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Taking it to the roof …

July 4, 2012 by 1 Comment

Big Cat takes it to the car park roof under the wheel that never spins.

Chaos at the Icehouse last night as one of the machines that keeps the ice cold, and goes bing, and is called a compressor, and has tubes in it or some shit (What am I? An engineer?) broke and the ice melted. Oops. All Victorian comments raising eyebrows at the Gold Coast rink which is periodically shut for dodgy ice are hereby revoked.

A bunch of us hit the roof of the Harbourside car park for some street hockey instead and Jess Hough got some amazing photos with her fancy phone. Under the superstructure of the big wheel that never turns and in light rain, we smacked street pucks around and made the best of a missed night of on-ice action.

Why yes, I do play hockey. How did you know?

Toes are finally going to be dipped in the water of Joey Hughes’ Oakleigh-based school this week, so Big Cat, Alex and I loaded up all the gear that usually sits in our lockers until the Icehouse is back in action. It was kind of spooky walking through the Icehouse in darkness with nobody on the softening ice; Melbourne Ice players wandering around looking a little lost as their practice was also cancelled. We lugged our stuff out of there and into the back seat of my car, which ended up looking as though the entire Red Wings’ team’s gear had been dumped on a small Holden in Australia.

In other news, Guest Writer offerings have started to appear in my gmail inbox, which is exciting. I’ll start feeding them onto the site. Thanks for the enthusiasm, fellow skaters.

A Jess Hough panorama of street hockey on the harbourtown car park roof.

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And so, here we all sit (again) …

June 29, 2012 by 6 Comments

Bring back the Glaciarium, at Southbank, Melbourne. And 12 more rinks, while we’re at it.

And so here we all sit, trembling and sweating over our computer keyboards … which is not what you’re thinking.

It’s ticking towards 10.40 am on Enrolment Day and all over Melbourne, hockey rookies are terrified they won’t get into the Icehouse classes.

The fact is that the system is horrible, even if the Icehouse staff are endlessly friendly and try their best. Every term, we all spend this day not getting any work done, wondering what the ominous words: “Waiting lists are now full for this class” mean, and terrified that we’ll miss the magical moment when the Icehouse website clicks over to “click here to enrol“.

Ice hockey in Victoria has a fantastic problem, when it comes down to it. It is becoming far too popular for its own good. Big Cat and I seem to have hooked into the sport, right in line with the zeitgeist, when a whole bunch of other people also tuned into the brand new Icehouse, and the success of a crack Melbourne Ice unit, and whatever other factors have pushed the sport to this tipping point where too many people want to learn, compared to the amount of class time available.

The big question: who will win the lotto and click their way into Dev League for the next term?

Joey Hughes has set up Next Level Hockey at the old Oakleigh rink, in an attempt to offer other opportunities, but how the sport’s officials must wish rinks in Footscray, Ringwood, and even Bendigo, hadn’t closed down over the past couple of decades. I say we knock down the ABC Studios at Southbank and go back to the days when the magnificently ornate Glaciarium stood there. But this time with glass boards around the rink, so we can karoom each other off them in Dev League.

I once bought a magazine for a joke in one of those Smith Street flea market stores that all seem to have disappeared lately. It was a “Man” magazine from the 1950s; an Australian forerunner to Playboy, as far as I could tell. I gave it to Jay, one of Big Cat’s mates, for his eighteenth birthday, because he’d become a man now, and was ready to look at racy photos of women in pre-Sixties bikinis and one-pieces that left a great deal to the imagination, covering most of the torso.

Of course, I bought it for the articles and was stunned when one turned out to be fascinating. It was a story about the growth of ice hockey in Australia – yes, way back then. Even more amazingly, the writer concluded the piece by declaring that ice hockey could be a successful minor sport in Australia if it could build stadiums seating about 3000 people in each city. You know what? Sixty or so years later, he remains completely correct. On Sunday, Melbourne Ice will play the Sydney Ice Dogs in front of a sold out crowd of 1500 or so at the Icehouse; with all 1000 seats packed in the one grandstand facing the Henke Rink. In those stands, hockey students will ask one another: Did you get in? Which class? Did you have to sign up for the death shift of 11.15 pm-12.15 am Dev League, just to get a spot?

To be fair, it looks as though the ice was pretty crowded at the Glaciarium, back in the day.

So much wild enthusiasm, so many rookies wanting to learn, to skate, to join summer league teams, to become hockey players … and all of three blocks of ice in all of Melbourne. And a great chunk of that rink time devoted to speed skating and figure skating and curling and general skating.

Open for registration already (as I endlessly hit refresh on the Icehouse store) are 15 categories of speed skating classes. Intermediate 1, to choose one at random, has nine separate classes within it.

I love watching the speed skaters and am on friendly nodding turns with the ones who are always present at general skate, looping lazily around the ice like the giant bull rays that circle endlessly under the Lorne pier, or along the Queenscliff dock when I go diving.

But really, how many speed skaters are there in Victoria?

We are loaded to the gills with 30 or more participants in every hockey class (except the 11.15 pm Dev League which is a career-killer for anybody with a job).

Figure skating too, although I concede there are an awful lot of girls doing that instead of ballet.

I guess the stronger Olympic disciplines get some kind of priority at the Icehouse, which is technically Australia’s winter Olympic training venue.

But it’s a shame, for us hockey rinkrats, us rookies who want to play for fun and laughter and competition and fitness and the social circles and all the other reasons that those not aspiring to unlikely Olympic success play for. We remain on the borders of the Icehouse thinking, no matter how many stick& puck sessions and drop-in scrimmages they schedule, usually at 6 am or during office hours.

Damn, I wish I’d discovered this sport when I was a uni student – except that I never was; I started full time as a copyboy at The Herald newspaper at the age of 17 and worked full time ever since.

Damn, I wish I’d discovered this sport during my childhood in Canada, where frozen lakes and rinks in every suburb would have fed my young craving. Except that I was born in Melbourne’s suburbs and Burwood wasn’t known for its quality ice in Gardiners Creek.

Sigh, I guess, like the other rookies, I just have to fight for whatever ice-time I can get.

