Shaun: "Yeah man, I know it wasn't your fault, but somebody's got to pay."

Shaun and John argue like an old married couple.

15 July 2000
Was in Minnesota for work on Thursday and Friday, so I didn't get my usual open skate in San Mateo or the stick time in Oakland. Instead, I asked one of the guys in the MN office to find a rink for me there.

DA came through with the Biehlenberg Sports Center, a multi-sport complex in Woodbury, about 20 minutes from the office (and the airport). I was able to do the 6:40pm to 8:00pm open skate and easily make my 10:25pm flight back to SFO last night.

It was a great facility, and not crowded at all—just a few really small kids, three parents, and another girl working on her hockey skating. When I saw the size of the kids, I remarked to one of the dads, "So it's true: you Minnesotans start skating at the age of 4." He replied, "Well, I started at 2, and my son started at 18 months." Glad I'm learning hockey in California, where it's not so strange to pick up the sport at 31.

Brad, my new (work) teammate, lives in Woodbury, so he met me at the rink at 7. It was fun to have someone to skate with, and he helped me work on my forward-to-backward pivots. All in all, a really pleasant 80 minutes.

Today I was plannig to skate at Ice Oasis, but the rink was taken over by a figure skating competition. I ended up working through the afternoon instead (which is probably what I should have been doing anyway; I have three presentations to give in Seattle on Wednesday), and then going back at 6:30pm to see Shaun and John play in the over 35 league. On the way over I stopped at Barnes & Noble and bought a bunch of hockey books (High Performance Skating for Hockey, Sports Illustrated Hockey: Learn to Play the Modern Way, Hockey the NHL Way: The Basics, and Hockey for Dummies) to supplement the one I got last week (The Hockey Handbook).

I brought the one on skating into the rink with me, which turned out to be a good thing: the figure skating competition was running over an hour behind, so hockey was delayed. The book looks like it's going to be enormously helpful in improving my basic skating skills (like stopping, which I *still* haven't mastered).

When the over 35s finally took the ice, I moved up to the lounge for a better view. Shaun refereed the first game; it was interesting, but the second game was more useful to me. A guy named Mike was there observing his nephew, the goalie for Shaun and John's team, and he helped me figure out which players were doing what and why. Very cool.

Shaun fights for the puck at the boards.

John on defense, keeping his eye on the puck.

Shaun skates the puck down the ice, using the one-handed technique I favor.