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The Quadrella, Part II

March 28, 2012 by 1 Comment

Mischa and Zoe hang out pre-training at the nerve-centre of the Kensington fight scene.

Second Leg, Monday: Boxing has been part of my life for a long time and I love Mondays with Mischa. 7.30 pm on the third floor of an old warehouse in Kensington, now converted into boutique and diverse creative endeavours. Apart from the top floor which is dedicated to multi-discipline fighting.

On Mondays, about a dozen of us share the space with a bunch of wrestlers, or “grapplers” as Mischa calls them. They grunt and writhe, snaking limbs around each other’s bodies in a way that makes you go straight back to Roy & HG setting the whole thing to a Barry White soundtrack at the Sydney Olympics. Ohhhh, baby.

Last night, as we skipped (the first two rounds are skipping. Death to calves after The Bang) a pretty big kickboxer also wandered in and spent some time pounding into the heavy bag with his legs, threatening to shake the floor under us. It’s never a boring setting.

Mischa, AKA “The Sweetest Thing”, is an old journo friend of mine who got into boxing quite a few years ago, which gave us a whole new level of conversation because she was now training with boxing identities I’d written about for years in one of my many incarnations (boxing writer for The Herald newspaper, and briefly, freelancing, for the Sunday Age).

Then Mischa got further into it, and won an Australian title and fought overseas, training at Gleason’s Gym in Brooklyn, NY (of which I’m endlessly jealous), and has written several excellent books on the subject of being a female fighter. These days, she mixes her time between training fighters, running boxing fitness classes like the one I attend, and journalism.

Our group is pretty diverse. There’s Zoe, who is in training for an actual fight, even though she might have broken a rib sparring last week. And there are a range of guys and women of varying motivation, fitness and skills. On Monday, I paired up with Bree, who works in a fabrics shop and told me she has a side business involving Eighties sewing machines or something. She told me all this while throwing left and right combinations at my padded hands, centimetres from my face, so it was hard to pay full attention.

After the skipping, we split into groups and either move and throw combinations at the air, or run and do mounting numbers of push-ups, which is where the day before’s Bang session starts to hurt before I’ve even started. I hadn’t realised how many Bang punishment push-ups I’d obviously done because my shoulders and chest almost immediately complain about raising and carrying my weight. I sprint 10 times, then push-ups, which means 55 push-ups spread out, and I’m wondering if I’ll survive the hour.

But then thankfully we’re on the matts, throwing combinations, left jab, straight right, left hook, straight right, then step under phantom blows and countering with straight right, left hook, straight right. A cheer goes up from the Grapplers. Maybe somebody finally scored? We pair up and move onto pads and gloves, throwing combinations into the pads, dancing around one another, changing direction, changing direction, footwork, footwork, then a two punch combo, or an eight punch combo, or a six punch combo, and move, and change and change and change and one jab, and move and change …

Taped up and ready.

By now, I’m sweating hard but my body has loosened and The Bang is behind me. As I wail into the heavy bag with jabs and hooks, and the occasional uppercut combo, my shoulders are working hard but my legs feel good and all the dancing and directional changing will channel directly into my skating, once I’m back on the ice.

The session finishes with a gruelling abs workout, with a bunch of crunches and other stomach-busters.

And we drift into the night. I’d felt seriously stressed and heavy when I arrived. Now I feel fantastic.

Monday (and Wednesday), 7.30 pm, 10 bucks for the session.

Seriously, hockey people, you can’t go past it. You might even get to punch me. What’s not to like?

Address: Level 3, 10 Elizabeth Street, Kensington.

(Facebook: ‘like’ Mischa’s Boxing Central)

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The Quadrella. Part I

March 27, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Tiger Mick (not me) goes the big roost at the Sunday Bang.

The first leg: the Sunday Bang.

A bunch of mostly guys, aged anywhere from 30 to 60. United in the chase of leather, the perfect pass to a running lead, the clean grab, the running-past handball. To fluid, beautiful football, for no other purpose than the moment itself. A team that in something like 20 years of existence has never played a game. Just endless circle work between an ever-shifting cast savouring the magic of the Sherrin.

