this is awesome btw

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bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe
the other teams goalie quit with like a minute and a half left. no one knew what to do

bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe
jfc I have to go to work on Monday, gently caress anyone who attacks me with a hockey stick regardless of what their reasons are

bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe
a couple guys on my team ref lower league games

there's a couple of C-league superstars playing down a division or two. they've made it a point to 1) mock them constantly and 2) call every ticky tack penalty they can on them

I feel like this is a highly constructive approach

bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe
the team we played last night had this guy who had great hands and a pretty good shot, but his skating was...pretty awkward, incongruently so. i thought this was strange and went on about my day. he and i were playing opposite wings so i was chatting him up the whole game and he seemed like a cool guy.

anyway late on he made a really good handsy play and rang a shot off the crossbar. as he skated by our bench we all told him nice shot and whatnot. one of the guys on my team said "man that guy can play for someone who only has one leg." I assumed he did not mean this literally, like he had a bad knee or something, so i asked what the deal was. turns out the dude left a leg behind in iraq, and is still able to play beer league hockey at a level that does not make it immediately obvious he's missing a leg.

anyway i thought that was awesome, and also i will likely not do anything so difficult as relearning to skate on a prosthetic leg.

bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe
i throw my bag in the back of my garage, and sometimes just leave it the trunk of my car

bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe
you can come skate with us in Kansas City! they don't charge us and it is a really good skate

bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe

sellouts posted:

I’m flying places constantly how was I not invited previously

I figured it was implied but of course you're invited

bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe
we played our championship game today against the loaded team run by the rink manager. to make sure they were extra loaded for the playoffs they let some kid who just got done with his AHL season skate with them. we're the top division so i guess "ringer" doesn't really apply but, come on, man. they were X-1 on the season, we were the 1.

we went down 2-0 pretty quickly to AHL kid, then our goalie held us in it while we got dominated. i had a breakaway and a god's gift one timer neither of which i buried. in the third, we got two quick goals that were both very pretty, and this caused loaded team to get very, very upset. they started melting down, which made things just about even skill-wise, and we held them through the third.

rink manager guy didn't know what to do, but the teams who were in the 3rd place game after us said gently caress it, so we had the ice, so he started making it up as he went along. first we did a 4v4 5 min overtime, then he just said 4v4 until someone scores. they took two dumb penalties right at the start of the second overtime period. so, we're on the power play. then something mildly miraculous happened.

i dunno how many thousands of hockey games i've played in my life (I do not keep a spreadsheet) but i don't think i've scored more than maybe 3 goals ever by batting the puck out of the air. i've never once scored an overtime winner, let alone an overtime winner to win a championship. but, for some reason, both of those things happened on the same play...our "defenseman who always shoots it too high and as hard as he possibly can" shot it high as hard as he possibly could, it went off the goalies shoulder, and came down in a gentle arc that gave me just enough time to dive at it and swat it out of the air, and it went in. '

its probably all downhill from here, i may announce my retirement this weekend

bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe

Kevlar v2.0 posted:

Chicago Gay Hockey Association

owns

bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYsQhRdvzAA

oh my god their ankles

bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe
i mean, i usually dont tie my skates when i go out for public sessions with the kids or something, but even untied modern skates support your ankles just fine

those old skates look like they actively work against your ankles working properly

bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe
I don't think I'm ever going to use anything but a pre-broken hockey stick ever again. can't beat $60 for a pro level stick

https://www.hockeystickman.com/collections/refurbished

You can kind of tell the different in weight based on where it was fixed but lol if that makes any difference whatsoever for a plug like me who tapes his stick twice a year

bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe
one of my teammates got booted last night for calling a dude a human being. i've known him since we were like 10, he's a good dude if somewhat rough around the edges and isn't genuinely homophobic, i think "human being" is just kind of his go-to chirp from his junior hockey days that he has yet to grow out of.

anyway this wouldn't have been particularly remarkable except 1) the refs were swift and unequivocal in meting out justice, and 2) the dude in question, once he discovered why he'd been booted, instead of being petulant or angry, was like "i'll be damned, i sure am behind the times, guess I'd better stop saying that" and then went and apologized to the other team.

the entire sequence was kind of bizarre, it was like watching the world change just a little bit in real time.

bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe
and to think non skaters court death daily at public skating sessions, stepping on the ice without certified head protection

bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe
i stepped on a puck HARD during warmups a few weeks ago. like, i went down like a lump. there were a ton of kids watching and they all blew up laughing, and my shoulder was sore as hell for a few days

i've also taken my helmet off as the buzzer goes in every single one of the thousands of hockey games i've played in, going back to my first game and first coach who had us take off our helmets for the handshake line because he thought that was more respectful or something

...it is only a matter of time

bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe
broken hockey stick guy has a ton of new stuff up

https://www.hockeystickman.com

note: i only told all of you after ordering my own sticks

if you're wondering, pre-broken hockey sticks are the best value in hockey sticks today

bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe
I don't love everything about where I live but I do love paying eight bucks and having a great sheet of ice to myself for 90 minutes on a Friday lunch hour

bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe
we had an actual glove drop fight last night. our guy was a good player who had fought a lot in juniors, their guy was a bad player who had never fought before. our guy landed like 5 uppercuts and that was that. after he peeled off the other guy's cage, which was lol

then they scored on the ensuing power play to go up 2. and we were down to two guys on the bench. and I thought we were hosed.

then we scored 4 goals in a row to win.

fights win games folks

bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe

sellouts posted:

Only person out of my most recent 3 teams that would prefer 11.

