RecLeagueHero

Local rinks require near full gear for open hockey but very little for stick time. Been to more than a few drop in's at more than a few local rinks with guys playing in sweat pants, gloves, and a bucket. I suppose you could call it lack of enforcement if you're one of those asinine "I've always gotta be right" types. But unenforced rules don't carry much more weight than non-existant ones.

I haven't seen many rinks that require adults to wear anything besides a helmet (and skates obviously) to drop-in games. Just because no one is going to grab my wrinkles to see if I'm wearing a cup doesn't mean it isn't a good idea to wear one.

If you're dumb enough to show up to a drop in game with nothing but your bucket and gloves you pretty much deserve what you get. Never really understood the logic behind the "I'm so good I don't need pads" line of thought. Doesn't really matter whether you're Wayne Gretzky, or putting on skates for the first time, getting hit with the puck, falling, and running into the boards are just part of the game.

10-15 minutes is plenty of warm up for a drop-in game. It drives me nuts when everyone is yelling at two or three guys who'd spend the whole damn skate taking runs at the goalie if you'd let them to put the pucks in so we can start. Also, and I really don't think this should never need to be said, but behind the goal is not the place to drop down on the ice and stretch.

Once, three years ago, I gave my cousin a job in the back of the house to help with the seasonal rush so he could have extra cash for Christmas. The job lasted literally from Halloween until the 23rd of December, minimum wage. I will now be drawn into his eternal child support battles with his batshit crazy ex every year. I'm hoping my "he hasn't worked here in three years and I don't have time for this shit" letter will work, but I'm not counting on it. He really should have done what his mom told him and pushed the nut down the stairs.

When I was reffing beer league I used a pretty simple rule: the "home" team's jersey needed to be at the very least 80% white and the "visitor" could have no more than 20% white markings on the sweater. Occassionally you run into the jackass that thinks a jersey that is all colored save for the white shoulder boards is enough to pull a fast one. I just used to call guys over during the warm up and tell them if the sweater wasn't going to cut. Save for one repeat offender. I didn't say anything and the smug douche thought he got one over. Then someone tossed him a pass because they clearly thought he was their winger and was headed in on a good scoring chance. Let him get about three strides and then blew the whistle, and made the captain sit the bench minor for the jersey issue. On the flip side, I don't see being a huge dick about it. I found that the "everyone must have matching sweaters" rule was just unreasonable for adult league hockey. So as long as the sweater was either a home white or a colored away I'd let it slide.

Actually ran into a guy from high school today. While I didn't give him as much shit as some, I wasn't exactly nice to him. He was the guy that came out for all four years of football and never actually played in a game. Smaller high school, so we only had a varsity and a JV team. Not what you'd call a talented athlete by any means. Over the years though I came to realize it took a lot of guts and character to do it, I know if I hadn't got to play I wouldn't have bothered. Always felt a bit guilty about it, so it was nice to get a chance to apologize and get some closure

Is anyone really shocked that they guy was using?

I'm kind of curious to see how the LAPD handles this. The top dog issued a statement saying if you didn't have a ticket to the funeral, odd of a concept as that is, they didn't want you going down there.

Though, I think it's too early to rule out the possibility of a one armed man.

I'm betting the wife.

Three straight days of pretty much cloudless skies. I know in some places that's not a big deal, but in Seattle it doesn't happen too often.

High school graduations are a big deal for parents. End of the day it's as much about them finishing their task in your upbringing as it is your academic acomplishment. In many cases it's also their last chance to give you something big without any feelings of having crossed a line in terms of making you feel like you're still a dependant. Trust me, at your age if your mom and dad want to outfit your dorm room it's cool. When your my age it'd be really freaking akward if they wanted to furnish your apartment or something. I could promise you that has a lot more to do with their desire to get you a graduation gift than it does making sure you and your sister and even steven. Well, that and the fact that college graduations are long as all get out and tend to feel like you've dressed up to listen to Ben Stein read the phone book so they probably won't show up. Thus getting you a big HS graduation gift will ease later feelings of guilt.

Got my Kyocera cermanic knives today. They cost an arm and a leg, but worth every penny. I've never seen a knife that could go through bone with such ease and never lose anything on the edge. The only downside is they can't be suspended on a magnetic knife strip, so I'll have to work that one out.

90 second shifts don't work with two guys on the bench. Let's apply logic: there are five guys on the ice and two guys on the bench. 90 seconds ends, all five should according to your theory come off the ice. Problem is now there are five guys on the bench and two guys on the ice. Do you see how it doesn't work for everyone to take the same shift when there aren't enough players on the bench to replace all of the skaters? See, that leads to some people needing to take longer shifts to make the game work. When these people do this they need to be able to sit down for a minute or so, and that won't happen if the short shift guys are rushing to the bench. You could just stagger the first shift so that people come off a lot quicker at first in 20 second intervals. That means a change at 20, 40, 60, 80, and 100 seconds. By the time 60 seconds rolled around, both benchers would already be in the game, and the person that came off first would be back in. Everybody can do 100 second shifts with 40 seconds rest on the bench, just staggered in changes. Of course, my regular pickup group is not that clever to actually do this, so if I'm on the ice first, I come off really quickly to start the staggered change. If I'm on the bench, I make my first shift really short to break up the change. After all, we usually have 90 minutes and are sub beer league level, so nobody is complaining about not enough ice time. In fact, the last 30 minutes, most of us are just glad to have a chance to sit, or else we coast around and practice "breakaway" hockey. While that would work, if you could actually get guys in a drop-in hockey game to do it I think you ought to go into politics. :)