And the friendship that comes from the common cause. So much laughter, coaxing, urging, shit-hanging, understanding and bonding.

For our purposes on this blog: Two hours of hard running, kicking, handballing, stretching high for marks, creaking low for pick-ups. No physical contact – that’s not how The Bang rolls, unless you feel like it.

Sore legs. Sore chest from push-up punishments for missed passes or skill errors.

And on to Monday …

Filed Under: Ice hockey

The Seinfeld entry: a blog about nothing

March 23, 2012 by Leave a Comment

I plan to spend the weekend acquainting myself with some single malt whisky, some magician friends, maybe some underwater fish friends (weather permitting) and my fictional friends within the new novel. It’s been a tough week so this will be short and hopefully not too black.

Intermediate class was actually a lot of fun this week, with puck-handling drills, which I enjoy so much more than skating drills (probably, I guess, because I suck less at puck-handling) and I even scored a genuine goal; stealing a puck, turning away from an opponent, stick-handling to the front of the net and stuffing it past a real live goalie. The only person looking more surprised than me was Army, the coach.

Dev League also rocked. It was one of those nights where I very much needed to skate, get hit, smash into the boards, get among it. Oh, it was sweet. I even controlled the puck a few times and did other actual hockey moves. Slowly, ever so slowly, I am creeping up to the standard. It feels good. And last night, I lay in bed thinking about last March and where I was at … not even through my first round of Intro probably. Wow. I have come a long way, post-to-post from March 23, 2011-March 23, 2012.

Anyway, that will do for now. I hate writing flat posts.

I’ll pick myself up and hopefully the Detroit Red Wings can do their bit by actually winning a game or two, pre-play-offs, to consolidate some kind of home-ice advantage in the first round and to pull out of the funk they’ve landed in. Man, that record home-winning streak, and being top of the entire League, feels a long time ago. Hang in there, Wings, and get some healthy stars back. Soon. Please.

Respect the octopus and I’m going to put one skate in front of the other and make it to Monday. See you there.

Filed Under: Ice hockey

The Rookies versus IBM, night fevers and other stories

March 18, 2012 by Leave a Comment

A member of Friday's IBM team.

On Friday, a somewhat bizarre ice hockey match took place at the Icehouse. One of the Rookies, Chris Janson, had asked if anybody wanted to make up the numbers in an IBM social event: a game of scrimmage on the Henke Rink on Friday, after work.

“So, to be clear,” I said to Chris, in the change room on Wednesday night, dripping in sweat, post-dev league, “you’re inviting us to step onto the ice against a bunch of IBM employees in an actual scrimmage, as a social bonding exercise for IBM?”

I had visions of a bunch of weedy computer geeks in Hanson Brother glasses, being boarded by Big Cat Place (the artist formerly known as “Kittens”) and other monsters of the local ice scene.

“That’s right,” said Chris. He reeled off a bunch of hockey player names, some from the higher divisions of local competition, such as the Melbourne Ice Wolves’ Pete Savvides (who has since told me he’s Division 4, not Division 2, and not the old TV show) – very accomplished players. “They’re all IBM guys.”

Oh …

It turned out to be a lot of fun. Several players, like the McNab girls, playing their first-ever real game of scrimmage, several of us, like Jess Hough, Big Cat and I simply enjoying ice time, while others, such as Wayne and Savvides showed us up but no doubt with just enough of a handbrake on their talent and superior skating to not make us look like total muppets.

The best thing, for me, was that one way or another, this game was played at a more gentle pace than Tuesday or Wednesday Dev League, and I was able to actually skate at a pace that kept up. I hadn’t realized how much time I spend on the weeknights, leaning forward too far and almost toppling, because I’m hustling too fast, trying to push myself too fast, just to keep up. I’m not sure how to use this new knowledge yet, but it’s something to ponder.

The miracle was that I was even in the IBM bloodbath, I mean, social event, given how I’d felt less than 48 hours earlier. Arriving home from Wednesday night’s hockey, I shivered uncontrollably in my bed, with what felt like a raging fever. Huddled under my doona, wide awake at 3 am but shaking wildly, in total physical meltdown, it occurred to me: “Oh, this isn’t good.”

