8 February 2002
So I know a bit more about the level of the division now. It's generally about right, except that the sharing of players between two rosters seems a bit, er... what's the opposite of kosher?

The team we beat 3-2 today shares four players with their Novice 1 division A team (the four all play forward on the A team, and defense on B). Those four players were certainly easy to spot (how many beginning women have slap shots?), but they didn't really raise the level of the whole team beyond ours.

About five minutes into last night's game, however, I remarked to Karen that "these guys should be in the division just above this one [4]." It turned out that 9 of the 18 rostered players *were* in Division 4, on the team's A squad. They outshot us 26-10; only Cara's excellent play in goal kept the game from being a blowout.*

We spent most of the time in our own zone, fighting to break out. There was one shift in particular, late in the game, where after about 2 minutes of attempting to clear, I started screaming "ICE THE PUCK, ICE THE PUCK!" Anyone who got control, though, attempted to skate with it—and promptly had the puck stolen from her. After another 30 seconds or so I was practically in tears; my sides were both cramped, I was exhausted from chasing the puck in the corner, and I was desperate to change. Of course, it just kept coming back, and I heard my D partner yell, "go get it, Lori!" Yeah, right!

Overall, I didn't really mind being on D; I thought we played fairly well in that department. We managed to kill off all three penalties called against us in the first two games, and I don't think I was on the ice for any goals against. In today's game I even skated up with the puck once, though I didn't spot anyone with me except two defenders, and one of them successfully tangled me up so I couldn't get a clean shot off.

*To be fair, in the L.A. tournament Shauna McKimmie played for both our team and an upper division team, but she didn't alter the level of the whole team... which was already a bit lower than the other teams in our bracket.

I show Stephanie how to use the camera, and catch an interesting still life.

Karen and Leslie prepare for game #2.