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Cyclops on Ice, and other lessons

January 12, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Things I have learned over the past 24 hours:

If you have a strange incident where your left eye goes totally nuts, waters profusely, then becomes blurry and scratchy for hours, for unknown reasons, this is an excellent time to go skating in a big, unruly General Skate crowd, to test how good your one-eyed-reaction-skating is under pressure.

If you’re not at Mamasita, the brilliant Mexican restaurant tucked away at the top of Collins Street, but arrogant enough not to take bookings, by 6.15 pm, you either have to suck it up in a long queue down the street, or not.

“Not” can be a good option.

Pelligrini’s back room remains a lot of fun and with excellent pasta, if the Italian Waiter’s Club is also full (What’s going on with all the CBD dining, peoples? It’s early January?)

Pelligrini's, Bourke St. Sit out the back.

Falling backwards, mid-pivot on your wrong side, hurts as much as it ever did.

My wrists remain unthrilled with landing hard on ice. But thankfully are strong enough to escape only mildly strained.

Blood & Sand has definitely moved into First Place in the Nicko Place List of Excellent Cocktails. It’s Scotch whisky-based, with blood orange mixed in, and I’ve had it at two venues now (CollingwoodWorld and Lily Black’s) and both were awesome. (The Flaming Lamborghini remains my popular favourite for potentially dying while attempting to drink a cocktail for the entertainment of a crowd).

The Latin for “I will be on my portable communication device” is “Ego meum consilium Donec vulputate“.

Some people don’t like General Skating sessions when there are seemingly hundreds of kids on the ice, all strapped into rental skates and yellow bibs, with no idea of how to skate or which direction to even attempt to go. Me? I love it … working on your tight turns can be helped by weaving through witches hats, right? Well, imagine how good for your on-ice reflexes are metre-high witches hats that move, flail their arms, lurch in random directions and often splatter onto the ice right in front of you. Nothing but fun.

Non-skating witches hats.

My dog has a much higher pain threshold than I do. Her stoic acceptance of a Big Achilles has been an inspiration.

Icehouse staff who stand at the goalline, looking terminally bored, while learner skaters go in all directions, as against the one direction, and then make a point of coming over to growl at you for leaving the ice by the gate nearest the lockers, instead of the gate with 600 people trying to squeeze through? … Well, let’s just say you’ve got a great career as a petty bureaucrat coming up, dude.

Bike couriers have an entire world and culture that I was unaware of, but is actually cool in many ways.I now just have to work out how to weave this knowledge into my new novel.

My pivots and hockey stops are definitely coming along, but I have – dammnit! – somehow become that thing I didn’t want to be: a one-way turner. Turning left, right foot in front, hockey-stops and pivots are getting there. Going the other way? Not so good. Yet I feel like I’ve worked on both equally and tirelessly. How did this happen? Sigh. More ice will be eaten before this one is done.

I need to get to more Come & Try and Stick & Puck sessions so I can skate in full gear and have less fear of damage. Bowing to peer group

The Blood & Sand cocktail. Photo by me. Arty, huh?

pressure, and the fact I don’t actually fall very often any more and can’t remember when I last whacked my head, I’m now hitting General Skates in only elbow pads and hockey gloves (gotta write a novel by October = can’t afford a broken arm just now; uncool fashion or not). But to really step up pivots, and to attempt hockey stops at speed, I’m going to need to have the full armour, so when I splatter, it’s the gear that takes the brunt. Maybe I should sell tickets? Hand out Blood & Sands while the crowd watches me fall? This could be an earner …

The Icehouse hasn’t scheduled anywhere near enough classes for First Term this year, and is squeezing all of it into a Wednesday night. I’m going to have to fight harder than for Falls or Big Day Out tickets, just to get a berth in Intermediate and Dev League. You’d swear they don’t want this sport to take off the way it is. Which would mean I’d need to instead write a blog about Tennis. Nobody wants that. Least of all, me.

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Stop, in the name of love (well, hockey)

December 9, 2011 by Leave a Comment

The hockey stop. It’s one of those annoying manoeuvres that some people seem to get in their opening five minutes on the ice while others struggle for years.

I guess I’m somewhere in between because I’m closing in on a year, as against years. And I remain determined to master the bastard.