A few hours earlier, in full armour, mid-Intermediate class, as my head pounded and my stomach churned, on the brink of something nameless and undefined but potentially nasty, I pondered that I had never before been on the ice, feeling crook. I’ve played hurt, in terms of a few bangs here or there and especially, the very sore neck/shoulder that killed me for a couple of months last year. But I hadn’t felt sick.

Another member of the IBM social hockey team.

This whole experience was a surprise because I’m feeling as fit as I’ve felt for a long time at the moment. This potentially weekly regime of Sunday footy, Monday (boxing), Tuesday (intro dev league), Wed (intermediate class, then harder dev league), Thursday (collapse) has definitely been pushing me physically and I feel great for it.

Well, most of the time. On Wednesday, it, or life, or a combination of both caught up with me big-time and unexpectedly mid-way through Intermediate. Maybe it was lugging office junk downstairs to a skip for four or five hours on the Tuesday that strained my stomach? Who knows? The fact was I felt terrible and it was a different struggle to the week before, where my legs had simply been fried, full of lactic acid build-up or whatever the, you know, science is from backing-up dev league as well as flying to Brisbane and back. This week, I was feeling off-colour, although it’s possible the highly intricate skating skills of this particular Intermediate class could have made me feel sick all on their own.

Transitions, stepping over sticks, inside and outside edge work, more transitions (every bit as big a bastard as the pivot, in my humble opinion); it was Hell. Somehow I survived Dev League, which was even more intense than the week before.

I’d really enjoyed Tuesday’s scrimmage; feeling for the first time that I was genuinely performing to the standard required with some decent puck work, including stealing it off other players, accurate passing and other miracles. I appear to be more willing than most to throw my body on the line, which often means I end up on my knees or arse, still fighting for the puck. Sure, it could be argued that this is also a lack of ability to keep my skates when it matters – which is why other players don’t end up in collisions or life-and-death situations, flying towards the boards. … because they can skate out of such danger zones. I like to think of it as plucky ahead of incompetent.

Wednesday dev league includes several players who, frankly, probably have no right to be there; as in, they’re playing for teams and are clearly several levels above P-Plate skaters like me. But it’s cool to pit yourself against them: to hopefully not get pwned every time you battle for a puck or try to backcheck. Headachy or not, I threw myself into it, and sat on the bench between shifts, smiling at people I now regard as friends, who have been playing against one another, or on the same team on other weeks, went toe-to-toe. Brendan versus Chris, battling hard to the blue line, Lee versus Kevin, Todd versus Kittens, Morgan versus Theresa … these are battles that shift and rotate every week, every session, as we all push ourselves and try to improve.

And then backing up again on the Friday, fever and lack of energy or not. Even playing the gentler IBM scrimmage finished me for the weekend, I decided, despite a very tempting offer to join Joey Hughes’ outfit for a shooting tutorial all weekend at the magnificent Oakleigh rink.

Rest, I decided, Wednesday night shaking session still fresh in my mind and internal batteries on low. A novel needs to be plotted and written, and there are so many more intermediate classes and dev league hours to be skated. With a dive course cancelled, I had a totally free weekend and used it to drink far too much coffee and alcohol with friends.

Except that it’s now lunchtime on Sunday … and I have a free afternoon … and General Skating might not be crowded, given the Grand Prix is on and all.

…. Hmmm. Tempting.

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Rookies on film …

March 9, 2012 by 1 Comment

So, on Wednesday night, one of the Icehouse Rookies, Daniel Mellios (looking resplendent in a black Red Wings hoodie), turned up with a camera, and quietly shot the lights out of our entire Dev League session. Then produced a music clip the next day.

In the interests of as many eyeballs as possible seeing his excellent work, I thought I’d link to it here.

It really captures arriving at the Icehouse, getting ready, camaraderie, and where we’re at in terms of game play and skills of various levels We remain such a small cult of hockey diehards, within a larger, mostly-disinterested city, so far from the NHL action … I love this video for celebrating our world.

