16 November 2000
I can't believe I haven't added to this journal since October 28!! Boy, am I behind. I'm not even sure if I should try to catch up with all the hockey events I've missed.

One thing probably worth mentioning, since it seems to have made me a bit more timid on the ice, is that I got the shit kicked out of me in the November 6 game against Excite 1 (Al's team).

It started with a relatively innocuous elbow to the ribs, which I thought wasn't very friendly, but also wasn't very painful. Then I went in hard to fight for the puck in a corner, and I'm not sure what happened—whether the tall guy with the puck saw me coming and put up his arms, or whether we just got tangled up—but the ensuing collision knocked the stick out of his hands and made my shoulders feel like they were on backwards.

Mike stews over a goal

The third hit was completely intentional, and resulted in a penalty against the guy who nailed me from behind. I'd been standing at the blueline like I'm supposed to when we're on defense, and one of our defenders passed to me up the boards. For the first time ever, I was in exactly the right place, and I made exactly the right move toward the puck. Unfortunately, I didn't even have time to get excited about this before WHAM!—I was knocked completely off my feet and onto my left hip (yep, the part where the padding is missing). I sat up and screamed "JEEESUS CHRIST!", and Shaun immediately blew the whistle. My entire bench started laughing when they realized that I was going to fight for myself and didn't need their assistance. :)

The fourth and final hit was the one that sent me off the ice with tears in my eyes, though, and the most I can say for it was that it was reckless—probably not intentional. I was digging for the puck in a scrum in front of the net, and a guy decided to steal the puck by skating between me and the two players I was digging under. When he did so, his shoulder caught my helmet at jaw level and spun my head around like I'd taken a left hook. I felt my neck pop, and it hurt like hell. Three days later (a Thursday, when I had another game to play), I got a migraine that centered in my neck. Blurry vision and everything, but the pain never made it up to my head. Boy, was my neck stiff!

I think because of the migraine and the sore neck and shoulders I was a little afraid to fall on Thursday... which of course means that I was falling all over the place. Reminded me of the time I hurt my tailbone snowboarding and was afraid to fall... so I fell every two feet or so. Never got any momentum going.

This past Monday's game was postponed because the Zamboni broke down and the ice was in terrible condition, so tonight was the first game I've played in a week. My toes froze as usual and were particularly painful, and I was still a little timid about going in hard at first, but by the third period I was back to my old rough and ready self. I even went up against Rudy and won, despite his taunts and the major case of the giggles they gave me. Al played for us because we were a little short, and he played his best game ever (in his opinion and in ours). Gary had a hat trick (he accounted for all 3 of our goals), Jimmy got a shutout, and I very nearly had the perfect assist—I just passed a little too hard for Tony to handle, but it went straight across the crease.

OK, last but not least for this entry, I wanted to mention that ever since the hellacious blocked-shot bruise (of which there's still evidence on my leg, in the form of a brownish lump), I've been trying to protect my shins better. To that end, I bought some longer shinguards, and I've started wearing my guards outside my skate tongues. This means that I now get dressed differently than when I started.