Another Open Hockey

With another game of open hockey under my belt, I'm dead tired and rather sore. My right knee being the major sore point, will have to do some additional strengthening of my legs and joints as I go forward I think.

This was only my second Open Hockey, with only two Stick and Shoot sessions as well as a single day of Canal shinny, I'm looking forward to the day I can't count my hockey experiences in single digits! There is only so much time to get to the rink while classes are going unfortunately and some of that time I end up being stuck working on projects! In fact I've delayed tonight's session at least two weeks or so thanks to sleeping in or late nights working on a project or two. With Spring Break coming up after this week, I will likely spend most of that time on the ice and getting down to Kettler to watch the boys practice.

The game went well enough for how few participants there were. We started off red and white against green and black, with 8 and 9 players respectively. The game kicked off going 4 on 4, which made complete sense, since we just didn't have the player volume to withstand full speed 5 on 5. Another guy or two showed up late and someone though to make it a 5 on 5, which would have been fine, had no one left early. But not everyone can stay the entire night, and by the half way point, we were down to 6 or 7 a side and still playing an ugly 5 on 5 thanks to a lack of any real bench time. I found myself getting one good hard skate to either end before having to relegate myself to playing as a body in the way with a stick out to the passing lanes.

The night went well enough with the over abundance of ice time though. I find my passing is more on point than before, with only a few later passes being too hard or too far off the mark. Sticking to the right side D for most of the game, I occasionally jumped into a play when possible, only to have the other 'D man' to not fall back on the play when the puck got away! Zone play and passing to the open man isn't exactly a strong point when playing open hockey though, so it's always to be expected. It's not like we were keeping score or anything!

I really can't understand some players thinking when it comes to open hockey though. They take such offense to some peoples lack of ability and are so vocal on the bench that I just couldn't keep my mouth shut any longer. When someone can't play well, it's likely because they're new! When they can't keep their head up while playing the puck, it's because they're new! Stop complaining, you never know who else is new on the bench that you're starting to piss off with your constant complaining! Fortunately, after a quick, maybe slightly aggressive, talk with the worst of the complainers, the pissing and moaning about our teammates stopped and the on ice play by those players became more team oriented. I call that a win.

The night ended well with everyone being dead tired and smiles all around as the buzzer sounded for us to head off. A quick fist bump to my team and a few for the opposing players still around and off to the locker room I went.

The burn out of ice time removed, it was a good hard practice for me. A lot of hard skating, with a few good stick in the lane defensive plays, and just a hand full of good passes up the boards and middle. I think my zone play suffered as I tried to get forward a bit more often to try and join the rush, but many times I found myself having to move to forward as the D positions were filled when I got on ice. I don't think myself an effective forward because of a lack of skating ability and puck handling in zone with pressure.

Passing: + A few good passes and a bit more heads up play.
Shooting: = I don't think I took a single shot the entire time I was on the ice
Skating: + Catching up to more experienced players on the break away
Puck Handling: = A few too many turnovers from opposing player takeaways
Zone: = Next skate will focus more on this instead of getting into the play
Cardio: + Hour or more on the ice with a bit of speed left on a few plays at the end