In fact, this move has been my main focus over the past two weeks. Even on Wednesday, when the Icehouse helpfully closed half the public rink so seven people – that number again, seven – could enjoy a curling Christmas party, as everybody else – speed skaters going in second gear, figures skaters having lessons, hockey players cooling down or warming up, general skaters and newbies wobbling around – all crammed into a space smaller than a public swimming pool. But icier.

I found occasional unpopulated corners of ice where I could keep working on kicking my heels, trying to snap my skates around to a sliding, sudden stop; arms held in front, as though holding a stick in front of my chest, so that my shoulders don’t move with the stop, just my hips and legs.

This is just one of the roughly eight million pieces of advice or teachings I have absorbed re the hockey stop. I’ve watched untold videos, spoken to skaters who clearly know their stuff, watched smartarse hockey players stop on one foot, or backward hockey stop or just go from 100 kph-zero in a nano-second, next to the boards.

It’s clearly a matter of feel and I continue to probe away at that sliding, hopefully horizontal, full-skate edge that becomes solid enough that I can dig in, really dig it, and not either feel my skates slide out, or stop dead so that the rest of me keeps going, sans ankles. I just need to dare to fully commit, and I’m determined to hockey stop on both sides. Many players are great on their preferred skating side, but wobbly on the other. I want to Jedi-stop both sides. Aim high, right?

In Chicago, a local player, John, who saved the lives of Will and I by driving us away from the mean streets of west Chicago to Gunzo’s hockey store and then back to where we were staying, admitted he took three or more years as a kid to truly perfect the hockey stop. That gave me hope (apart from the well-established fact that I’m no kid).

Even talking to the coaches, Lliam and Army, has left me strangely confused; as to whether the weight is on the front leg or the back leg, or both legs. It’s a pimped-up snowplough, yet the back leg plays a role. One of my Hockey Rookie mates, Chris, gave me a crucial tip when he managed to convey that I wasn’t getting my front leg perpendicular enough to my body (something Will, admittedly, has been trying to tell me for months), and I definitely need to snap my heels, so I don’t curl into the stop. Or do I?

One thing’s for sure: I need to keep wearing elbow pads and a helmet while I nut this one out. I actually haven’t fallen in two weeks, while working on the hockey stop, which either suggests I am tantalisingly close, or I’m not committing hard enough for death-or-glory stops that will solidify the move. Like the bastard that is the pivot, I certainly still can’t hockey stop at speed. From a cruisy pace, I’m not far away.

I’m close enough that I can feel how much fun it’s going to be when I finally get it. I reckon it’s the coolest move on the ice.

Tonight (Friday), a bunch of us were invited to train with one of the summer league teams, at about 10.30 pm. I am choosing instead to join my band of Giant and ex-Giant desperadoes for a night of drinking and shenanigans, throwing out any chance of Hockey Rookie of the Year. A price has to be paid sometimes.

And what the Hell, in honour of this quasi-Christmas party tonight, let’s get in the mood with the mighty Paul Kelly, and his anthem. Sing along, peoples.

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The goalie’s lament

December 6, 2011 by 1 Comment

A goalie's dread: the puck in the net. Pic: ibtimes.com

We might have lost one. The Icehouse Rookies, as our class of 2011 has taken to calling ourselves, is a member down after the weekend.

I am not standing in judgement. I want to make that clear from the start because this is a difficult post to write.

Summer league is currently happening and on Sunday the Tigersharks played the Devils. No sugar-coating, it was a massacre. The final score was, I believe, 20-0. That’s a goal every third minute, assuming it was a normal length hockey game.

The losing side’s goalie, Jason, appears to have hung up his pads in the wake of such a caning. I’m hoping that’s not the case and this entire post is premature but our Icehouse Rookies’ Facebook group (which rocks, btw, as a community) has been fielding requests for a potential fill-in goalie for the next game and beyond.

Jason must be in a bad place and it got me thinking about the attrition rate over the course of this year. As I wrote in my very first nickdoeshockey post, I have always felt just one bad fall, one vital broken bone, away from this whole hockey adventure crashing to a halt.

I’ve seen that happen too; players with broken collar bones or other nasty injuries. One woman in my second Intro class was a decent skater but landed hard on her chest during supermans, hobbled to the bench in pain (I have it on good authority this is chick equivalent of being kicked in the balls), cried a little and it occurred to me weeks later that I had never seen her again.

I’ve stepped out of classes right now because I felt exposed and potentially humiliated by my lack of skating skill (especially once most of a Division 4 team joined my Intermediate class for extra training, skating literal rings around me, and becoming frustrated when us lesser players couldn’t keep up with their drilled moves).