Kittens and I were both on the Red team and therefore got to wear our Wings jerseys. I’m in the #40 Zetterberg with a red helmet and red socks. Will aka Kittens, who features more in this clip, including landing on his butt, is in the #44 Bertuzzi jersey, with black helmet and white socks.

Nice work, Mr Mellios. Nice work …

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Stepping it up

March 8, 2012 by 2 Comments

When I was a boy, I fell off a cliff. Like, really. Fell close to 20 metres, although I bounced most of it.

It was a strange experience. The actual feeling of falling is so unusual and horrifying it’s indescribable, and I clearly remember (a) seeing the rock break off in my hand and having time to think: “Oh, that’s not good” before the plummet gathered momentum, and (b) a washed-up detergent bottle on the rocks at the bottom rushing up to meet me.

As I lay at the foot of the drop, covered in blood and red dirt, my brain did an unusual thing: a physical inventory. I shit you not. Semi-dazed, I went mentally checked every body part, as in: “Left arm, bleeding but ok. Right arm, same. Left leg … OH JESUS! Broken ankle? Right leg, seems okay …” and so on.

Who needs rest? Let me out there! Dev League last night. Pic: Ben Weisser.

I woke up this morning and went through a similar routine. Legs? Surprisingly not sore. Right arm, fine. Left shoulder … hmmm, tender but functional. Back, good.

I’m not about to equate signing up for Tuesday Dev League, on top of two hours of dedicated hockey on a Wednesday night as the equivalent of falling 20 metres onto rocks, but it was definitely a work out. I’ve been concerned that I’ve been skating more than running over summer, as running gives me a better cardio workout. Those fears are now behind me, for at least the next month while I go back-to-back on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

My footy crew, the mighty Bang, had also reconvened on Sunday so I ran hard and kicked a Sherrin for the first time in two months or so, leading to creaky legs on Monday. Then on Tuesday, 5.30 pm Dev League began. This is technically a level below Wednesday Dev League, open to people who have completed Intro, but a lot of the usual suspects turned up, who can skate better than well and even play for low-level teams. Being at an awkward time-slot for anybody with a real job (thankfully, that doesn’t include me), numbers were thinner than usual, so our teams only had eight or nine, meaning play was shift-on, shift-off, and sometimes a double-shift. Good way to sort out your fitness, right there.

I felt great and loved it, even if I did have to bolt off the ice with 10 minutes to go so I could catch a plane to Brisbane. (Amen for complimentary showers in the Virgin lounge. My fellow passengers were grateful without even realising it.)

I miraculously got into my Brisbane hotel at about 10.30 pm*, was up in time to be at an interactiveminds.com.au event by 7.30 am, to check slides and video links were working, delivered a talk about online video at 9 am, hailed a cab, made it back to the airport, flew out at 1 pm and landed in Melbourne around 4, just in time to dump my stuff, grab my hockey kit and head straight back to the Icehouse.

As Danny Glover said repeatedly in Lethal Weapon, “I’m too old for this shit.”

And yet, I got home last night, blood pumping, unable to sleep before maybe 2 am, in love with life. Which was yet another surprise, given the first 40 minutes or so of Intermediate, when my legs were like lead. I barely made it through the warm-up laps. It was pathetic, and I was seriously wondering if I should limp off the ice, especially after a drill to practice keeping an opponent behind you away from the puck, using a carefully-positioned arse. Kittens brushed me aside repeatedly. During all the technical skating drills, I struggled, but then, a miracle occurred.

The final drill was a straight out killer, known as a “bag skate”. Two lines of skaters. Lliam tosses pucks onto the ice at random and pairs of skaters, one from each line, fly after it, in a one-on-one length-of-the-ice duel to try and score a goal – actual goalies at each end. It’s a lot of fun; battling for the puck, plus full ice breakaways, or back-checking chases from goal to goal. Death to tired legs … well, should have been. Instead, somehow, I kicked back in. After 15 minutes, when certain junior members of my household confessed later, they were worried they were going to vomit, I unexpectedly found my legs. And was belting up and down the rink.

