me

leslie

michele changes up

19 December 2001
OK, OK, I know I haven't written in my hockey journal in FOREVER. Here are my excuses: (1) I kept thinking that I would write about the end of the L.A. tournament, and I didn't want to write about current stuff until I finished that. (2) I had more pictures than I knew what to do with for once (more often I have entries with no photos), and I felt like I had to come up with entries to go with them all. It was overwhelming. (3) My hands are cramped from overwork (I finally got a trackball working, so at least the pain isn't increasing daily anymore).

That last excuse has actually affected my playing somewhat; I've noticed that it's harder to hold the stick, knock other players off the puck, and shoot convincingly these days. Can't grip firmly, and there's no strength in my forearms. :( I need a vacation for sure. Thank god Christmas week is coming! I'm bummed that there'll be no hockey for two weeks, but at least I won't have to type or use the mouse every day, either.

We ended up losing two games and winning one at the L.A. tournament, but our last game against the tournament hosts, the Polar Cats, was excellent. They said afterward that we presented the biggest challenge for them. (I think we lost 1-0.)

On Sunday morning after breakfast, Al & I went back to the rink and caught the last few minutes of the championship game between the Cats and the Heartbreakers. Al had remarked when he saw them play against each other in the first game on Friday that the Cats had the better skaters, but the Heartbreakers had the stronger goalie. His assessment was proven accurate when the final ended in a shootout, and the Heartbreakers took the game on the strength of their goalie. She didn't let in any shots, even when the last shooter was given an extra opportunity to go against her (I'm not sure why... perhaps she'd come too far out of the crease the first time?). Anyway, it was very exciting.

That night we got to go see the Kings play the Minnesota Wild (yay! they're my sentimental favorites, the team I root for after the Sharks). It was really fun; the two teams that won the tournament (upper & lower divisions) got to skate out on the ice betwee the 2nd and 3rd periods. The Toronto Silver Bullets won the upper division, and a couple girls from their team asked Al & me to take photos of them when they skated out. I was kinda bummed that they only got three minutes to do their thing, but it was still neat. I have tons of photos from that Kings game; look for them sprinkled through future entries, along with all the photos I've taken at Sharks games in San Jose. :)

This season my Monday team isn't doing very well in the standings (we're challenging Blue Martini for the bottom spot), but we're having fun playing together. We now have 6 women on the squad, and we often have equal numbers of women and men. Very cool. There are a couple things I'm frustrated about, but in general I think we play fairly well together—we're just not of the caliber of Inktomi, Excite, or Coastside.

I was going to play in a tournament at Ice Oasis after Christmas, but there's so much going on now with work and the house and the holidays and stuff, it just seemed too much. I had to bow out. :( Oh well, I do have several hockey dates to look forward to: on January 5 I'll be participating in a practice at the Shark Tank with a bunch of other skaters I don't know very well. It'll be run by Drew Remenda and "a mystery Sharks alumni". We not only get a professionally-run practice, but we also get practice jerseys and tickets to the game that night. Pretty cool.

After the Sharks practice, my Spitfire team has two practices scheduled in January, and then we go to a tournament in Las Vegas on February 7. It'll be quite a whirlwind of travel and adventure in February, because I get back from the tournament on Sunday night and then leave for Hawaii very early Monday morning. Gotta trade my hockey bag and skates for my golf clubs and bathing suit.

Well, I'd better preserve my hands for fixing bugs, so that's it for now. I have a bunch more to say about the skating I've done lately, but it will have to wait.