But this is the first case I know of where somebody has actually walked away from the game.

The reality is that us rookies are forever bordering on exposure as the starters we are, and the system, as it stands, doesn’t do much to protect us. It’s skate to keep up, or fail publicly. Of course, for the goalies, this is magnified hugely. I read a book while in America called “Open Ice” by a former Sports Illustrated hockey writer, Jack Falla, who had spent his youth as a goalie. He talked about the endless hours of taking shots, on the ice, in his driveway, anywhere he could absorb thousands and thousands of pucks/shots. I was doing other things for 45 years before January … and given my age as a rookie, I’ve been painfully aware of all the people who started skating 30 years or more before me. For goalies like Jason, it’s, again, magnified.

I wasn’t at Sunday’s game but, reading the Facebook accounts, Jason faced something like 51 shots on goal. So he stopped 31. In a NHL game, that’s a very good night’s work for a goalie. But of course, 20 got through, which is less thrilling and has apparently drained his self-confidence.

To have that many shots pepper a goalface is an impossible task for a goalie. It means the defence is not working, and the forwards are not playing each-way effectively (sorry to the Tigersharks – trust me, I’m not saying I would have done better. In fact, I’m sure I would have been worse).

But while those players will spend the week nursing nasty plus/minus figures and copping some ribbing from rival teams, Jason can know only the baseline figure.

Twenty. Compared to a shut-out. And feel responsible.

I’ve hung out with Jason at General Skates, stood on the ice with him while he explained new angles and ways of covering the goal that he’d learned in his first ever game the week before. It was a total voyage of discovery and there was no way of gaining this education without playing, and almost certainly losing.

He spoke with passion and enthusiasm, and I hate to think of him this week, deciding the sport is simply too hard. I really, really hope he connects with his temmates or the wider hockey community and realises nobody thinks badly of him for the weekend’s scoreline. We all get it. We will all have our bad days. The Wings’ stand-in goalie Ty Conklin is going through an NHL version of Jason’s angst right now. It never stops.

It seems to me that one of the major issues with hockey in Victoria is that there are a couple of badly needed missing-steps in the development path. Jason just tumbled off one of those unnecessarily large ledges. Summer League, and all the steps past Dev League, are fraught for newbies like us because we step straight onto the ice against potentially much better players. Players coming out of class want to join teams but might not be ready for genuine competition. With such limited ice time, for training as well as competition, players get squeezed into the same matches, and slaughters like the weekend become possible.

Some rookies, like me, are taking it cautiously. Others are charging into teams as fast as they can, on the theory that scrimmages and actual matches will improve them in ways rounds of Intermediate classes never will.

It’s a decent plan except that it means teams can be wildly mismatched, and results like last weekend happen.

Even drop-in hockey, where anybody can show up for an impromptu game at the Icehouse, is open to everybody. So last week, you had Intermediate class members, maybe even Intro players, out on the ice against or alongside Tommy Powell, Army and other Melbourne Ice players. Plus Shona, captain of the Ice women’s team. Tommy is set to represent Australia in Poland next year, but is skating against, potentially, me. This seems dangerous, relying completely on the Ice players to back off the throttle to cater for the L-platers in their midst, which they invariably do, but that must suck for them as well.

We definitely need Intermediate drop-in. We definitely need more ice time for rookie teams to wobble around and get their legs in games, even if we all understand there are only a couple of rinks and only so many hours in a day. But push is coming to shove. Devils smashing Tigersharks does nobody any favours.

ONE LAST THING:

Jason, if you read this, one last, left-field thing to consider. I hang out with a bunch of professional magicians and they have an understanding: if you choose to perform card tricks or other sleight of hand, for an audience or just friends, it is recognised that it will go catastrophically wrong probably 10 times in your career. I’m talking, no way out, complete disaster, self-inflicted, user-error, in-front-of-an-audience, floor-open-up-and-swallow-me-please humiliation.

Ten times.

So every time it happens – and oh God, it’s nasty when it does (I’m up to four) – you die a little, but you take a breath and say very deliberately: OK, that’s another of the 10 out of the way, never to be suffered again. It’s a rite of magical passage, so to speak, and is accepted. Hated but accepted.

By 10, you should have your chops.