Army watches, unmoved, as I fail to successfully bad-ass trash-talk, post collision. Pic: Ben Weisser

Which led directly to Intermediate Dev League and me feeling stronger and stronger with every shift. Which was lucky, because (a) a bunch of Will’s posse had turned up, lightly and rowdily drunk, and were yelling for us every time we went near the puck, and (b) it was an intense game. The sides were pretty evenly matched (every week, they divide us into “red’ or “black” jerseys, so the teams are never the same twice) and after three weeks off the ice because of the skating titles, a lot of the players were in a, um, willing mood. There were more full body collisions than I’ve previously seen in any of my classes or games.

I was involved in several but only lost my feet once, which has me wondering if I’m harder to shift on my skates than I would have thought. I was surprised and kind of thrilled when I smashed head on into a pretty good skater from the other team, at pace, and he went flying backwards, landing on his arse, dropping his stick, like he’d hit a brick wall, while I stood above him, unmoved. Who knows how that happened? My skate must have been on just the right angle or something.

I screwed up though, asking if he was okay before it occurred to me how bad-ass I must be looking right now and yelled: “Take that, motha-fucka!” The photo shows what Army thought of me getting the insult and safety-check out of order. Look at his body language.

There was another spectacular pile-up in front of me later in the game, where opponent spilled and I almost got the puck through, nothing but clear ice and a goalie beyond, before my legs got tangled in the humanity. Rats.

Will (in red) collides with an opponent. On the bench, Jay said Kittens is turning into a Big Cat. (Update: Todd is claiming this original line. Well played. 'Big Cat' has stuck) Pic: Ben Weisser.

Fun night, and oh boy, am I going to be fitter after a month or more of scrimmages two nights in a row. Too old for this shit? Never!

* “Miraculous” because I got in a taxi at Brisbane airport, and the conversation went like this:

Me: Sofitel, please.

Cabbie: The Sofitel? You mean the Novetel?

Me: No, the Sofitel. Next to Central Station.

Cabbie: Central Station? Oh, I think I know where that is.

Me: Um, you think? It’s right in the city centre. Turbot Street.

Cabbie: …. Turbot Street?

Me: You been driving a cab for long.

Cabbie: Yeah, seven years. But mostly around Rockcliffe. Don’t worry, I bought a GPS thing today, second hand, and I’m learning how to use it.

Hooooo boy.

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Chasing the night

March 1, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Like wildfire on Facebook …

Harbourside car park hockey. In the rain. Pic: Ben Weisser

Have you heard?

Class is cancelled …

What???

The rink’s apparently not ready, post skating titles …

WHAT?

The Ice Cat broke down …

The Zamboni …

Oh my God …

Calm everybody. We just need to stay calm.

OH MY GOD!!!

The Icehouse staff doing the right thing,
going over and above to phone everybody in last night’s classes and Dev League,
letting us know,
saying sorry,
inviting us down for a free general skate,
extending the term by a week.

By now, emails flying,
Facebook in meltdown,
decisions to be made about whether emergency counsellors need to be called in,
to help the shocked, grieving hockey rookies cope.

Bottom lips quivering.

No classes?

Tonight?

OH MY GOD!

Facebook humming.
Plans emerge.
Well, we’re free tonight anyway, right?

The Harbourside Hotel does a roaring trade as rookies can have a sly drink, pre-General Skate
– something we’d (well, I’d … ok, maybe one) never do before a real class.

And then General Skate is a Wednesday night social outing;

Chris’s Janson and Hodson,
The Hough gals,
Will Ong, Wayne, waves and grins.
Beyonce dancing on the screen,
All the single ladies … All the single ladies …
hockey rookies everywhere, hanging laps and chatting,
catching up in ways we can’t when the heat of class is on.

But then, a need to hit a puck. General just not cutting it.

Into the night we go,
Alex clasping a brand new stick,
Kittens and I with a quiver for anybody who wants them,
Jack turning up in time to play, stretching truths to escape class,
Kittens’ wider, non-hockey crew, well-charged after a social afternoon
with us as we hit the top floor of the Harbourside car park
and smack some street-pucks.

