30 August 2001
I've been having a crisis of confidence lately. Lots of issues with feeling useful (or not useful, as the case may be). I think part of it is that I haven't been writing (and reading) entries in my hockey journal as often, so I'm losing perspective on how far I've come—and how far I have left to go.

I think I had an illusion for a while that I was getting fairly good, and that I was just on the edge of moving up to the Tuesday league. Then I accidentally saw my skill rating for the women's league: 4. The scale was 1-10, but no one on the list was given a ranking lower than 4... and a few women that I thought I could easily outskate were ranked higher. I shouldn't have let it get to me, but it did.

I actually haven't thought about that ranking for a while, but just now, as I tried to think about when this confidence issue reared its head, it came to mind. I think that's probably when it started. Since then, there have been a series of small frustrations that have compounded the feeling of uselessness; I wonder if they would have accumulated if the ranking thing hadn't shaken me in the first place. In other words, would I have just let them go if I weren't looking for evidence of my suckiness? Possibly; without the regular analysis of my every hockey move here, it's hard to tell. It's made me realize how truly valuable this journal has been for me. It's all about perspective.

Al (#9) leads the pack in the race for the puck

So now that I've said a few words about feeling useless, I should probably get down to the analysis of my hockey escapades, since that's the valuable part of all this. Last night I played two games in the women's league, partly because I couldn't wait until my own 9:55pm game to get on the ice. With me and a couple other subs, plus one late arrival, the Genies (blue) had 12 skaters, which meant I had plenty of time to practice my moves but also enough rest to keep me from exhaustion. I had a couple nice plays (timely stick or poke checks, good blocks), but then Ryan, who was reffing, would say, "good play," I'd look over at him, and I'd miss the puck when it came back to me. Must learn not to get distracted!

I had two breakaways in the game, as well, thanks to playing position at the point. (It's frustrating to be the only one up there sometimes, but this time it paid off.) Unfortunately, Crissy was subbing for the other team on D, and she quickly put a stop to both of them. I felt like I could have beaten almost anyone else. (Did I just say I was having a crisis of confidence? ;)

For my game, we only had five regulars plus one sub; the other team had about the same number of regulars but a larger number of subs (apparently they thought it would be more even to sub on the other team, since we have the Wonder Twins), so we played 4-on-4. I'm not a fan of 4-on-4 because position-playing goes all to hell, and if you get stuck on D you end up chasing either the puck or the breakaway skater all the time. There's just too much blueline for the other team to work with.

As it happened, I *did* get stuck on D most of the time while the other three skaters played forward. The ice was much slicker than for the first game, so while I could go faster, it also made it harder to stay upright. I even fell as I hopped over the boards on one shift. Very graceful. I was just playing normally, nothing special, for most of the time, until an incident that seemed to light a fire under me. S had skated off, and I came off a few seconds later. I took off my gloves, undid my helmet straps, and removed my mouthguard so I could get a good drink of water. I'd just put the bottle back and was struggling with the straps when P came over to the bench mid-play, obviously exhausted. She was coming off, no two ways about it, and I didn't blame her.

I looked over at S, who said, "I just got off." P hopped over the boards anyway, and S shrugged and repeated, "I just got off." I quickly finished snapping my second helmet strap on and shouted, "Well, *somebody* better get the fuck on!" S made no move, so I grabbed my glove and my stick and hopped over the boards, having had about 30 seconds of rest after about 4 minutes on the ice. I was pretty furious; obviously I wasn't ready to go back on, not because I was tired, but because my equipment wasn't all assembled properly.

The anger and the exhaustion really fired me up. I was determined to skate *harder* because I was already tired and had nothing left to lose. Shortly after coming on, a pass was broken up mid-ice (did I have a hand in that? I can't remember), and the puck ended up against the far boards. I raced over and picked it up, then skated around two opponents and took a hard shot from the slot. It was a good shot that required the goalie to make a determined save. No one had seemed to follow me in, so I chased my own rebound over to the boards, fighting off a defender to get there first. We hit the boards at about the same time, and I fought like a maniac for about three or four seconds, trying to get the puck free. In the middle of fighting, though, I ran out of energy (or adrenaline?). I thought, "that's it, that's all I have to give," and just stood up, panting. Luckily one of the twins came in and took up the fight, and we managed to work the puck free.

After that I stayed on the ice and continued to skate (and shoot) as hard as I possibly could. I figured if S really wanted to rest, she could stay on the bench. I had at least two more shots on goal, too: a shot followed by a rebound that both required quick saves by the goalie (I didn't just fire it right at her).

There was another moment in the game where the puck shot towards our end, and I raced after it. Crissy was racing parallel to me, and the puck was drifting a little toward her side. I heard Cathy yell, "LET HER HAVE IT!" Now, as part of the general feeling of uselessness that's been hovering over me lately like a dark cloud, I've had a few moments of feeling like a charity case, and I didn't like it. For example, at a really fun Saturday night pickup a few weeks ago, I felt like I was skating great, and several of the hotshot players were passing to me. At first I thought it was because they trusted me with the puck, but then I realized that they were passing to all the weaker players, trying to give them a chance. That meant that *I* was one of the weaker players. That realization hit me hard. So when I heard Cathy yell "LET HER HAVE IT," I knew that it was a charity move... but this time I didn't care. In my mind, I'd clearly earned the right to grab the puck and shoot because I'd booked down the ice as hard as I could, and there was no one other than Crissy near me. Of course, the one time I would have accepted charity, I wasn't given any: Crissy picked up the puck, and she didn't pass until I was practically in the crease, leaving no room to kick the puck forward from my skates onto my stick. A little frustrating, but it just made me more determined to get more shots off, and I did. That none of them went in didn't really matter to me.

I actually did score a goal two weeks ago, my first in the women's league and my second ever in a game. Eva (a very strong player from the Genies) was subbing for us, and she put a really sweet pass from the boards to the slot right on my stick, and I had time to get a grip on it and flick it through the 5-hole. I wasn't sure it had gone through at first, and then I heard it hit the back post. I yelled "YEAH!" because I'd been trying to make that shot all night. The twins kept trying to set me up in the middle, but either the pass would be off, or I'd get stick-checked, or the goalie would make a save. None of the previous shots felt as good as the one off the pass from Eva, though. Great teamwork.