And so, post-disaster, you lick your ego wounds, work on your card skills, figure out how you fucked up, and find somebody else to perform the same trick too. And you get it right and breathe again …

Put the pads back on, Jason. Nobody wants to see you slink away. You just endured one of the Big Ten. I’m going to as well. It would be awesome to see you at the rink.

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Scubacam …

September 3, 2011 by 2 Comments

OK, so I got a new GoPro camera (gopro.com …. they rock) for my looming manta ray adventure. And thought, hey, I wonder what the view would be like from the top of a hockey helmet?

So we did it twice in the warm-up for today’s class at the Icehouse: once with me in the skates, and once with Melbourne Ice player and our sometime coach, Steve “Scuba” Edwards (# 17 for the Ice), who agreed to take it for a real spin, at speed.

This is Scuba in flight. HD video from a camera the size of a matchbox, mounted on his helmet.  Check it out:

I’ll post the one with me skating if and when I work out how to edit out all the crap before (as I try to nut out if it’s working). Yes, technology and me are great friends …

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Punches & Plans

September 1, 2011 by 1 Comment

The fun started on Saturday, right off the top.

“To warm up,” said coach Shona, “I want you to dump your sticks and pair up. OK, one person has to protect the puck and one has to get it.”

Will and I had faced off and he had the puck, so we went to it; a fun drill actually, as you lean hard on one another while trying to push your weight off a skate without losing the edge so that your foot slides out. We pushed and shoved and he was smart enough to kick the puck away from me. I got it once or twice, mainly by falling and landing on it.

Then Shona ordered us to swap, and now I had the puck. My 18-year-old son glided in, ready for more body-weight tests … and you should have seen the look of shock behind the visor when my first punch, a fast right hook, caught him perfectly in the midriff, just in the gap between hockey padded shorts and chest armour.

Before he registered what was happening, I hit him with a left-right combination to the shoulder armour and then snuck another sneaky right to the stomach – nothing so hard that it was going to see me dragged before the Worst Fathers in History Commission and, anyway, we’re wearing armour, right? And we’re hockey players, right?

Will finally got what was happening, and then it was on. We were both crying with laughter while beating into each other. Of course, it was me who lost my balance and fell on my back, still aiming rights to his stomach and trying to hold his jersey with my left glove. On Facebook, later, Will was bragging about how he’d beaten me up … I’m happy to sit quietly in the knowledge of what really happened.

(Big ups to Icehouse Rookie Daniel Epstein, who found that video.)

So Saturday’s session was a good one with lots of end-to-end skating drills, which is when I’m happiest.

I’ve also been aware that this intermediate term is fast coming to an end, even though it has two or three weeks to go. I’ve got lots of travels and adventures looming, which will keep me away from the ice for an extended period and, anyway, I’m thinking of stepping away from lessons for a while.

After last Wednesday’s session, I was talking to classmate Jay who made the very kind and hopefully accurate observation that my stick-handling (as in, controlling the puck, passing and general hand-eye-coordination) is up there with most in the class, but agreed that it’s my skating that is still letting me down. I’d been telling him about my crazy plan to become the skater I want to be.

My theory is: I go diving with manta rays for eight days on an Earthwatch project (leaving next Friday; oh yeah!), then I go to America for almost six weeks, with Will and Mack, taking in some Detroit Red Wings games (leaving late September, Oh yeah!!!) and then I get back to work on hockey, but not in another round of intermediate.

Instead, I sign up for private skating lessons.

The fact is that I’m slow but solid when skating forward, calling for a puck, passing, etc. But as soon as any of the trickier hockey skating moves like pivots, tight turns (front leg forward), transitions and even fast backward skating are required, I’m not up to it. The next steps for me are drop-in hockey games (where Melbourne Ice players might show up) or Development League, and I need to be a lot better on my legs if I’m going to tackle either.

A couple of friends, Dave and Mel (who used to do hockey class, and with whom I had my celebrated first on-ice fight) came along to watch last night and Mel couldn’t believe how much better we had all got, since she quit to travel. “You looked like you knew what you were doing,” Dave observed, which showed I had him fooled.

But they’re right: the improvement since January’s first skate has been fast and steady. I’m heading in the right direction. But I also know where my weaknesses lie and it’s time to step out of class and fix them. Private lessons at the Icehouse are my go for the first few months after getting back from overseas.