Two McNabs down. Note to self: Wear shoes when you play street hockey.

Getting carried away.
Women playing in bare feet, having assumed skates when leaving home this morning, pre-cancellation disaster.
Bare feet not a good idea.
A McNab down. Broken toe? Only bruised?
Another McNab down. Make that two.

This one nastier. Ouch.

Blood on the concrete.
Rain falling.
A few fluorescent lights.
Puck-catching tricks with sticks.
Banter. Laughter.

Driving home in the dark rain.
A Wednesday night without class – the third in a row – but the rookies taking control of the night, making it ours.

Fun.

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Warning: dick-swingers in the house

February 29, 2012 by Leave a Comment

The surprising thing is how quickly hockey players denied ice-time become stir-crazy. I’ve touched on this before, such as the frenzied Facebook message chain that accompanied the Icehouse website being down when we were supposed to be registering for class this term.

The last two weeks have seen hockey classes suspended because the world junior speed skating championships took over the Henke Rink. I basically left town for two weeks, unable to face the prospect of an Icehouse with no hockey. Well, ok, I’m sort of totally lying. I went diving with manta rays, which I planned to do whether hockey was happening or not, then timed a work trip to coincide with the other week I knew hockey was off.

Cowboys at Shady Pines on Saturday night.

These were among my more brilliant plans, seeing me spend some quality time with sharks, as discussed in the last post, and then some entertaining time with cowgirls, far too many elaborate and potent cocktails, Woody from Toy Story, a Special Forces Commando and other eye-raising Sydneysiders at Shady Pines, a saloon down a side street that I fully recommend if you’re ever in Coathanger City. (And yes, it was established by a couple of veterans of the Fitzroy bar scene, so if it feels like a Melbourne kind of bar, it is. Enjoy, Sydney. Thank God, the ridiculous beer-barns-can-only-be-massive-Leagues-clubs liquor laws have changed up there.) Then I got back to Melbourne and huddled under a towel in the rain at The Boulevard, one of Melbourne’s lesser-known brilliant views, watching an awesome electrical storm, drinking beer, talking philosophy and anticipating a Denny’s hamburger. That, my skater friends, is how you fill two non-hockey weeks, right there.

Anyway, not for the first time on this blog, I digress. Cut back to the Icehouse last night, where the Henke Rink now has hockey lines redrawn, instead of the giant circle that apparently graced it on the weekend, and was being re-iced, post-championships. (I’m bummed I missed the speed skating actually. I would have loved to see those skaters in full flight.)

But we were there for General Skating, all crowded onto the Bradbury Rink, which was close to standing room only. And that’s where the stir-crazy hockey players become obvious. I call them the ‘dick-swingers’ – skaters who insist on attempting to travel at 4000 kph despite the fact there is never more than about a metre of clear ice in front of you at any time on such a crowded rink.

These skaters, and sadly most appear to be on hockey skates, zip and zoom between the slower skaters with the breathtaking danger of the opening scene of Mad Max – you know, where the baby wanders onto the road as Max the Interceptor and The Night-Rider hurtle towards him.  (… about six minutes in, if you can’t watch the whole 10 minutes in the link, but if you can spare 10 minutes, do. I maintain this is one of the greatest first 10 minutes of an Australian film ever. Especially because legend has it they shot a lot of the crazy car stunt scenes without council permits, out the back of the You Yangs.)

I don’t doubt the talent of the dick-swingers (and this is a non-gender term: there are women out there, needing to show how big their dick is on skates, every bit as much as the men); they’re amazing the way they can change direction, flip from forward to backward crossovers, etc. But my issue is with the danger and intimidation for the everyday skaters on the same ice.

Last night I was gliding along, basically trying to get the feel of skates under my feet again after two weeks off the ice. It’s surprising how such a short layoff can affect your balance and poise. And there was a tiny little girl, maybe five years old, who had been in the middle of the ice with, I guess, her mum. Now the little girl was trying to get back to the wall, and dozens of skaters were swirling towards and around her, all moving in an anti-clockwise direction but at different speeds and moving straight, diagonally, you name it across the surface.