10.54 am …

Refresh. Refresh. Refresh.

UPDATE: The site finally opened for registrations at about 11.44 am. We all pounced. It crashed. No idea if I’m sitting out next term or not. This is truly pathetic, Icehouse. For the record.

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He shoots! He scores!

June 23, 2012 by 2 Comments

The big moment: I’m in the red helmet. If you look carefully, you can see the puck just over the line to the left of the goalie. Pic: Wayne McBride

It had become something of a running joke at Dev League that I had never scored a goal. I know it’s probably hard to believe that hockey players would hang shit on one another, but it has been known to happen. Roughly 4000 times per game, in my experience.

Last Wednesday was “game night”, for intermediate, which is the traditional end-of-term scrimmage, meaning Big Cat and I were shaping up for two hours of solid game play, including the usual Dev League hour-long scrimmage where black and red teams blissfully beat the hell out of one another.

And I scored a genuine goal. Sure, it was in the Intermediate game, and sure, the puck bounced off my shoulder onto the ice and I reflex-poked the puck over the goal-line with my stick, but that’s a goal, mofos. It counts.

Big Cat gets an official assist because it was his hard, off-balance shot that cannoned into the goalie’s chest, before ricochetting onto my shoulder as I did a Holmstrom and crowded the goalface, looking for the rebound, which miraculously came.

It was such a fun moment. I did everything but stop for autographs, although I resisted the urge to ride my stick, like a rodeo horse, down the ice. Apparently, according to Lliam, you can get a 10 minute penalty for that – he had a friend in a Canadian game who got a hat-trick in the first period, and sat on the ice, using his stick to row like a canoe, and got the 10 minutes. “Why, exactly?” I asked. “For being a dick,” Lliam shrugged.

Still too many times where my legs are flat-footed like this. Pic: Wayne McBride

So I stopped short of the rodeo-celebration that I’ve been working on. Shared the moment with Big Cat, Alex, my team and then got on with things. Minutes later, as I skated along, coach Army said, with a large element of surprise in his voice: “Did you score?”

It means a lot, knowing he believes in me so unwaveringly.

Army and I have a healthy vocal dialogue going most of the time. On Wednesday, we should have received a penalty for some atrocity and I yelled out: “Oh, umpire!” and Army pointed out it’s ‘ref’ in hockey, so I pointed out he was wearing a Collingwood beanie (which he only does to annoy people at the Icehouse) and he said that still didn’t mean I could use ‘umpire’ instead of ‘ref’ and I told him to just go out there and do some umpiring (now using an affectation English accent) and he would have dropped the gloves, I’m sure, if he had been wearing any, or cared. I love hockey.

At the face-offs, Liam Patrick and I were having even more fun, trash-talking one another mercilessly. I got my stick to the puck and pushed it away, yelling back at Liam, “Did you see that, Patrick? Yet another face-off win to Place!” … Except that I had hit it straight to one of their players. At the next face-off, coach Lliam said: “You know, you didn’t win that last face-off.”

Liam Patrick v Nicko Place at a face-off. Words were occasionally said. Pic: Wayne McBride

“Do you mind. I’m trying to sledge here,” I replied happily. Which worked well until Patrick scored with a really slick first-time slapshot about 30 seconds later. Another rookie Wayne McBride was taking photos and there’s a great sequence, post Liam’s goal, where we’re both yapping insults and smiling.

And so another term ended. My third round of Intermediate and my second time around in Dev League. I am definitely getting better – we all are, you can really see it, all over the ice – even though I know what I still need to work on. In what is not exactly a shock twist, it’s mainly my skating. I was actually really happy with my passing on Wednesday – I was genuinely creative with the puck, hustled players away from it, controlled it, scored that goal, and got an assist in the better-standard Dev League game. I’m chasing the puck now, believing I belong on the ice and can be a factor (even if my attempts to rename myself “a scoring threat” since Wednesday has met with stony silence from Big Cat, with all his fancy goals). I actually think they were my best games of the term, and that one drop-in session a fortnight ago has made a difference to my passing.

… and more words, after Liam’s (very good) goal.

But in so many of the photos from Wednesday, my legs are still planted, far apart and flat-footed on the ice. Yes, there were many more photos this time where I was moving, genuinely power-skating, which is pleasing. But I really have to get my outside edges happening and I really need to move my feet while controlling the puck.

But it will come and it can happen. I’m not intimidated by the challenge – I just have some bad habits to drop. Best of all, it’s stuff I can work on in general skating, on inlines and in stick & pucks, starting tonight where there’s an unexpected 8.30 pm session.

What else would you do on a Saturday night but don rain-soaked armour and skate joyfully onto the Henke Rink ice yet again?

IN OTHER NEWS:

1. Anybody who thinks ice rinks are cold should have been with Sammy Tanner, Chloe and I on a boat, going through the Heads, last Saturday, to dive the Coogee wreck off Barwon Heads. It was 13 degrees in the water and, at 30 metres down, a lot colder than that. Fun though. Murky though the water was, my trusty GoPro captured things:

 2. RIP Daryl Joyce, a friend of mine who went upstairs to read, and listen to his beloved Cats play footy last Saturday, and passed away, just like that. Sad memorial service. Generally shitful. I’ve written before about how we all need to make the most of the life we have, right now, while we have it. Lesson learned, again.

 3. In happier news – well, sort of – a former Red Wing, Darren McCarty, and his wife have been in court, slapping restraining orders on a group of friends, or something. Strange case. Their argument is that they feel threatened by these people, which led to this beautiful piece of writing in the Detroit News:

  • “(Defence lawyer) Abood suggested the protection orders were simply an effort by the McCartys to “cut off” people they didn’t want to associate with anymore, rather than a product of genuine fear.
    At one point, when Abood asked McCarty how many fights he had been in, the judge interjected: “He’s a hockey player.”

That’s my kind of judge.

And finally, how much do I love this sequence from the Dev League scrimmage?

Bwahahahaha! (Actually, I was asking if he was okay. Lucky Lliam didn’t hear that.)

