Hockey Night in Saskatoon

It only took about 3 years but I finally made it back out. That's right, I went out and played some shinny yesterday. Every year I tell my friends we should go out and play some shinny, but we never do. Well, this year I dug deep into our storage closet and pulled out my skates along with an old hockey stick. Unfortunately it was a right handed stick and I shoot left handed, so I really have no idea where the stick came from. But it worked out well because Shiela shoots right so she used it. We both even took our skates and had them sharpened (I boght Shiela new skates for Christmas)!

As 8 of us trekked across the park to the local outdoor community rink I was excited. I was the only one wearing a helmet (you know, the whole ITP thing, even though because I'm not a great skater I prefer to wear a helmet when I play even if it looks "uncool"). Of course I was the last one to get my skates tied up but I finally made it onto the ice. As I hobbled along I started to get the groove back and was able to skate around "at a reasonable speed". That was until I came skating into the middle and completely wiped out (the ice was pretty rough). But it worked out well since I slid into the pile of sticks on the ice and just started throwing them to different sides to make up the teams.

After about 3 minutes of skating my lungs were on fire, but I eventually got my second wind and was able to keep going. The only bad part of the night was when I tried to pull a hocky move on my wife. I was skating towards her with the puck and as I pushed the puck past her on my left I lifted my stick quickly over her head to get the puck on the other side. Unfortunately I haven't practiced that move much (I've just seen it on TV and figured I could do it too) and my stick whacked my wife in the back of the head. Needless to say that was the end of that play and I didn't score on that. However, I did manage to score a goal a little later on and celebrated it a lot by riding my stick down the ice and shooting my glove out of the air! I definately want to play again very soon!