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The last adult league games of 2011 were played last night and I managed to get in three games. I had regularly scheduled games with the Polar Bears and Boxers. Mid-day yesterday I was asked to sub in for the Hotshots as they were short on defense. Since it fell between two other games, I said yes… because why not.

The Polar Bears game against Velocity Sports was close throughout and ended with the Bears loosing 3-2 in overtime. They had some super strong players and so did we and it was a great battle. Sadly I directly contributed to one of the goals against because I made a bad clear that resulted in the puck coming right back at the goalie. Sure this kind of thing happens, but I still don’t like it. On the upside, I did get an assist on one of our goals and I had a couple of offense rushes myself so it was still a good game for me despite the goal allowance.

The Hotshots game was a larger loss, down 5-1 against the Great Whites. This is a team I enjoy playing and they were on their game last night. The Hotshots, who I don’t normally play for, gave it their all. It was cool to skate with Josh, who I haven’t been on the ice with in over a year. I also had a few rushes in this game, but I got more aggressive towards the end trying to assist with scoring and that allowed for at least one goal to get scored that I can think of. It can be a trade off between trying to get aggressive to get some offense and trying to keep the deficit from getting larger…at some point though if you don’t put up some goals you lose anyway so I think it was the right choice.

The night finished with the Boxers and a 6-3 loss against the Blizzard. I’m happy to say I powered right on through this game, despite it being faster and more physical than the two that came before it. I don’t feel like I had any lack of energy on the ice. In fact I told our bench coach to let me know if he saw me letting up and he never told me he did, so I take that as a good sign. The Blizzard are a strong team and they were on it last night. Three or four of the goals happened while I was on the ice, and I honestly don’t know what I could’ve done differently to stop them. That said, I did stop a lot… including using my body to simply block the path of oncoming puck carriers.

It was a blast with the trio of games. Given how sore I was when I got home last night I expected to be a lot more pained today, but so far it’s not bad. Perhaps tomorrow it will happen since two days out is usually worse than the first day after. Still, since I haven’t done three games in a row in two or three years it’s good to know I can still do it.

Hopefully I’ll get a scrimmage or two over the holiday weeks. Otherwise it’ll be January 7 before the fall/winter season continues.