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A question without notice

June 15, 2012 by 9 Comments

So, a strange thing happened on Wednesday night in the Icehouse change room.

A friendly member of the local hockey community … unlike that prick, Nicko Place.

Walking off the ice from Dev League, I congratulated my opposition winger, Theresa, on a good game, and she returned the compliment.

Then, with a big smile, said to me: “So Nicko, are you coming to the Melbourne Ice Gala?”

The Gala is a big swanky annual sit-down dinner where the hockey community gets dressed up in formal gear (well, more formal than armour and sweaty jerseys, and mostly favouring shoes instead of skates on the dance-floor). This year is a big one because it’s to celebrate the club’s 10th anniversary.

Theresa, welcoming, ever the energetic social driver of our crew, asking me if I wanted a seat on the Rookies’ table? To which I replied, without even thinking, in a question-without-notice reflex action: “No.”

Theresa’s smile dropping. “How come?”

And I replied, honestly: “I just don’t do those kind of things.”

Which was honest but kind of blunt.

(** and yes, this entire post is a way of apologising, to Theresa, and Wayne, who is – * spoiler alert * – still to come in this anecdote…)

Outside, back in street clothes, about to head off into the night, another Rookie, Wayne (see, told you), asked the same question: “Coming to the gala, Nicko?”

“Nope,” I said. “Any night at the pub with you guys, I’m there. Not the gala.”

And off I went, safe in my suddenly unexpected crowning as the antisocial bastard of the night.

But not feeling great, despite the glory of Aimee and my “perfect” two-on-one tic-tac-toe goals during Intermediate, or some decent efforts by me in Dev League, even if I did screw up in the final minute which led directly to an opposition goal. Oops.

Anyway, doing my usual Wednesday night post-hockey thing of lying wide-awake until after 2 am, I thought about it. Why would my instant reaction to the gala be no? I love the hockey crowd, I would be happy to sit and break bread with pretty much anybody in that world. I like alcohol, a lot. Especially with friends.

So why my instant, brutal dismissal of a fun, formal night out?

It took me two days to work it out, and the good news is that it’s baggage from my past; nothing to do with hockey. In fact, it led to an even deeper love of hockey … I’ll explain.

You see, I was a sportswriter for many years, for The Herald and then The Age and Sunday Age newspapers, as well as The Age online and more recently my own company, Media Giants. I also worked for ten years, off and on, as a reporter/producer/writer for the Seven Network.

It was a great life, in a lot of ways. I covered tennis, including all the Grand Slams (Roland Garros remains the best event I think I ever covered), as well as boxing (including a lot of Jeff Fenech’s world title fights), field hockey and other sports.

Mostly I covered AFL.

And here’s where Wednesday night’s knee-jerk reaction came from.

In tennis and AFL, there are players and there are fans. Football likes to talk of itself as a “family”, but it’s not. There are those who have set foot on a VFL or AFL field, and the rest of us.

(Another warning: there’s some name-dropping ahead. I promise it is to make a point.)

In tennis, where players are told by coaches, family, everybody that they are only a peg or two down from God because they hit a decent forehand when they were 11 years old, the Us and Them is very pronounced. Think rock stars egos with racquets. I remember one story where an Australian player had her arse handed to her at Eastbourne, the women’s pre-Wimbledon event, and her furious coach decided it was time to lay it on the line, let her know that effort was simply not good enough, to really strip things down to the horrible truth … he walked into the players’ lounge and found said player reclining, enjoying a foot massage from her mummy, while her daddy held her hand and literally spoon-fed her, her agent tut-tutting sympathetically off to the side. This player was in her 20s at the time.

Trust me when I tell you that if you’re a journalist who writes that a player who lost 6-1, 6-0 didn’t play well, you can expect attitude from the player and his mates. Seriously. I’ve been there. Had the walls go up from the Australian players as a collective, because I didn’t write the usual excuses and “gee, he tried hard” crap. For all the glamour of covering Wimbledon or the French, Davis Cup in exotic locations, I was happy to leave that world. The players can’t work out why the media isn’t just an extension of their fan club, which includes everybody who makes money out of their success, and star struck fans.

The Woodies – Mark Woodforde and Todd Woodbridge: great people on and off the court.

I’m generalizing here, obviously – and there are distinct and welcome exceptions, who I’m going to name because I’d be horrified on the off-chance they read this and thought I was talking about them. So I am explicitly excluding Mark Woodforde, Todd Woodbridge, Nicole Provis, Yannick Noah, Ivan Lendl, and a bunch of the Swedish players, who generally, in my experience, didn’t take themselves so seriously, including former world No. 1s Stefan Edberg and Mats Wilander. Even Rod Laver – total gentleman, and unaffected by his astonishing record. Others were cool too; including Steffi Graf who showed a lot of poise and grace while carrying a heavy load of battling English and German tabloids.

And then there’s the AFL. I would like to think I have made some genuinely good friends out of footy, and there are wonderful people and players and ex-players who have a welcome perspective on their world.

But many do not and that’s where the Ice Gala comes in (at last). I have suffered through so many AFL functions where there are the players, and everybody else. The players place such a premium on “one-for-all, all-for-one” and all that locker-room crap that they have trouble turning it off once they’re in public, if they even try to.

Fans will approach their table at a club function and the players will mostly be polite, pose for photos etc, but their hearts are rarely in it. Their eyes are often empty, veiled. Media, fans, sponsors … we’re all a kind of annoying sideline to their fame.

And this is what I unwittingly projected onto the Melbourne Ice Gala, when Theresa landed that unexpected question.

It was only on reflection that I realized part of me had gone back to footy/tennis mode. And that was wildly unfair, because the beautiful end to this rant is that hockey is so, so, so different.

One of the reasons I love this world is the lack of pretension, the lack of egos. There’s Matt Armstrong, currently one of the top scorers in the AIHL this season, a veteran of seriously high-quality international competition, driving the Zamboni on a weekday, laughing with us rookies and teaching us with endless patience. Likewise, Lliam, Tommy and Shona, all Australian representatives but never once looking down their noses at mere mortal strugglers like us.

