a new season of hockey

Hooray! It has officially begun!

On Saturday my team and I played our first ice hockey game of the year. We won - hooray! I am splitting the ice time 50/50 with our other goalie, Missy. She did very well and let no goals in, whereas I found myself knowingly being screened, distracted by this fact, and suddenly realized the puck was being shot, and I totally missed it. So the other team scored one goal. We stil won, but OOOOH did I want a shut-out!

Bad news when I put on my equipment. The palm of my blocker is now nearly completely non-existant, so I am going to get it re-palmed hopefully tomorrow. Not only that, but some of the lacing is now coming out. I don't think the whole things really needs to be replaced, but it is starting to show its age... I've had that since I started playing in 1996, and it even then it had already been through one previous owner. I'm going to go on a semi-reluctant shopping trip someday soon to dump a bunch of money into some new equipment. Sadly, ice hockey is not a sport for the faint of pocketbook. A new helmet and catcher will cost me somewhere around $300 to $500 dollars (could be even more if I had the money to spend on such things). A new blocker would add another $250 at least, but repalming it will only be about $50, so I'm going to try to fix the lacing instead.

Good thing I decided to not try to go on my Mexican vacation - I have a good chunk of money set aside that was originally designated for that and can now be used for good ol' hockey. Perhaps not quite as relaxing or warm as the Mexican Carribbean, but at least hockey is fun!