It was okay. This little girl was easy to see and everybody was giving her room. As I approached, there was plenty of ice for her and for me, but then the dick-swinger arrived.

Hurtling past my left shoulder, spotting the girl, right there!, cutting sharply to the right, screeching past the little girl with centimetres to spare. Flying down the rink, weaving between wobbly, maybe-first-time skaters.

Fancy, fast skating, yeah, but terrifying for the kid. And dangerous if one of those less accomplished skaters falls or lurches unexpectedly in a direction.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m being harsh. There don’t seem to be many collisions, even if you do occasionally see Icehouse staff literally chiseling blood off the rink. I know the Icehouse staff occasionally have a word with the dick-swingers, asking them to slow down.

Mad Max action in full flight

But it keeps on happening. One hockey mate, Justin, who is a brilliant skater and seems to know how to draw a line between going fast and showing his skills without actually putting anybody else in peril, said he sees the slower skates as “moving traffic cones” and I think that’s true of all the dick-swingers. Not all of whom strike me as having Justin’s sense of the fellow man.

The bottom line is bring on tonight’s return of hockey classes and dedicated ice time for hockey players, whether rookies like me or look-at-me Jedis like the dick-swingers. Let them skate as fast and hard as they can, with skills to marvel and enjoy, without putting fear into the eyes of a little girl just finding her way on the ice.

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So, how was your week?

February 19, 2012 by Leave a Comment

The difficult one-finger hand-stand push-up. What you - well, I - do when no mantas turn up mid-dive.

Me? Finally had a story I’d written about taking up hockey published in the Sunday Age (thanks, fellow rookie Michael Coulter) but had flown north and landed on a remote Barrier Reef piece of sand with some trees and eight-billion noisy birds, Lady Elliot island, so I didn’t have any phone or web access.

Seems like it got a decent response. The headline: “Puck life”. An f for a p and my reputation as a sunny optimist is gone forever. (Even if, in reading back this blog, I spend far too much time in the f life mode, given how 90 per cent of my life rocks.)

On Lady Elliot, I did my second tour of duty as an Earthwatch volunteer. Not as many manta rays as in September, but I had one face-to-face beautiful encounter, which made the week worthwhile all on its own – plus, it was a never-seen-before very large (read: five metre wingspan) female so I got to name it. Introducing Lana Del Ray (see what I did there? Ray and Rey? Working on so many levels … well, two). I cut together a highlights video of her, but Youtube chopped out the music (Lana Del Rey: “Blue Jeans”) because it suspected copyright breach. Those spiders don’t miss a thing.

So I’ve cut together a broader highlights video of the week underwater, if you feel like a break from hockey. It only goes for six minutes. You’ll drool with envy. Lana Del Ray is the manta in the close-ups. The sharks kick in at about 3.49, if you can’t bear to watch six minutes of fish and other critters.

So that’s been my week. Now back in civilization and happily exhausted.

In other news, my footy team, Richmond, apparently looked good in the pre-season competition. The Red Wings’ astonishing home-winning streak is now at 22 wins and has broken all NHL records. Physically spent from the north, I lay on my couch today and watched a replay of the historic 21st straight home win on Gamecenter on my Apple TV. It was brilliant. The crowd at the Joe in the final minute was out-of-control loud and excited. I got emotional listening to the fans, now able to imagine being there. And of course they played “Don’t Stop Believin’“. One day I will hear that song in that stadium. (But no, Detroiters, I’m not coming anywhere near the city or the Joe while the streak remains! You can relax.)

Closer to home, the world junior speed skating championships will retain a hold on my home rink, the Henke, for another week or so, so I plan to go to Sydney for work and then non-work shenanigans before classes start again.

For now, I need to sleep and will hopefully ditch my usual yearnings for happy dreams of manta rays and Stanley Cups. Let’s go Red Wings, let’s go.