Joey Hughes teaching his unique philosophy and hockey skills at the very unglamorous Oakleigh rink. Giving, giving, giving.

So, I hate that I projected AFL sensibilities onto these people. I swear to remember, wherever possible, how grateful I am to be in this underground, cult-like, happy, friendly, intense world of Melbourne hockey. Solidarity, brothers and sisters. That gala would actually be a lot of fun, and I hope everybody there takes a moment to realize how special it is that the Ice players like Lliam, Army, Tommy, Jason et al, are genuinely happy to chat with fans and rookies, instead of just doing their time because they have to.

Army keeping it real in the local hockey version of an ice bath. Pic: Melbourne Ice

Take it from me, who has sailed the wider waters of international sport. This is a rare treasure.

And no, I still won’t be there … turns out it’s the same weekend that my kids film festival, Little Big Shots  is at the Sydney Opera House, so I’ll be in the Opera House green room, smiling quietly as artistic egos fill the room.

But Theresa, Wayne and other rookies, Lliam, Army and co, have a drink for me. Keep your eye out for how Ice Man manages to drink through that helmet of his … I’ve always wondered. And can he fit a tux over his armour?

I genuinely wish I could be there. Really.

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The (second last) final frontier

June 8, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Drop-in.

For more than six months, those two words have caused me quiet fear.

Other rookies have signed up for sessions, including Big Cat a long time ago, and not only survived but come back raving. For those who don’t know the term, in Icehouse hockey parlance, it’s a session where anybody can turn up and play hockey. You sign up for $20 bucks, get a white or blue Icehouse jersey, and make your way to a bench. And play. There might be 30 players at a session or 10 (which usually ends up as half-rink). The only requirement is that you have full armour and your own stick. There might be a bunch of elite players working on moves in these pick-up games, or just fellow rookies feeling their way. There’s no way of knowing.

Hence my fear.

All I could think was that I’d step onto the ice against the semi-pro members of the Melbourne Ice or Mustangs, or against Division A, B or C guns. My theory was that I’d wobble around and seriously risk hurting myself or them, by skating straight into their path. The idea of Lliam, Army, Tommy, Jason or another star AIHL player missing games because idiot rookie Place wasn’t able to turn right and veered inexplicably left was too unthinkable to think about.

Lliam Webster, my coach, in flight. Thankfully, this was not during yesterday’s drop-in.

The mail from fellow Rookies had always been that it was fine. That the really good players gave newbies space and time, made an effort to pass to them, and were really welcoming. That the games are usually fast, and your weaknesses will be shown up, but in a good way.

Even so, I didn’t feel ready for a long time. Even this week, almost two full terms of Dev League under my belt, I was nervous.

But then I had another Nico, a Frenchman and the partner of an old friend of mine, come to stay at my place and it turns out he has been playing hockey since living in Canada a few years ago. He’s followed my obsession and so brought his skates (good ones – bought for 35 Canadian dollars in 2003, damn him) to Melbourne. I saw there was a drop-in session at 2.30 pm Thursday. He was super keen. I had no reason not to, apart from cowardice.

And so, just like that, without any time to second-guess, I found myself wandering down to the white jersey team’s bench five minutes late for the session. An awkward hi to the two guys hanging out on the bench and then shit, I realised I was playing drop-in.

Everything everybody had told me was true. The bulk of the players were Division B and C, as far as I could tell, apart from goalie Mark Stone, roaming around as a player, which was nice because at least one familiar face was there to good-naturedly sledge me mercilessly as I skated past, and vice versa.

The standard was strange. Clearly, most were seriously good players and every now and then they’d turn on the afterburners on their skating, or show their stick-handling skills, but they were also relaxed, hooning around, just playing for fun, not with super intent. Which made it great for me, because if I screwed up, nobody really cared. It was kind of like being in the surf with a bunch of really good surfers, who are catching waves and enjoying themselves, showing their moves, but also out there for a laugh and to chill between sets. If that makes sense.

And all the drop-in veterans did pass the puck to me, the newbie, often, and they did encourage me at every turn, and they did tell me I wasn’t sucking, and they did give me advice – so thank you, anybody reading this who was there.

Nico was skating around for the blue team, wearing his own leg-guards, which are pieces of plastic that look about two millimetres wide, and made him look like he was some polio-stricken kid, with tiny chicken legs, among all of our usual, serious leg-padding. I scored a goal, and then he did, which sounds impressive except that most of the regulars (and they clearly all knew each other, and had strong understanding, so I was assuming they turn up each week for this session – or play in the same team) didn’t even bother having shots.

Instead, they’d work through the gears as they liked. In a second, players would go from gliding, bored-looking skating, to flying up the ice, weaving between three opponents (Me trying not to get in their way, if it was my team on the rush).

Clear on a break-away, they’d charge the net, and then instead of shooting, veer off to the boards and look for another team member to pass to. Inside the blue line, four or five sharp, crisp passes would fly between sticks – whack, whack, whack, whack, whack, before finally, somebody might have a shot for fun, or a defender would intercept. Or they’d pass it to me and I’d have a little less control.

Every now and then players wandered over to the bench, and there were no “fast changes”, just: “Yeah, I’m done. Have a skate …” and somebody would get around to putting their gloves back on.

On the bench, one guy sent texts on his iPhone, others chatted. It was like kick-to-kick in footy, but on skates. All we needed was coffees instead of drink bottles.

And yet, when a blue teamer came at me with the puck early in the session, I steeled myself, puffed up my armour, grounded my stick, challenged for it and, like a magic wand, his stick moved in a blur in four different directions, and he was gone and so was the puck; me unable to help grinning at the dazzling stick work I’d just been a victim of. I loved it.

As promised, I saw all my failings on the ice clearly, as well as some strengths. My stick-handling held up pretty well (until I got tired and made some sloppy errors late in the piece). I was still heavy-legged from Wednesday night’s class and dev league, but, regardless, my skating was nowhere near their calibre, which was no surprise really.

