Blizzard hockey? I know, that’s a strange thing to see here as the team I’m playing on. Yes, I subbed in one of their D7B games last July, but usually they are they are the opponent. Not this summer though. I’ve been loaned to the D8 Blizzard for the summer season. It was fun to play on a new team, which I haven’t done in years (outside of tournament play).
Unfortunately we opened the season with a loss against the Sled Dogs (final score 5-1). This is the Blizzard’s first time in D8 in many years so the team is in the building phase and there were some good things happen. The veteran Sled Dogs were able to exploit our weaknesses though and lock the game up for themselves.
One of the things I like about being on this team is I’m playing with some friends that in the past I’ve only played against: Steve, Rich and Marc (hopefully Marc will get on the ice during the season). Steve and I were paired on defense and it was comfortable playing with him. I hope we are able to have that pairing consistently through the season, although with it being the summer that may be difficult as people travel a lot.
I played okay last night. My breathing had some issues because yesterday was a miserable allergy day. On the whole though, it was a pretty good. A couple goals did happen while I was out, but those were learning moments on positional play. I had some way out of position moments too when I would get stuck on an offensive rush and then have to haul myself back as some of the newer forwards didn’t quite have the “get back on D” thing figured out yet. That will improve over time.
During Ronnie’s Ice in the morning I got Connor out on the ice for the first time in gear. He did a great job for his first day, gaining confidence with the puck as the hour went on. Yesterday’s scrimmage was fun with an evenly matched competition that ultimately my side won, which, of course, was good.
Couple other notes: Last week the Wizards won their season opener against the Hornets (I missed that because Will and I were celebrating our anniversary). It also appears the Ordinals may be no more. A couple weeks ago Andrew said he was having issues finding enough full time players, but I haven’t heard any more on that. I may have to find a new D7A team to sub with.
Next week the Wizards and Blizzard both have games. Looking forward to it!