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Polishing a turd

February 9, 2012 by 9 Comments

I’ve always loved the expression “You can’t polish a turd”. I’m assuming any Detroit hockey people reading this get what it means … I have no idea if it’s an Australianism or not. The bottom line is that no matter how hard you try, you can’t turn, umm, human excrement into gold.

Some golden poo today. Pic: deviantart.com

So last night’s second attempt at Dev League was always going to be tricky. Looking vaguely back into the middle-distance of my life, I have a habit of second-time-blues when it comes to fitness and competition. That nasty second run, or that even worse second hit of tennis after a long break … things like that. I’ve always put it down to expectations. When you haven’t hit a tennis ball for months or haven’t played pool, or whatever, you don’t expect much of yourself, are therefore reasonably relaxed and just happy to be back doing something you love, and promptly play like a champ.

Second time out, you’re thinking ‘Man, I was hitting it really well last time … this should be even better now I’ve got my eye back in.’ The words “This should be…” being one of life’s more common but surprisingly effective traps. And you duly stink up the court, or felt, or bowling lane, or Royal Tennis court, or footy oval, or … well, you get the idea. In this case, let’s go with “rink”.

Last night I was slightly off from the start. Sore back, tired, uncertain on my skates. In Intermediate class, I actually felt pretty serviceable, given these things that I couldn’t shake off. At one stage, I said aloud: “C’mon, Nicko, fucking skate!” which drew a look from the chick in front of me. But eve after that eloquent and stirring pep talk, I was only okay.

In Dev League I battled hard, won some pucks, managed to have about five full body collisions (and kept my feet in all but one, which surprised me) but cannot in any reasonable hockey universe be considered to have had a great game. I was slow, not getting to where the puck would be enough … just hacking, basically.

But that’s cool. It was only my second attempt and I have all year to get better, to find the pace, to grow into this. We get a couple of weeks off now because of the world junior skating championships being held at our rink (no, really – the Icehouse techos are even removing all the glass from around the Henke Rink for the event. “That’s why every pane of glass has a number on it,” explained Lliam. “See, you even get some science.”)

I’d love to watch genuine speed skating but don’t know if I’ll get the chance. I’m heading to the Barrier Reef for a second stint of joining Earthwatch to save the manta ray. I did it last September, pre-America, and it totally rocked my world. No phone reception, no wifi … just me, three dives a day, turtles, sharks, rays, fish, corals, a great bunch of scientists and volunteers, fun resort staff at Lady Elliot Island and me, struggling to turn off all my day-to-day issues and live truly in the moment.

I just got a new Mac and celebrated by cutting together a video of my final dive from the last Earthwatch trip. I was surfacing after my final dive of the trip, heavy at heart because I had to return to the real world. As I completed my three minute safety stop at five metres down, I saw some movement near the surface, saw the giant wings flapping, and started to laugh underwater. I raised my trusty GoPro and began to rise, shooting the video below.

Manta rays are known for being incredibly intelligent (their brain is way out whack in being too big for the sort of prehistoric mutated shark that they are, is the scientific way of putting it. Cue Lliam: “It’s like, you know, science!”) and curious. They have an amazing capacity to tell how comfortable you are with them; whether you’re over-excited, scared, tense, or relaxed.

By this dive, on the last day, I was very relaxed – in fact, feeling about as spiritual as I get (Nature is my God. Let’s leave it there) and embraced this manta’s appearance. With a lot of Nicko-free water to feed in, the manta felt the love and returned it, literally grazing me with its wings for close to 10 minutes. I ran out of air (the last part of the video is me on a snorkel) and eventually ran out of GoPro memory.

As the manta finally cruised under our entire group, found me and rose to pass close before swimming away as we climbed on the boat, I raised a hand and waved goodbye.

I can’t believe I land on that tiny, one-end-of-the-island-to-the-other grass landing strip on Saturday and will be in the water by Saturday afternoon. For all the daily soup I spend far too much time living in, my life fucking rocks. There, I said it.

Later, all. Have a great week, enjoy the Wings playing some games at home and let’s hope Jimmy Howard’s finger heals fast.

See you on the other side, when my hair is wet.

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