It was a good Saturday night because all the teams won, continuing the solid start to the season that my teams are having.
Tigers were up first last night. We took on our hold nemesis the Hotshots and we dominated the game, winning with a score of 4-1. The team looked great as we kept up the pressure on the Hotshots and spent a lot of time in their offensive zone throwing shots on their goalie. Beyond that, our defense was pretty strong and, in some cases just plain lucky.
The one goal that came against us happened while I was participating on offense. Even though enough people dropped back to stop the breakaway, no one stepped up to take the opposition out to stop the shot. There were a couple other lucky breaks that we caught as defensive errors didn’t turn into goals. But, like I said, we were pretty strong all the way around.
The Wizards had a winning night too, knocking down the Tsunami 4-3. In this case, the Wizards came back from a 2-0 deficit, which was awesome becuase historically coming back from a deficit isn’t one of the things we do best. We stepped up though and managed to shut down the speedy and skilled Tsunami with our own moves. It was great to see determination from the Wizards last night. We never seemed to slump or sit back, instead we kept driving hard to control the puck and get our fair share of the goals. It was close to being a 4-2 game, but with less than 30 seconds to go the Tsunami scored. Luckily we kept them at bay so they didn’t get another to tie it up.
My play was sluggish last night…actually it was sluggish all day. The best I played all day was in the Tigers game. I mostly executed on what I wanted to and managed to keep the errors at a minimum. I had a hard time staying on my side of the ice and I’m not sure why that was exactly. I also ended up with a penalty for tripping (while trying to get the puck off one of their players my stick got caught up in his legs). Two more times I stood up this player and knocked up down to get the puck off of him; both of these were legit moves.
The Wizards game was more of an off game with more issues around staying on my side of the ice. Sure, there’s a certain amount of criss-cross that happens, but I did it sometimes when it wasn’t required. I also had a hand in one of the Tsunami goals as a puck bounced off Brian, bounced of me, bounced off Peter and into the net. I almost did that two more times, but luckily Peter stopped them. This is not to say there weren’t some good moves, but the bad stuff nagged on me.
It all started in the morning during Ronnie’s. I had a hard time completing the drills correctly, usually not being able to complete what I was trying to do. The scrimmage was rough too, full of bad passes and stupid choices. Although I did manage to shadow Matt a good deal, but it didn’t always stop him either.
One thing I have to do this week is sharpen the skates. I know that’s a part of the problem because they are way to dull and sometimes I don’t move right because of that (although this is only a part of the problem, it doesn’t get around my brain making bad choices).
Oh well, it’s been a while since I’ve felt like it was a bad weekend of hockey and it’s bound to happen from time to time. I hope to shake all this off next week.