Interestingly, I discovered that I have a habit of stopping when not involved in play – and it is potentially dangerous. These guys, playing at their level, hardly ever seem to stop. They’re cruising, gliding, looking, looping, between bursts. So they’d apparently register where I was, skate hard and then get a surprise when it turned out I was still there. Mentally, they had obviously factored in that I would have moved by the time they got to that space on the ice. Several near-collisions later, I tried to keep moving, no matter what.

And I skated hard from end to end, whenever the puck changed possession, just for the work-out, because how often do you get that kind of empty ice time, without the pressure of a Dev League game (which have become increasingly competitive – and yes, I did suffer my first loss of this term on Wednesday night, thanks to what was almost certainly Big Cat’s best goal yet. Credit where it’s due.)

So, all the usual mantras apply, even more so, post-drop-in. Keep working on skating, and keep working on puck-handling; especially passing, as several of mine were easily picked off without getting to my target. I can se that the progression from dev league needs to include faster, snappier passing. I’m totally up for that.

But the good news is that my bench-buddies praised my positioning and my effort, and my hockey smarts, which pleased me. And I did land some canny passes, to teammates in full flight. I didn’t suck.

Which was all I could have hoped for as I popped my drop-in cherry.

Fellow Rookies, specially Dan Byrne, the champion of drop-in, were wildly supportive, as ever, at my stepping up and I can’t wait to go back.

In fact, only one frontier remains: joining a team for Summer League competition. Of which, moves are underway.

Somehow, hockey just gets more exciting.

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Beating the funk

May 31, 2012 by 1 Comment

George Clinton. Different kind of funk.

No, I’m not talking about Kronwalling George Clinton, the Godfather of Funk.

I’m talking about how to shake off a hockey funk. Maybe even a life funk, but let’s take things one step at a time.

As I write this today, I am very much back in the game, compared to the last post, which only needed whisky and a sad soundtrack to complete the misery.

I knew I was okay from the moment my legs complained, already tightening up, as I creaked out of the car just before midnight last night, after driving home from the Icehouse. My legs are even stiffer this morning, finding every movement heavy in pedaling my bike as far as a local cafe. In fact, my whole body is aching in that awesome way that says you skated hard, took some hits, physically committed.

Battling that funk from earlier in the week, I had turned up for last night’s lesson, determined to kick myself back into a happier place. And it worked.

Actually, the anti-funk campaign had started at least 24 hours before. In fact, from the moment I wrote it all out in that last post, I switched into: “OK, whinge over. Time to skate” mode. On Tuesday, my son Mack decided to show off his brand new hockey stop in the opening minute of Intro class, completely lost his edges and cannoned into the boards, taking some poor guy’s legs straight out within him. Boom! In a game, it would have been a misconduct penalty for roughing, 2 minutes easy. The coaches, Army, Tommy and Shona, all cracked up (“Place!”) and looked up to the stands where Big Cat and I were helpless with laughter. I felt hockey moving through my veins. (The guy who got taken out quietly moved a few steps to his left or right every time Mack approached from then on.)

All day Wednesday, I was thinking hockey. I had a big lunch, loading up for the night. I had a rest before heading to the rink, recharging. Couldn’t concentrate on playing pool because I wanted to be out there (which is a coward’s way of saying Big Cat beat me.)

At the Icehouse, I even went for some retail therapy to exorcise the funk, buying  new black Easton body armour that makes me look like the Dark Knight if I ever have my jersey dragged over my head in a fight (unlikely).

Actually, now I think of it, how cool would that be, in the NHL? Two players get into a fight; one player dislodges the other’s helmet and finds that under that helmet the player is wearing a Batman cowl. Oh my God, I’m fighting Batman! (Hmm, I’m not only digressing but I’m veering back towards the Avengers hockey team post. DC Heroes v Marvel Heroes as hockey teams … discuss)

My new armour is much lighter, and slightly smaller, but still seems to do the same job, which rocks. I can finally get a jersey over my head without it snagging on the various bits of foam and padding that jutted out of my old, bulky armour, but I probably don’t look quite so broad across the padded shoulders these days. I can live with that.

Me in my new armour:

Post-pool and pre-class, Big Cat and I had a general skate, to get our legs moving, but I barely raised a sweat; just feeling the skates under my feet. Time ticked slowly. We got dressed way too early. Finally, it was Intermediate class.

I was kind of scared because I’d discovered a week ago that coach Lliam occasionally reads this blog, and so he knew about the funk and had promised to help. “You can solve all the problems of life?” I asked, blinking.

“Um, no,” he said, running away fast. “Just hockey funk.”

Turns out, as a guy who has played for his whole life and around the globe, feeling like you’re flat-lining in developing your skills, or just losing your hockey mojo, is something he has gone through on his journey and knows about.

And so he and Army were there, from the jump, urging us on through stepping over sticks and gliding on one skate, tight turning and Superman-diving to the ice, tight turning and skating backwards (“Both feet, Nicko! Both feet!”) and a final tight turn to bend knees all the way to the ice while skating. Tricky but fun drills. Times three.

And power skating drills, which are my favourites – just belt up and down the ice as fast as you can; me working on my Army-instructed technique to bring my skates close together at the end of each stride for extra push. I’m definitely faster as a result.

Feeling the funk lifting as I puck handled around cones, as I sprinted two laps after each drill, as I sweated and worked and sweated and worked and worked.

I wrote last time that I wasn’t tired after last week’s class and Dev League. Clearly hadn’t worked hard enough. As my group waited our turn to sprint up and down the Henke Rink last night, somebody advised that we needed to pace ourselves and I thought: “Screw that. No pacing myself tonight. Skate ‘til I drop.”

George Clinton’s band, Parliament, back in the day. Oh yeah.

And I did, so that by the time I joined the black team for Dev League, coached again by Lliam after a few weeks on red with Army, I was already feeling it.

Dev League was great as usual. Our team won, something like 7-2, and it’s amazing how much better at playing genuine hockey we’re all getting. People holding positions, making the right passing decisions more often than not, handling the puck with genuine skill.

I panicked with the puck on my first couple of shifts. Found myself controlling the puck in traffic but only throwing it forward, instead of trusting my ability not to be knocked off it and try to carry it or at least use the puck creatively.