Having said all that, last night’s Wednesday session was a beauty, with Lliam and Army getting ever scruffier around the face as this weekend’s play-offs loom. Melbourne Ice is in a semi-final on Saturday and then hopefully the final on Sunday night. I was expecting some pre-finals edge to the coaches but they both seemed pretty calm.

We finished the session with an awesome drill. Two Wings take off down the ice, tackling a Defender, two-on-one, then the Defender passes the puck, if he or she wins it, to another couple of Wings ready to charge the other way. It’s a continuous drill and actually needs judgement on when to take off, when to step in and try to help. I loved it, and on my final run of the night even managed to slide home a goal. It was my last touch of the session in maybe my last class of the year.

Nice way to go out.

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Be the puck. Clear your mind. Be the puck.

August 25, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Aimee meets Nicko

Ah, the glamour of hockey.

Last night’s session saw us trying to master the following skill: skate as fast as you could to the boards, spin and hit the wall with your arse, while the puck came screeching along the boards from Lliam’s stick behind the goals, like something out of Rollerball.

Now you’re planting your skate so that the puck ricochets off it, neatly stopping on the ice at the end of your stick, as you take off, passing to a teammate gliding past.

That was the theory anyway.

Of course, I got maybe one out of six attempts right, but the puck only clean-bowled me once, which I took as a minor victory.

Heady with this newfound skill, we even extended it to a more involved drill where one skater did the arse-to-wall-ricochet thing while another received the pass, they both skated hard down the rink, the puck-holder did a tight turn and passed to the original arse-waller* to have a shot.

I was okay at all this. But not great. I’d received a very bad email, from my day job perspective, literally as I was getting in my car to drive to the Icehouse and I found it, and some wider Life stuff going on, hard to shake out of my head while on the ice.

This is a very rare occurrence. In fact, one of the things I most love about hockey is that I tend to leave the rest of my brain at the gate as I step onto the ice.

From my very first skating lesson, where I thought I’d broken my arm about two minutes in, I learned to be in the moment while on the ice. And generally I am.

While skating, I feel all sorts of emotions; including exhilaration and excitement, but also frustration at not being better, anger when my skills let me down, determination, fear … the list goes on, but that’s the point.

I usually also end up laughing, and often because of Lliam and Army’s way of teaching. They’ll explain something to us and we’ll all stare, silently processing, taking it in.

And they’ll say: “We all good with that?”

Silence.

“No questions?”

More silence.

“… OK … (under breath:) Good talk.”

We get “OK, good talk” a lot. And Lliam’s other favourite, when explaining why a puck bounces a certain way off the boards, or why your front foot needs to be just so during a tight turn – which is tough for him because skating is like breathing for these guys and they don’t think at all, they just auto-skill/muscle memory this stuff – so he often ends up shrugging and saying: “It’s … you know, science.”

Hockey player science. There’s a reality show waiting to happen.

So I’m always engaged and very alive when on the ice. In fact, off the top, I can only think of twice where I have caught myself staring into the middle distance, thinking of non-hockey matters.

So last night had a touch of that and my skating wasn’t great. I was a step slow, lacking the confidence, or at least the who-gives-a-shit?-have-a-crack attitude that can improve your skating, and I think it showed.

Happily, you can rely on your teammates. For the last five minutes or so, we played Russian roulette again (see last week’s blog) although, this time, Will and I were both in dark/red jerseys so we were on the same team and couldn’t be set up for a one-on-one Placefest, luckily for me.

In the first shift, five-on-five, I had my finest moment of the night. Skated to a loose puck on the boards, controlled it, kept my head among swarming opponents, spotted a teammate free and clear and passed it right in front of him, so he could skate onto it and cruise to goal … except that as I skated hard to provide emergency back-up, he turned and almost collided with me, heading the other way. Turns out we were shooting to the other end. Oops. I decided instead it was a mature look-for-your-defender-behind-the-play kind of pass.

And then, in my final shift, I was chasing the puck and a classmate, Aimee, still sporting an impressive technicolour bruise from last Wednesday’s smash-up-derby session, came hard the other way and collided front-on, helmet-to-helmet, like two steam trains at full speed. Go helmets! And armour! And go Aimee, who had no intention of doing anything but taking me out. (She fessed up later it was premeditated revenge for the Mighty Ducks Incident.)

So I crashed and landed on my knees and, for the first time that session, all non-hockey thoughts were definitely nowhere in my head. We looked at each other in surprise, post-crash, and I instinctively called her a motherfucker, which I suspect shocked Aimee more than the crash. But I said it fondly.

