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Well, my BHL debut ended in a 6-3 loss. Which sounds pretty awful, until I get into the recap. Before the whining commences, let me preface this by saying I still had a blast . . . As I mentioned in my earlier post, the teams were formed after a tryout. I ended up on one of three teams that has one less skater. Our top rated player decided not to show up because his daughter is looking at colleges - which may clue you in that the average age of my team is well over 40. We had another skater decide not to show up as well, leaving us with 8 (I think) playing out. Our lowest rated player is the one guy in the league who had never played an actual hockey game in his life, not even a drop-in (to his credit, he scored one of the goals). Compounding the issue, the team we played somehow has an average age around 30 and half of them know each other. After watching everyone else play tonight, I can say without a doubt they are the best team in the league - no real superstars, but tons of depth compared to the rest of the league that has 1-2 standouts and then a bunch of guys who can barely skate. One of the coaches from the class I just got done with told me they stuck me on this team on purpose, so I'll take it as a complement. The goals - #1 - great position on initial shot, hit the right elbow floater and took an odd flip, landing about four feet ahead of me . . . opposing forward was crashing the net with no defensive help #2 - my defenseman deflects a cross-crease pass from way down the wing right to their center in the low slot; I dove back across and almost nabbed it as the puck trickled across the line #3 - tic-tac-toe goal to an open guy on the backside (I found out afterwards that my team was trying to play a zone, which explains why I kept looking up to see between 1 and 3 of the wrong color jersey standing right around the goal, undefended) We were tied 3-3 until very close to the end of the second. #4 - mad scramble / ping pong in front of the net with one defensemen and 2-3 opposition #5 - breakaway by their best player; I played it well and got a piece of it with my left arm, but not enough, deflected into the top corner #6 - kicked into the net by my own player I would say I faced 2-3 shots every time they came into our zone, which felt like an overwhelming majority of the game (I'm guessing I faced 25+ compared to maybe 10). I didn't let in anything soft, and felt that my positioning and recoveries were good. Didn't give up any bad rebounds besides the first one, and managed to jump on a few more that probably should have been goals. Still need to work on my ability to play the puck. I think we will fare much better against the other teams in the league, especially considering they are going to play man D next week.

The Grammy's are going to have to have an entire separate show just for the In Memoriam this year!

This was a problem of mine also until I got the Ritual Pro c/a. The hard plastic arms and rubbery floaters has helped with my ability to either trap pucks or deflect them away depending on what I want to do.

First game with the team that wanted me to try out was last night. I had been telling the captain since the beginning he had to know me, but he kept saying he didn't. I walked into the room and he looked at me and said, "Oh it's you! That's awesome!". Uh really? I told you that you knew who I was. So there ended my probationary period. We played the worst team. I think I got 6 or 8 shots total. Maybe not even that many. But they were mostly good shots that I had to be sharp to stop. First shot was nearly half way through the first, and it was my own defenseman redirecting a pass on a 2 on 1 on net while I was sliding across for the shooter. I had to extend back as I was moving and just got a pad on it. A good blocker save on a partial breakaway. A very good pad save on a shot from a pass out from behind the net to the opposite side. I thought my try out was over on the goal though. It was their player coming over the blue line 1 on 2. He had just done this two times and dumped the puck on net. So I was looking for an open teammate to move the dump in to and he shot it harder than expected, and it kind of knuckled. I had to drop into a butterfly instead of just putting my glove behind my stick, so i kind of got caught inbetween. When I dropped, I landed on my stick blade and trapped it under my thigh rise. The stick got stuck when I tried use it to stop the puck and it slid 5 hole into the net. Seeing how they had reacted to their last goalie, I thought it was going to be a problem. Especially since that made it 2-1 in a game we were dominating. But they all thought it was hilarious. We ended up winning 5-1 going away. After the game, everyone was optimistic. They all said I was exactly what they were looking for. The joke was that I allowed shots in warmups, which was an improvement from the get go. (which devolved into jokes about how I looked better in warm ups, or they should have been taking shots from the blue line lol) I guess their last goalie didn't want to take warm up shots. Ever. And then he would often allow a weak goal at the beginning or at least be shaky because he hadn't seen any shots. So it was all much ado about nothing. I'm not worried about their attitudes at all. It should be a fun season.

It's definitely a learning process. Something else you might want to consider is stiffer pads. I used to give a lot of rebounds and second chances when I had my Summit pads. They were really soft (like Vaughns) and the rebounds would come off to the same areas as you, just out of reach. Since I switched to Brian's pads, which have a stiffer foam core, it's not a problem anymore. Rebounds go into the corners and even ones that used to end up just out of my reach now go further away - either getting behind the guys looking for rebounds or giving me time to get in position for the next shot.

Maybe you need to work on your rebound control, particularly if they aren't going that far away. There can't be any rebound attempts if you don't leave any or direct them away from danger. Something to think about: who is the better or more effective goalie - the one who makes the highlight reel third or even fourth rebound save or the one who doesn't leave 3 or 4 rebounds?

According to VH Facebook page, now majority leader in goalie skates in NHL. 32 goalies wearing them.