Back on the bench I mentioned my panic to Lliam and he said: “OK, this is how you beat the funk. Do what you’re good at. Don’t worry about what you’re not good at … just concentrate on what you know you do well.”

So, there’s a poser for you … luckily I had a full two shifts before I left the bench, to try and work out if there’s anything I do well, that I could concentrate on? Well, I thought, I’m hard to knock over and I’m not bad at battling for the puck along the boards. At my best, I pass well; can think with the puck and find a teammate in a strong attacking position. So, OK, do that … and skate. Skate hard.

And so I did. Managed to weave through a couple of opponents in centre ice, controlling the puck, and pass to a teammate charging the net. I only do that occasionally but it’s a thrill. I won the puck more than once. Even beat Big Cat pointless in a one-on-one battle, which is rare enough to deserve documenting. Suddenly, I was having a ball, and even happily absorbed a huge collision with a teammate as we were both single-mindedly defending a puck lurking dangerously in the opposition slot. That one actually hurt but I was smiling as I checked my body was still working and skated off towards our goal, straight back in the game.

As always the hour ticked to a close way too fast. As the cursed garage door rolled up to reveal the Zamboni, I was ready for more and my legs were still holding up.

Until I got home, and cooled down.

Which was when I knew I’d achieved my goal.

And wrote down what’s required for anybody battling hockey or life funks:

1. Buy armour.

2. Concentrate on what you do well.

3. Play music, loud. In fact, stare the funk down and put on some Parliament, Funkadelic or P-Funk, with George Clinton.

Take that, funk.

And thanks, Lliam, and Army, as well as Chloe´, and all my hockey classmates, for nursing me through it.

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Backwards is the new forwards

May 11, 2012 by 2 Comments

Intermediate was fun this week. Lots of stick-handling and puck-moving drills.

The only nasty moment was when we had to practice backward-skating defending. This is a tough drill, because a forward takes a puck and skates as fast as they can along the boards. The struggling defender (let’s call him, say … “Nicko”) has to attempt to backward skate at the same pace from well inside the defensive blueline to the red line at the centre of the rink before he can pivot and try to back-check/stop the attacker from having a shot at goal.

For people who are really good at backward skating, the drill is an exercise in closing down the angles, and forcing the forward into the boards, or at least contesting the puck head-to-head. For someone like me, it’s an exercise in just trying to skate backwards as fast as you can, while watching somebody coming at – and usually past you.

Luckily, this is okay because I’ve had a revelation over the past few weeks. I’ve realized that while I may still be crap at certain skills, I’m a lot less daunted by them.

In my first time around at Intermediate, late last year, I can remember feeling something approaching dread when certain drills were announced.

“Oh God, not pivots/transitions/backward skating,” the little voice in my head would sigh. I would always have an honest crack, but I knew I was going to fail, and badly, before I began, because I simply wasn’t good enough on my skates to even attempt some of the moves. It’s why I spent the summer trying to just get better at skating.

Thomas Tatar versus all of America, at the world championships.

And you know what? I’m no genius, but that plan might have worked.

Backward crossovers remain a mystery to me, and transitions are still very hard, but I’m much more willing now to actually try them. I feel like I have a better sense of where my feet are supposed to be and what my legs should be doing, where my weight should be, even if I can’t always make it happen in reality.

So, this week’s backward skating drill was in this category.

OK, yes, I suck at backwards skating. It’s a difficult thing to work on in the hurly burly of a General Skating session – I watched a fellow rookie (no need to name names) smash a poor little girl while practicing backward crossovers on Tuesday night … nice work, Alex McNab, you thug – or a stick & puck, where you wobble into the path of good skaters. I really need to get on my inline skates more, for backward work). On Wednesday, I almost battled a puck away from a decent forward skater at one point. Mostly I just tried to build actual speed while pushing backward. Shrug. The journey continues, and for the most part, over the past fortnight, I’ve caught myself grinning between drills from the sheer fun of being on the ice. A journo mate of mine, Fairfax sports writer Will Brodie, wrote a great piece this week about his childhood playing hockey, and the rise of the sport in Australia (look at the old pics of Blackhawks junior teams – gold), and I think Will nailed it with these paragraphs:

Most people who play hockey will tell you that it’s the most invigorating game they have ever played, and don’t ever doubt them. Most sports fans who see a game say they will be back.
For sheer sensation, its hard to beat – with only ten players (plus the two goalies) it has the intimate involvement you get from basketball, but there is contact, so eluding an opponent is everything (the Canadian word for baulk is to ‘deke’), and in the confines of a rink, if you can deke a defender ‘out of his jockstraps’, you can set up a goal-scoring opportunity. The puck feels just the right weight, an ideal object, and your stick is totemic – part pet, part tool. A play where two or three passes combine to set up a shot is an enacted purity of satisfaction.
As a spectator sport, it is hard to beat. Fast-paced, aggressive, but played in a compact arena, you can sense the options available to a player at the same time as he is executing his choice. In hockey there is less of a gap between the thought and action, and between rushes of potential drama, than in almost any game.

Amen.

Dev league was also fun this week, although Kittens, Morgan and I had to share our line with other skaters, meaning we all had to miss occasional shifts. This sucked, because it meant we never felt like we had a settled line (it’s amazing how quickly you come to want that) and, worse, it meant sitting out shifts, when we already had to wait three shifts for our line to come around again.

Alex McNab laughs after killing another defenceless child.

I want to be out there every shift, or at least every second, so it was difficult to sit patiently, watching the game, cooling skated heels.

But that whinge aside, it was a fun session. I did a few good things, including a couple of shots at goal, had some battles for the puck, and enjoyed a couple of times where I controlled a puck in dangerous climes inside our defensive blue line, turned and delivered measured passes to the sticks of teammates.