And we were grinning. Especially me. That full body collision was just what I needed. It was a great way to finish the hour because, amen, I was a hockey player again. (Thanks, Aimee.)

At least for those next last few minutes, before the Real World came calling again. But you know what? Bring it.

… Good talk.

 (* technical hockey term)

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Supermans, Russian roulette & a hip-hopper called G-Storm

August 18, 2011 by 3 Comments

“So,” said Magic Enzo, the osteo, on Monday. “How’s that shoulder? Have you been looking after it.”

“You bet,” I said.

“What did you do on the weekend.”

“Um, played hockey, then watched hockey, then got wildly drunk, then played footy, then watched footy. Rode my bike around.”

“Did you land on your shoulder at all?”

“In hockey or footy?”

“Either.”

“Actually both. Why? What’s your point?”

I kind of got away with Saturday’s hockey training, not nailing the shoulder even in tricky, nasty backward skating defence drills, where I’m never at my peak. Then at The Bang, my Sunday footy, I did my usual quota of 10x push-ups for skill errors, but laughed as a couple of rising Timorese hip-hop artists, Fabrice and G-Storm, ran around like giant puppies, learning AFL. Until recently they were in a detention camp for seven years, an old mate of mine, who’d brought them down for the kick, told me. Even that guy, Paulie, had been so sick a couple of years ago that he was literally given the Last Rites. I was trying to get my head around such life swings but was probably too hungover for such ponderings. Damn vodka. It was a beautiful, sunny, crisp Sunday morning and, going by their attitude, Fabrice, G-Storm and Paulie aren’t unhappy with their change in fortunes, By the end of the session, they were leading and yelling like old-time Bangers.

The Superman. Getting up is the hard bit.

Suddenly my dodgy shoulder didn’t seem so bad. I landed on it again five or six more times last night at hockey training, and several were enforced. Lliam decided it was time we became Jedis at Supermans (where you throw yourself full length at the ice then get back to your skates – last night in a very short distance, between the blue and red line). If one skater failed, we were all punished with laps or skating drills. Supermans are a good time to be wearing armour and I wince in sympathy for the women in our class, landing six or seven times on their chest. I’m reliably informed it’s like men being kicked in the balls.

After that drill, though, last night’s session took off. One drill, for example, had us taking a puck the length of the rink, being chased by a back-checker (defender hunting you down from behind). Then, after you took a shot, you tapped the left goal post with your stick, which was the signal for another skater to take off with the puck and you became the back checker. It meant sprinting as fast as you possibly could down the rink and, even if I didn’t catch many of the others, I can’t remember just out-and-out sprinting on my skates with such intensity. I was even able to snowplough stop at the end before I slammed into the boards, which helped.

We also had two-on-two drills, with pairs trying to score goals, alternating from defence to attack depending on who had the puck. My puck-handling actually stood up, so that I controlled it repeatedly, made passes, scored two or three goals. One was a sneaky backhand slide from a tight angle between three flailing sticks. Army had a lot of trouble hiding his astonishment that I made the shot, but that was okay. I was right with him in the open-mouthed stakes.

And then we played Russian roulette scrimmage, where we were divided into two teams, on the benches, and Lliam or Army would yell a number between one and five, and that many skaters would hit the ice, chasing a puck, tossed randomly onto the rink. I was part of a four-on-four, and then a three-on-three. Scored a goal on that one. And then was next skater on as I waited my next turn. I should have known from Lliam’s sneaky look what was coming. “Nicko, make sure the gate’s open,” he said. “ONE!!!” (The only “one” for the night.)

Will getting ready.

I charge onto the ice as Lliam and Army woop, and of course it’s Will flying out of the other gate. Place v Place; always entertaining. (Will told me later that he was at the other end, last to go, and they called him to the front, so they could set it up.)

I wasn’t too far behind Will when we got to the puck, guessed right that he would turn left, clashed sticks, SO close to stealing it, and lost my legs, crashing hard (Hello, shoulder. Sorry, Enzo). I figure Will was long gone, but then saw over my screaming shoulder that he was also in a pile of armour on the ice. Apparently he’d hurt a knee earlier in the session and it buckled as he tried to take off. He still had the advantage though, and by the time we found our feet, he was in shape to goal, and did.

