Negin in the locker room (!)

Mike takes a break

28 October 2000
I'm sitting in my pajamas, listening to the Sharks-Thrashers game over the Internet as I write this. Had been listening on my Walkman and fighting for good reception by tilting my head when one of the announcers said, "and now an e-mail question from one of our fans, who's listening to tonight's game over the Internet...". Weird that it hadn't even occurred to me to see if KFOX had that option on their website.... I should see if the Wild have regular Internet radio broadcasts as well. SCOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE! Patrick Marlowe extends his point scoring streak to 5 games!!

[OK, now back to non-professional hockey news.]

We've had really good turnout for our Monday night games (almost too good, in fact—the bench has been pretty crowded), so this week we lent the Toasters two of our players and recruited Al to play a second game when it was obvious that they were a bit short. We probably shouldn't have given them two of our stronger players; one of them scored against us, and I think the other had an assist.

I don't think the eventual loss (5-3, I think) was a reflection of our playing, which wasn't that bad. In fact, one of the Toasters came up to me afterwards and said, "I'm not sure how we managed to win that one—you guys outskated us." Can I just say again how much I'm loving Monday nights? Lots of camaraderie and no griping. Yay!

Thursday was another frustrating night of clumsy line changes. We had 11 skaters, so we went with two forward lines and one floater. Big mistake; we can't even execute a clean line change when we have three whole forward lines. There was a lot of bitching and moaning about getting shorted on ice time; guys going out on the wrong lines; and general confusion about position.

The way I usually keep track of things is to figure out who I'm going in for, and to keep my eyes glued on that person. I don't worry about anybody else except my guy (with the possible exception of the person who's coming in for me, if we have three lines). So when S came off the ice yelling "Left Wing!" in the third period, I wasn't even listening. I was busy watching G *playing* left wing, and looking for any sign that he was ready to come off. S apparently shouted "Left Wing!" twice before finally resorting to "Lori, LEFT WING! LORI!" Last season I would have been confused and angry and distracted; Thursday night I just skated straight out to right wing and picked up where S left off, making a mental note to kill him later.

During our game Bruce banged on the glass to ask if I would sub in for Black in the next game, but I waved him off because I wanted to concentrate on the current happenings. At that point, I have to admit I wasn't in the mood to play a second game; I was feeling tired, both physically and mentally. When we lost to Blue 3-0, I got a second wind. Maybe it was just that our game wasn't that satisfying, and I wanted to make up for it. Black had found one other skater, but they were still two short, so G and I got permission to play for them.

The problem with playing a second game is that it isn't just any second game—it's one with only three subs, so you're on the ice practically all the time. That's tough normally, but even tougher when you've already been playing for 45 minutes. Since it was my birthday, I got a lot of ribbing from my black teammates about that extra year weighing heavily on me. :) I was really disappointed with my performance in general—why the heck can't I seem to make contact with the puck???—but I did have a breakaway against Collin (it resulted in a kick save), and I took a guy into the boards hard (he ended up sitting on my side and pinning me to the ice, so it wasn't an *entirely* successful manouver).

If I sucked with the puck, at least I served some purpose: namely, to let the Black regulars have a rest from time to time. The end result was a 5-3 win against White. I was really happy to win one for Mikey, who plays for Blue Martini on Monday nights (and who was also my goalie last season on Red). Blue Martini's got the best team spirit in the league, but very few ringers. Having a Goals Against Average of 10 or so doesn't do much for a goalie's confidence, so keeping the score low and getting the win meant a lot.

I really have to get back to writing after each hockey event, so I don't have to cover 3 or 4 in one post... The fourth item in this one is the practice time that Big John, Ed, Jim and I got last night at 11pm. (Ed and John are cousins, and Ed and Jim play for Inktomi.) I hadn't realized how much I missed Stick Time until I got out on the ice last night. John ran me through a few shooting and stickhandling drills—the one that involved lifting my stick over John's to slide the puck back and forth had my arms burning after about 30 seconds—and then Jim and I spent about 15 minutes practicing making and taking passes off the boards. In between, I skated with the puck while trying to keep my head up, and practiced my wrist shot. It was so great to just work on skills by myself or with one other person for a while. I'm thinking that I should try to attend the Skate & Shoot sessions at the Bridgepointe Ice Chalet on Friday mornings at 11am now that Oakland Ice doesn't have Stick Time anymore.