We’re all getting a lot better at holding our correct positions, especially with Lliam’s coaching from the bench, which remains entertaining, given his penchant for hurling waterbottles at the ref. He also takes the time to preach position to us; where you should be at all times. This can be a mystery in the swirl of a hockey game. Check out the picture above, from the current world championships, where Red Wings prospect Thomas Tatar appears to be taking on the entire USA team on his own. But there are actually systems at play, zones a wing should cover, as opposed to the centre or a D. Lliam is working hard to make us understand our jobs, and I’m drinking the knowledge.

That aside, I think the most pressing, truly urgent issue coming out of Wednesday nights is how I survive Thursdays, when I’m exhausted after so little sleep.

I can’t sleep before 1.30-2 am, post hockey, and the get-a-kid-to-school hack can start at 6.30 am. I was a fucking zombie yesterday. Perhaps I just need to be a hockey player and harden up?

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How to recognise a true hockey player

May 3, 2012 by 3 Comments

It happened right towards the end of Dev League, our second last shift. For the first time, Army and Lliam have split us into distinct teams and are coaching us, like genuine hockey sides, with the aim of more personalised and concentrated coaching mid-game.

It’s fantastic, including the fact that we have defined lines, so I’m skating every shift with Morgan and Josh (which makes me look good), and we have dedicated D behind us.

We score a couple of goals and it’s a close game with lots of good-natured banter, up to and including Lliam throwing a water bottle at Dave the designated ref, as Mike Babcock would no doubt have done without blinking, if he had been there.

So, coming off a fun and challenging Intermediate class, and then feeling like I’ve done enough good things among the many mistakes to consider myself to be having a half-decent game, I’m loving life, up until the second last shift.

Which is when we get a sniff of a breakaway and Josh takes off fast towards our goal. I’m motoring as fast I can to keep up, offering an option from my right wing, and Morgan is flying, as Morgan does, to bring home the attack.

But it’s all about Josh and a couple of back-checking defenders as they duke it out after the puck, with the boards approaching fast.

Josh, resplendent in his Rookies jersey, on a recent trip to America, posing with some Cup or another. Pic: Facebook (Yes, Josh, I stole it off your page. What?)

And it turns out, too fast. Josh is so busy fighting for the puck that he has no opportunity to hit the brakes, loses it and slams into the boards very very hard.

I couldn’t see the collision clearly, because the goal and Mark, the goalie, stood between me and where Josh hit the wall but, oh man, I heard it. And saw the aftermath.

I’ve covered a lot of sports as a reporter and you know when an injury is nasty. There’s that moment, even as an impact happens, when you either instinctively think: “Ouch, that must have hurt” or “Oh fuck.”

Josh hitting the boards was an “Oh fuck“.

Josh writhing on the ice, trying to grab his left shoulder. All of us standing, helplessly.

I was sure it was a broken collarbone, at least, and Josh was in a mountain of pain.

But somehow got to his feet, with some help, and skated off the ice as everybody tapped their sticks on the ice in recognition, in the hockey equivalent of applause, which is one of those moments when the hair stands on your neck and you love being part of a hockey community. Because we all understand the courage, and we all know it could have been us, and we’re all behind Josh every skate of the way back to the bench.

And then we got on with the game, and Morgan and I had to find a replacement Left Wing for our final stanza.

But here’s the thing, Big Cat Place – sitting out, because of a brewing lurgy – said he saw Josh, crashed out at the other end of our bench – notice Morgan and I getting ready for our shift, and tried to put his helmet on.

After the game, I sought Josh out and found him in the change-rooms, ice on the shoulder.

And, I shit you not, he said: “I was going to come back on but I couldn’t move my arm.” Genuinely annoyed.

That, my friends, is a natural-born hockey player.

I can’t wait to suit up with Josh in our Summer League team, assuming all goes to plan (as in, I make the team) later this year.

But I know I won’t have to wait that long. As I type this, Josh had reported on Facebook that he was getting ready to go and see a physio, still unable to use the arm.

Knowing Josh, he’ll be back, playing Dev League, next week, in a plaster cast.

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Things I don’t understand

May 1, 2012 by 2 Comments

Why am I Derek Zoolander in the air as well as on the ice?

At Lorne, on Sunday morning, I took to a trampoline for the first time in a long time.

When I was a kid, if I may say so, I used to be kind of a big deal when it came to trampolining. Actually, we pretty much all were, as the local Lorne ‘tramps’ were the only entertainment apart from the Games Room (I was also a gun – ask my boys about Galaga, even now), and riding bikes around. Oh yeah, and endless surfing. And later, drinking sneaky cider on the beach at night. Plus, oh my god, the discovery of girls.

But I digress.

Flying on a Sunday. Pic: Chloe.

Trampolines … I wasted many summers and slow weekends working on somersaults and backward baranis, among other tricks, not to mention mastering bounceball, which is basically one-on-one, or two-on-two volleyball on a single trampoline. It was all fun until my mate, Bill, broke his leg.

Anyway, on Sunday, now older and less supple, I took to the sky and it was so much fun …. But here’s the thing, and the tenuous hockey link. I was bouncing high and spinning 360s, and realized that while it was effortless to turn left, spinning a full 360 to land facing the same way, it was difficult to turn right and do the same thing. Just like on the ice, where I can pivot, crossover, (mostly) hockey stop and do other moves to the left, but struggle when turning to the right. What the actual fuck? I am turn-right challenged beyond ice-skating? I am Zoolander. “Papa, I got the lung …” *koff

How there can still be such blatant racism in the world?

I mean, seriously. You kidding?

In Game 7 of the first round play-offs series between the Bruins and the Capitals, it was Washington’s Joel Ward who snared the goal to win the game and the series. A huge moment for a Canadian with parents from Barbados. As the Detroit Free Press reported, racist tweets were flying around the virtualsphere within seconds, up to and including: “That (n-word) deserves to hang.”

I don’t even know where to start. I mean, for fuck’s sake. It’s 2012. This is hockey. This is the western modern world. This is a supposedly evolved species.

Get it together, whichever cock-with-ears wrote that shit. That is all.

How will I ever get better as a skater if I only skate once a week?

Actually, you know and I know the answer to that. I won’t.

I know only too well that I have to keep putting in general skating sessions and other between-class time on skates, whether inline or ice. Other Ice Rookies are putting in endless hours and their skating is brilliant for it. I haven’t got there enough.

