back on the ice

Yesterday I stopped by the Island Sports Complex on Neville Island to play one of my favorite sports - ice hockey. I haven't been on the ice all summer, despite my vows in the spring to skate often and learn how to skate in something other than my goalie skates. However, I was invited to play with the Pittsburgh Piranhas in an upcoming tournament in Philadelphia, so I figured I'd better drop by one of their pick-up hockey sessions to get my body back into the swing of hockey things.

It was fun. I wasn't super great, and I know I want to somehow work on a few skills before I head out to Philly, but I did have a good time. It probably sounds crazy to everyone, but when I'm playing in a pick-up game I find myself cheering for the opposing team - I want them to shoot on me. That's what I'm there for as a goalie, and that's what I know how to do...and that's what I love about hockey.

At least it's one thing I love about hockey. I also love watching good skaters skate in hockey. Some day I'd like to spend a whole period just watching a good skater's feet. It's amazing the control people who know what they're doing can have, with the slightest pressure on one edge of their skate blade making huge impacts on their direction and speed. Lovely.

Probably by now some of you who read this (that is assuming some people actually will read this) wonder how I got into ice hockey and why I'm playing it all that jazz.

I started playing hockey a year after I learned how to ice skate. I learned how to ice skate when I was 15 years old in the early months of 1996, and I learned because I wanted to be able to play ice hockey the next year. The ice skating class I took through the Kentwood Hockey and Skating Association at my beloved Kentwood Ice Arena (I still use a water bottle that sports the arena's OLD address!) was marvelously entertaining. I obviously had no idea what I was doing and so was put into the intermediate skating class (not beginner - I could at least manage to stand up in skates). All the other kids in my class were about 8 years old. A couple of them thought I was the teacher, which was hilarious because I was worse than all of them! Also funny was that my teacher was a year or so younger than I was (and, as it turned out, played on a hockey team that was the rival of the team I played on in high school!). I somehow made it through the humble experience, although I wasn't great at stopping using the "hockey stop."

The next school year I signed up to play hockey on the newly-formed 19 and under girls' team out of the Arena. At first I wanted to play defense, and I accumulated all of the equipment for that, but then, before the season started, I think, the coach told me that the team needed a goalie. I had played goalie for soccer, so I volunteered. Coach Townshend had helped coach his daughter to become a division I college goalie, and he ran a Saturday morning camp for goalies. I borrowed some goalie equipment from KHSA (they're so nice!!) and showed up for my first lessons in ice hockey goal tending.

I had been to a camp or two when team practices started, and then I had to do skating drills where you'd tear down the ice and then have to stop before you ran into the boards at the end. I learned that it's a LOT easier to learn how to do the hockey stop when you're in full hockey pads. It doesn't hurt as much when you mess up and fall down.

I played on the U19 team for my last two years in high school, and then in college I joined the Michigan State University women's club team where I had the privilege to play with some wonderful women who taught me a lot about hockey as well as life. And I was coached by some awesome coaches, too! I stopped playing after my sophomore year because it was becoming too difficult for me to balance school and club sports.

I played on and off for intramural and pick-up teams, but it wasn't until last year (November 2004) that I started on a team again. I joined Central Pittsburgh, a great team of women who really enjoy hockey. I look forward to playing with them again this coming season!