Bewbies are you really spending 180-200 from hockeystickman? That seems a little rich for your blood????

hell no, I think it was forty bucks per stick

also someone stole one of my teammates gear out of the back of his pickup. is there anything with less intrinsic value that very, very used hockey equipment.

bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe
on the other hand, when I picked up the girl who would eventually become my wife for our first date my hockey bag had been in the back of my hatchback for a while and my car smelled like it

bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe
I am literally relieved when we have a sufficient number of guys on the bench that I don't have to skate over half the game

like we are usually rummaging around the lobby to see if there's anyone who wants to skate with us

PS we won the championship last year

bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe
if you're bad, just bring beer. it's called intangibles

bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe
18 people ON THE BENCH? So like...23 altogether?

either way, what the gently caress

bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe
refs dont stop play, but he has to come off the ice immediately or it is a minor

it also is not particularly dangerous. lots of hockey gets played without helmets.

bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe
one of the refs in our game last night was a no poo poo tripod skater, and was also grossly overweight. like his ankles bent inwards and you could hear his edges complaining about it. we ended up losing to our Main Rival on a late goal that only went in because he missed a very blatant penalty in front of our net...because he was still on the other end of the ice.

i dont expect much from beer league refs, but holy hell if you are literally unable to keep up with the speed of the game

a couple of our guys are also refs, and were chirping this guy so mercilessly that i kind of started to feel bad for him. like, he was clearly only there to fill in for someone and i assume knew perfectly well he shouldn't be reffing an A league game. still though, what the gently caress

bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe
why would you not stop and go back and get the puck

bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe
actually, it is i that does all of the legwork for these hockey events

bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe
SAUCER PASS IS KING

bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe
nothing like a dildo in a cage and robocop shoulder pads who can barely stand up on skates throwing gloved haymakers while desperately trying to keep his balance

after the first period last night we were down 2-0, and had been outshot 20-1

after the second, we were outshooting them 29-21, and it was 2-2

we won 6-2, and outshot them 44-24

i'm not sure if i've ever played in a game like that before in my life, it was bizarre

bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe
out of nowhere last night this dude shows up to play with us who played in the NHL back in the early 90s...complete with his bauer custom 3000s and a wood stick with friction tape. all i know about him is his name was "ron" and he was canadian which really narrows it down

he actually struggled a bit but it was still loving cool. we also got thrashed

bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe
I've been obsessively bench pressing on my weights in the basement the last couple of weeks, that's sure to help my game right

bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe
allegedly our city is starting to open back up next monday

i'm kind of assuming that indoor organized sports that require locker rooms will be among the last things to return to normalcy?

bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe

Pleads posted:

bewbies is actually Al MacInnis

my cannon slap shot is of limited use in pond hockey

bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe
i...will be on the ice the day the rink opens

yay hockey!

bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe

a mysterious cloak posted:

having to show up dressed.

so no changes then, for youth players

bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe
I skated yesterday for the first time. we did two v two with four pretty good skaters which is not exactly a recipe for not being unbelievably gassed and tired for the next 18 hours after you play.

The most bizarre thing about all of this was seeing an absolutely sparkling immaculately clean ice hockey rink including the locker rooms. that is something I have never seen before and will likely never see again

bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe
I'm 38 and have been playing hockey now for over 30 years so you'd think there isn't much left "new" for me to experience, but

Today no one but me showed up for stick time, so I got the ice to myself for 2 hours for $11, which, beat that deal, anybody. I usually leave my phone in my car, but I brought it in today, and so decided to video myself skating some, as I've only seen myself play like half a dozen times ever. Turns out my phone has SLO MO mode, which means, for the first time, I got to watch myself do stuff in SLO MO.

Then the rink guy comes out and asks if I want to play with the radar gun thingie, which I haven't gotten to do since I was like 16. It was actually really, really neat...I was able to watch myself shooting and see what made stuff go faster. Turns out, in my old age, I skate in less of a crouch these days, and so I wasn't getting my bottom hand down far enough on the stick to optimize the flex on my snappers. By just getting my hand down where it was supposed to be, I added about 5 mph! God bless technology. The slo mo crash of my shots going way over the net as they crash into the glass has been cracking me up.

My wife put together a Rocky montage of me skating, to include me almost blowing a tire. I think my hardest clapper is the last clip, and the hardest snapper is at 3:10 or so. Big money to anyone who guesses how fast I can shoot! (I did not know the answer to this prior to around noon today)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRwsAYyZmR8

bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe

YES

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bewbies
Sep 23, 2003

Fun Shoe
IT WAS THE CROSSBAR

i actually hit 91 with my slapshot (most were upper 80s) which was a bit faster than the last time it was clocked. I guess an extra 50 lbs of "muscle" has at least one benefit. i hit 65 with my snapper, although I was definitely cheesing for speed and not really aiming it.

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