Back on the bench, as Will explained the knee thing, Army just gave it to him about excuses, laughing his arse off. I love the merciless nature of hockey players in hanging shit.

“I still got the goal,” Will said.

“At least I hurt him, right, Army?” I said.

Everyone was happy.

In the rooms, we were all buzzing. We all agreed that was the most intense, full-on session we’d had, at least on a Wednesday. People were bruised and battered. All grinning like maniacs. I definitely skated better because I was so pushed for speed and need.

Up until last night, it felt like I’d had a low-key hockey week, more interested in my AFL team,

Saturday whiteboard: Us (11.30 am), minor leagues, Melbourne Ice and Blue Tongues all represented.

Richmond, actually winning a game and some life matters swirling around me. But now I think about it, I’ve read the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News at least twice a day, hunting Red Wings news (as well as noticing there were no less than 28 shootings in Detroit last weekend, including seven dead. We’re there in November … there goes Father of the Year), watched Melbourne Ice wrap up the minor premiership for finishing top of the ladder, started trying to write a commissioned feature for The Age about being a 40-something hockey rookie, and spent a couple of hours looking up hockey gear warehouses in America, for our looming trip. I might be more hooked than I thought. Then again, who am I kidding?

Gotta love hockey.

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Getting edgy

August 11, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Since I got back from the Gold Coast, I’ve managed to hit the ice a few times. I had a morning skate, which I always love because a) the ice is practically empty and b) those who are there are usually interesting.

On Tuesday, there were a few figure skaters doing their thing and one older dude speed skating, but in third gear. As in, sort of lazily doing laps but in full speed-skate position, one arm behind back, crouched, long strides.

I was down on the goal line at the far end of the rink, entertaining the hockey Gods with my attempts

Cossack dancing: Not so good on the ice, or on new edges.

to skate only on my outside edges along the line, or doing the tight-turn drill Army had us doing a few weeks ago, stepping over the line and trying to turn as tightly as possible on one foot, either inside or outside edge.

Like I said, the key word here is attempting.

While I was getting up off the deck from one such attempt, another hockey player hit the ice. Tall, dark, dashing. Name of Tom, once we’d introduced ourselves. He skated like a dream, with powerful confident strides, broken only by the occasional flawless one-foot hockey stop, snow flying. Or to pivot effortlessly, to either side. Or to skate backwards, with the occasional backward crossover to mix things up.

“Wow,” I said. “What level are you at? Dev league?”

“Intro,” he said.

Motherfucker.

But one thing I liked about him: he fell over a lot. As in, I’d be doing my thing on that far goal line and I’d hear the crash as Tom bodily hit the boards at speed at the other end (figure skaters, not so happy). Tom was fully prepared to push himself and his ability beyond comfortable, which I liked him for. It was apparently his first time in armour, so he figured he may as well as crash and get used to it.

Falling is the only way to get better, as they keep telling us in class, and as I keep proving … but without getting better. (Ok, maybe a bit, at glacier pace.) Another friend was skating last night as we finished class and was proud and/or relieved to get through the skate with a dry butt, which is reasonable. I looked down at my hockey kit, covered in snow from repeated falls. Maybe that’s the key: to know that by wearing the kit, you’re padded and able to get wet and icy without worrying?

At class last night, Melbourne Ice player Tommy Powell joined Shona and Scuba in putting us through lots of drills. Heaps of skating, which was good, involving puck handling, one-on-two, attack-and-defence. Fun.

Well, eventually fun. To start things off, they had us doing all sorts of skating drills, such as skating and crouching while trying to put one leg forward and then the other, like a Russian Cossack dancer jogging. Nuts. In fact, here’s video of our class trying it. (I’m the one in the traditional Red Wings colours). See for yourself.

I had just had my skates re-edged and to a different, deeper cut. Having new edges always makes me skate like a drunkard (ok, even more so), and I was not loving these drills to push your skating ability. My feet felt wrong all night and I was wobbly, but not so badly that I didn’t enjoy the class.

Talking to Josh, a classmate, between drills, he said that it usually takes him three skates before new edges feel okay. So I had better try to somehow skate between now and Saturday’s next official Intermediate outing. Or maybe I should just wear the skates to the supermarket, or for a day at work … that should blunt the edge, huh?