The last couple of weeks have been intense and I’ve only made it to class/dev league on a Wednesday night. Already, I can feel my always sketchy skating getting sketchier by the minute. There is no way I am remotely a good enough skater to take shortcuts.

So boot to arse. Get on it, Place.

Why do people who fancy themselves as NHL-standard skaters do Intro hockey classes?

Is it pure smugness? Are they Icehouse plants to test the resolve and heart of true L-plate hockey skaters? Weird.

Why is a smart, genuine woman like Julia Gillard making such a hash of being Prime Minister?

Ah, screw it. Politics … no place for it here. Depressing, though.

Why is there a Feature Ornamental T-Rex outside the Icehouse?

Oh, that’s right: it’s the Docklands. Outside of the haven that is the Icehouse itself, we’re talking about a soulless wasteland. Why wouldn’t you plonk a Feature Ornamental T-Rex across Pearl River Road?

The Docklands’ Feature Ornamental T-Rex. Why ask why?

(I remember when we had just started skating, early last year, Big Cat Place – then only a Kitten – discovered this T-Rex in a car park, behind a big fence. Peered through the fence as we were aimlessly wandering the wasteland and said, ‘Hey, a dinosaur.’ As you do. It’s good to see Rexxy is now front and centre.)

Sportswatch: The Melbourne Ice men’s team kicked off their season on the weekend. Thriller on Saturday against the Mustangs, which I missed because I was down the coast, and a more routine 5-2 win over Canberra on Sunday, which I made most of. Go, Ice, go.

And rub some of that winning magic off on the Richmond Tigers who could be 3-2 and have beaten Geelong and West Coast, but are instead 1-4 after two heroic, narrow losses. Sigh. Deep sigh.

And I continue to sweat on Detroit, wondering what the fall-out of the late season fade will be?

Maybe the Joe Louis Arena needs a Feature Ornamental T-Rex out the front, for luck? It’s working for the Ice …

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The Avengers: a hockey team waiting to happen

April 26, 2012 by 4 Comments

My hockey team: Ironman takes Centre. Hulk. you're in goal, big guy.

Well, damn. Having Wednesdays off is something I could get used to. Crawled out of bed at midday, went to a movie, snoozed on the couch then wandered down to Docklands for the usual game of pool at the Harbourside followed by two hours of hockey. That’s my kind of day.

I took a few moments to consider the sacrifice of the ANZACs and to savour Australia’s freedom, but mostly I spent the day thinking that The Avengers would make a damn good hockey combo. Watching the new movie (which rocks) had taken all afternoon, 3D glasses on, and I emerged, blinking, already trying to work out positions for the super-heroes in my new Avengers hockey team.

I’m assuming Hawkeye and Black Widow would take the wings. Hawkeye’s whole thing is that he cannot miss, at least with a bow and arrow, so he’s a handy guy to have in attack. Black Widow is a Russian spy with ninja moves and acrobatic flair, so she’s definitely going to be an asset causing chaos as we head through our blue line. Plus, you know … Scarlett Johanssen. I mean, what? I need to draw you a map?

Centre is a key role but again, it’s an easy fit. Ironman. The guy is the ultimate forward-and-back player, with agility, lightning moves, the ability to fly, strength, great hockey armour built in … he rivals Datsyuk as the perfect centre man, depending on whether Tony Stark can deke. Getting skates on Ironman’s feet might be tricky, given the jetpacks and all, but I’m sure Stark industries, or Bauer, can come up with something.

Plus, Stark is equally famous as a billionaire playboy, so he can be the money behind the team as well. Nice to have you aboard, Tony.

Defence? Captain America picks himself as Right D. Nowhere near enough creativity for a forward role and a possibly too rigid team-first player but solid, always making the right decisions, a big body and shining with leadership. He’s the Lidstrom of the team. And I’d definitely pair him with Thor on the Left D. Not only does the Norse God come from Sweden, a renowned source of hockey talent (just look at my Red Wings) but he can bring lightning to the defence, which will scare the crap out of other teams. It might be tricky to get Thor to part with his hammer so that he can hold a hockey stick, but maybe we can just extend the handle on the hammer and kill two birds with one stone?

Which only leaves a goalie …yes, the big green guy. Hulk.

Hulk as Goalie: penalty-minute concerns ...

One, he’s enormous, completely filling the goalface, two, he’s finally awesome in the new film (after a couple of dubious movie attempts beforehand) and three, nobody’s about to rush the crease while he’s in goal. True, there’s a chance, the big green giant will give up a lot of penalty minutes for over-aggression on the ice, but I think the intimidation factor is high enough to counteract that.

Team assembled, with Big Cat Place, me and the other Icehouse Rookies on the bench and ready to sub in, as required.

Oh yeah, Nick Fury giving the Babcock Glare as coach/GM from the bench, with SHIELD agent Maria Hill as his assistant, just because she’s played by that hot chick from “How I Met Your Mother”. (see Scarlett Johanssen logic, above.)

Who’s up for playing us?

Speaking of playing, we had class/dev league last night.

I’d planned to skate all week but hadn’t actually made it, so I was scratchy in Intermediate; never quite having my skates under me (although, thankfully, I landed several crossovers while all the coaches were looking at me and barracking/sledging, so I dodged a bullet there).

Dev League was okay but again not amazing, for me.

Big Cat Place scored a goal with the most clinical opposite-corner finish I’ve seen from him, which was cool (plus I was on the ice, so technically went to +1 on that play).

My campaign to become known as “Huge Cat Place” failed to gain traction

I was involved in a huge collision with James, which saw him end up on his back and me standing over him yelling: “Mother-fucker! … You ok?” (Yes, I’ve learned to do it in that order, as against earlier hits.)

I attempted and failed a wrap-around goal, which was fun.

But I caught myself being a total spectator a couple of times, was sluggish in my skating and only managed a few genuinely nice plays, so I scored myself harshly on the night, especially after playing my best game last week. Hey ho. Onward to next Wednesday.

… assuming I’m not required by the Avengers team.

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