First Ice Hockey Game

If you'll notice Sunday's post, I played in an hour long ice hockey game. A bunch of us chipped in and rented the rink for an hour. We split into 2 teams and played an actual game. I'm not sure what the final score was, but I think my team scored more goals than the other team (mostly because our goalie was amazing). She (note, I said she) blocked almost everything that came at her. She couldn't have been much more than 13 years old, but she plays on a league. She was fully decked out in the massive goalie padding, and it was crazy how many pucks she blocked.

I don't really think that I played any position in particular in the game. I don't really know any of the positions (besides the goalie), nor do I really know the rules of ice hockey. We were able to rotate out so that 2-3 of us were always on the bench. I played probably 45 minutes of the time (if you can really call what I did playing).

Playing ice hockey was pretty much the most prolonged terrifying activity that I've ever done. The experience was terrifying from pretty much the moment I got onto the ice. There were so many of us on the ice at one time. And, it started out with about a 10 minute warm-up, where there were about 20 pucks out on the ice, people skating and shooting every which way. I felt like I was in a battle field, just trying to dodge the people and pucks.

The game started, and they set me up as a "forward" and told me that the center guy was going to shoot the puck my way right after the drop. Luckily (in my opinion), the other team got the jump on the drop, so the puck went the other way. My first rule of the game was to Not Die. My second rule of the game was to Not get run over. My third rule of the game was to pass the puck to a teammate as fast as possible whenever it came to me so that I wouldn't get converged upon. These guys were absolutely crazy! There were guys flying by me so fast. I did a ton of self-talk during the game. "Don't die" was a common mantra. So, was "Oh, God!" I also did some good visualizations of making myself smaller to avoid getting run over. There were some pretty close calls, as I jumped out of the way. It was a blur of jerseys. Luckily, it was easy to know who was on my team vs who was not as well as knowing which end of the rink was my team's goal. So, I didn't make any stupid mistakes like shooting the puck in the wrong direction or to someone on the other team.

To tag in and out of the game, it was very unstructured. You just kind of went to the side, climbed over the half wall, and someone took your place. Likewise, to get back in, you had to climb over the wall onto the ice. I would have been content to stay on the sidelines more, as I can't imagine I really helped my team out very much. But, it seemed like whenever I tagged out, someone was there before I knew it to put me back in the game. I think my eyes must have been wide with terror pretty much the entire time. Luckily, no one could really see past your helmet.

I definitely remember wondering what I had really gotten myself into. Plus, one guy pummeled into another guy, knocking him over the half-wall!!!! I'm still having flashes of that moment. And, guys were crashing into each other left and right. It was the most insane thing I've ever experienced. It was definitely the most dangerous sporting activity I've ever done. I'm so little. I could just imagine getting clobbered. I did my job well, though. I avoided all injury during the game. After it was over, they said I did really well, and they want me to play again next week. Yeah... Uh huh... No... I was extremely lucky last night, but I don't have a death wish. If I play every week, it's only a matter of time until I get creamed.

The good thing was that I was extremely maneuverable on the ice. I was able to evade quite proficiently. So, my skating ability was not a problem or a hinderance. My level of terror was a huge issue. Personally, I think it was probably a good thing. My survival instincts definitely took over.

After the game, my husband came out and took some video of the ice hockey lesson. Unfortunately, right before the lesson I was trying to show him where to go to get into the bleachers. I didn't realize that I was stepping out onto the tile. So, foomp. I came crashing down. Luckily, I was wearing my girdle, so I wasn't injured too much. Just jostled quite a bit. But, it messed up the blade on my right skate, so it kept sliding out on me. It will be fixed once I get my blades re-sharpened, but I wasn't able to skate to my full ability for the video because of it. So, I'm going to have to get him to come out again to take more video. The video he did take had some good moments, though. It shows me scoring a goal in one of the drills. So, that was cool. Once we edit it down a bit, I'm going to try to post some of the video to this site. Leave it to me, though. The injuries I get from ice skating/ice hockey are never when I'm actually on the ice. Very ironic.

But, to sum up. Ice hockey is extremely terrifying. I'm glad I experienced it. But, I don't think I will ever do that again. I definitely do not have a death wish. I was very lucky last night.