In other news: Our big USA trip is close to booked and looks like including four Red Wings games. One in Washington (four rows back from the glass: booked!), three at the Joe Louis Arena, plus a tour of the facility by the Wings, who seem genuinely pleased we’re making the trip from Melbourne. And, for a change-up, we are also ticketed for Harry Potter World in Florida.

Life is about diversity. Write that down.

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The F word

July 26, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Behind you! Behind you!

When were you last truly afraid? Not just worried or disturbed or concerned. I’m talking about Fear. Genuine, immediate fear.
I looked up the definition in dictionary.com, just so you can say the next sentence in one of those raspy movie trailer voices if you feel so inclined:
Do you know the true meaning of fear?
I can tell you. It’s: “A distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc, whether the threat is real or imagined.”
Or, to put it another way, Intermediate Hockey Classes. Along with smatterings of life.
Welcome to my world right now.
I’d always heard that fear was something that kicked in as you aged and, sadly, I’m finding it to be true. As a kid, like most kids, fear was a minor and occasional factor in my adventures – and kind of a thrill if it did turn up. Why else do people go to scary movies, right?
As a teen, I fell off a big cliff because I was climbing it for fun, without any safety gear. A rock broke off in my hand and I bounced hard. Nasty. In my 20s, I surfed Winki Pop, the even more challenging surf break next to Bells Beach, at six-to-eight foot on a Boogie Board; mountainous waves so powerful that one sucked my board from under me as I punched through the lip and snapped my leg rope like it was made of cotton. I had to swim back to shore through the impact zone, getting smashed on the rocks before I made it to safety. I still have scars.
In terms of work, relationships, what was possible in the world, there was little to no fear. Covering police rounds, I would be at murder scenes pre-dawn, chatting with cops about the absolute worst in human behaviour. It was interesting, not frightening; even the Hoddle Street Massacre and the Russell Street bombing didn’t invoke much personal fear that I remember.
But now I’m older and I seem to carry fear in a more central part of my core, and it shits me. It has played havoc with more than one relationship and has definitely made me take short footsteps, to use an AFL expression, where I could have been bold. No more or less than anybody else, I should add. But it’s a prick.
Last week, on Wednesday night, with Lliam and Army coaching, and then on Saturday, with Michael and Shona in the blue instructor fleecies, I began Intermediate Hockey. And the step up from Intro was truly daunting. Army started things off by looking at our group and saying: “OK, looks like everybody is second time around, so we’ll really push things, and get you guys up a few levels in this term.”
My face must have been a picture at that point. There’s no Governors reprieve on the ice: “Um, Army … You might not have noticed but I’m just up from intro …” Skates on, bitches. Seconds later, we were attempting outside edge crossovers, and very tight turns, around and stepping over our sticks, lain on the ice. On Saturday, Michael started things with transitions (front foot to back foot), pivots and backward crossovers as the first drill. I was in a bad place in my head before I skated onto the ice and this didn’t help. It was the first time in 21 weeks of lessons that I considered just skating the fuck off the ice and going home.
But I stuck it out and had a crack and landed hard (bad shoulder hurt but held, Michael was kind as he skated past my body). My stick handling was actually not too bad so at least, wobbly skating aside, I showed some hockey skill, especially as I was partnered with Army for some of it.
I guess the upside is I didn’t quit and thanks to this blog, I can go back and read how equally out of my depth I was at the start of Intro and have faith that somehow I will one day be capable of what is being asked. I suspect I have to resign myself to being the unskilled dunce at the back of the class, fumbling and falling, for this Intermediate term as I grind away at my skills. Does it help that there is some hero in a black skivvy – “The Ninja”, as Hotcakes Gillespie, the celebrated northern skater, sneered – who doesn’t even bother to wear protective armour because he’s so supremely confident in his skills, leading off every drill with an NHL display of skating and looking impatient as the mortals then try to keep up? No, it doesn’t. I was seriously tempted to knock him on his arse just to say, “Shit, sorry. If only you were wearing hockey armour like everybody else that wouldn’t have hurt.” I have no idea why this guy is even in Intermediate class.
I had a general skate on Monday, to work in a more peaceful surrounding on pivots and hockey stops, which I still can’t nail. A skater (“My name is NiSyong … just think of Nice Young Man”) gave me some great tips on starter backward crossover technique and Will was helpful with pivots and backward skating. The work continues. My shoulder holds. The fear lurks, that I will be badly hurt or just simply not good enough. I ignore it. I skate. I try to improve. What else are you going to do? Quit? Fuck that.

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