27 February 2001
My Thursday team is great this season—we've got speed, size, and talent, which is a lot to work with. In the locker room before the game all the new people were busy telling me what they couldn't do ("I can't stop", "I suck at D", etc.), but it turned out that they had just neglected to mention what they *could* do. Mike, for example, may not be able to stop, but he can shoot like a bandit.

Most seem to have a good attitude, too. There's one particularly sour player that I don't understand very well (if it's not fun, why play?), one player who's awfully serious, and one who seems a bit conceited, but everyone else seems to have picked up on the recreational spirit of the league. I hope we have a really fun season, no matter what the scoreboard says (this past Thursday it said 7-7 when the final buzzer rang).

Bryan and Alex face off

I was telling Al about all the great players on my Thursday team, and he said he thought the tall guy (Mike) worked at Excite. Turns out that Al was right: Mike is now playing for Excite on Monday nights. (There's no Excite2 anymore; instead, there's a Blue Martini 2. Blue Martini split their one team into two, and then filled in the gaps with players recruited from Excite2 and elsewhere. Inktomi also recruited from Excite2, and Hoffman lost Collin, Todd, and Anton and picked up two actual Hoffman Agency employees. I had hoped that Macromedia would sponsor jerseys for us this season, but with the economy slowing down, we're trying to cut costs and maximize return for our investors.) I went up against Mike at Wing when I subbed in for Blue Martini 1 last night.

It was the first time I got to wear in a game the Blue M. jersey I'd ordered back in the fall. Woo hoo! I played on a line with Barrie at Left Wing and me at Right; I think everyone was trying a hand at D, so it seemed like we had a different Center every time. It was a little frustrating to be in our own zone most of the game, and that no one except Alex seemed to want to skate with the puck (NB to Alex: you've now got Bruce on your line, and he's a very worthy passing target!). I guess that's how my Hoffman teammates feel when I fail to skate with the puck. :-/ One thing I *can* say for myself, though: I rarely just dump it anymore. If I don't skate with it myself, I often put it right on the tape of one of my teammates' sticks.

Speaking of my Hoffman teammates, one of the reasons I wanted to sub for Blue Martini is that I wanted a little extra exercise, and with our normal compliment of players we have three forward lines—not really enough icetime to make me sweat. Well, as it turned out Hoffman was short; even with Al subbing for us we only had 9 players. That number was further reduced to 8 when number 19 on the Toasters took Big John out and dislocated his shoulder (we found out later that John also has a hairline fracture). Consequently, by the middle of the second period I was completely exhausted.

On one of my attempts to hop over the boards and onto the ice, one of my legs (and all of my balance) made it over, but the other leg didn't—and with an 'AAIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEE!' and a grab at Shaun's referee jersey, I hit the ice on my stomach. Duh. Luckily, it didn't hurt, and I had no fans in the stands, so I only embarrassed myself in front of the two or three people who saw me go down.

The game felt a little weird; it reminded me of my experience in the dorm my sophmore year at college. Freshman year I had a great time, but sophmore year not everyone came back. Different people, different dynamic. It'll probably be better next Monday if more people show up. I could just have a warped perspective of the game because I was SO tired, too. I remember that Rob had an awesome game; he was the main reason we only lost 3-0, despite being outskated handily by the Toasters. Oh, and Negin got a penalty for hooking. It was worth the goal they scored against us on the Power Play to see her sitting in the box looking guilty. :) Blows Gary's theory that the refs don''t call penalties on girls!