MG's adventures in geriatrics

[Martysgirl74]

Finally, the 2008/09 season has started!

...and that's where the last night's good news ended. I took a 6-3 beating in my 45+ league.

Things were good for about the first 5 minutes. I made a couple of saves, but it quickly became apparent that my team was not the stronger of the two. We spent most of that time in our zone unable to make a pass or clear the puck...at least until our best player took it end to end and scored on the first shot on goal that we had. We were up 1-0. Sadly that was the last lead we would see.

I soon was facing a break away where I failed to close the five hole fast enough. 1-1. Then it was a shot from the half board that I wasn't square to.2-1. It quickly went down hill from there. I felt terrible all night long like my legs (especially my knees) were too weak to skate. My movement just seemed forced and I was dropping my glove hand badly. To top it off, my hip was killing me. I felt as old or older than the guys I was playing with.

On the brightside, I did have a few moments of good play especially towards the end of the game. I also saw the majority of shots.At one point my D-man said, "Do you feel all alone? Its not that we don't like you, we just have no legs." Hopefully this is just early season rust. If not it's going to be a very long season. :o

[acmeguy]

MG, I'd rather be busy and involved in the game and lose, than face minimal shots and get a shut out. The score doesn't always tell the true story. That's why they came up with save %

[Martysgirl74]

Very true... I'm more upset with my poor movement and stupid mistakes than with the shots. It wasn't an overwhelming amount, probably 30-35, but we were out shot about 3-1.

[Moving Target]

I'm with ACME... try to find some consolation in the statistics; and play your own game

:)

(it sounds like the typical beer-league / house-league nightmare that we all face from time-to-time)

[Martysgirl74]

That's the problem...I wasn't able to play my game and that was the most frustrating part. My last 3 skates I've just felt awful on the ice. Every time I skated out from my crease to challenge the shooter I felt like my knees were going to give way. As I said, I'm hoping its just early season rust, but its never been like that before. :o

[Ryano42]

It's the preseason Betsy...just think how many shots in practice the big boys get before the first preseason game...

Hang in there...:)

[Martysgirl74]

Had my first practice for my women's team tonight. So far I'm really liking how the coaches are running the practices now. Much more organization and the focus is on improving our play through learning systems. We also had some new faces that seemed to be pretty good skaters so that will help as well.

I tried to work on some fundamental stuff....bf slides, glove placement, keeping my stick down. Even got to work on some breakaway Y theory. I was rusty, but I think I did okay. It was nice to be able to work on things. Hoping that with the new system we might have a good season ahead of us.

[Martysgirl74]

How to win, lose, and tie all in one game.

Let me explain. As we are a small hockey community and this is the 45+ group there are only two teams. The teams are set at the beginning of the season and they try to make it as even as possible. Goalies are assigned a team, but if it seems like the match up is uneven on the night they have the goalies switch ends half way through. That's what happened this night. So for the blue team I allowed more goals than the other goalie so that was a loss. For the white team I tied with the other goalie for goals allowed. Then I ended up winning the game for blue in OT.

It wasn't my strongest effort, but I played fairly well. I felt much better in the net. No leg weakness and my movement was much improved. If anything let me down it was my hands. I kept dropping my gloves. I know it cost me at least a couple of goals. Must work on this.