tedpenguins

Haven't been able to post an update on my progress in awhile because of my lovely work hours. My positioning seems to be getting better and better everytime I'm on the ice. I still make a lot of stupid mistakes and can't seem to figure out the old Red Wings boards trick ( opposing team throws the puck off the boards behind me to have it rebound right in front of the net). I just can't seem to judge them correctly until it's too late. My instincts from playing as a softball catcher have helped tremendously with my glove hand. I would say that the glove is probably my best attribute at this point. My GAA is around 2.4 now and since I am still playing in the beginner league I'm happy with it, especially considering that at least one goal every game is because of a weak pass and turnover right in the slot. For whatever reason my defense can't grasp the idea that they can't pass through people. My lateral movement still needs work but at this point I'm convinced that as long as I play positionally strong one or two breakaways in a game isn't going to make or break me.

I know theres gonna be a size difference between the two of us Ash but I'm actually a girl that started playing in net not too long ago. Im 5'10" and 140lbs. Intermediate is going to be by far your best option for c/a (I'm in a senior small). The c/a actually aren't that uncomfortable on boobs; they're meant to stick out kind of far on the shoulders so even though some of the c/a can be heavy they don't really rest all in one area like normal shoulder pads do. The pants are made pretty wide to begin with so you shouldn't have a fit problem with those. The mask is definitely the most important, you never truly realize how many times goalies get hit in the head until you start playing. Leg pads would most likely be intermediate sizes for you unless if you have super long legs. You could probably use senior sized gloves and blockers but I would encourage you not too just because us girls typically have smaller hands (I'm actually using a senior glove and intermediate blocker). I actually have a pair of Reebok X-Pulse leg pads that are a 30+1 that I'm trying to sell. They're in good condition and I bought them to initially start with but they are way too small for me, I'm in a 33+1 now.

Pickup or just a public skate is the best way to get started. I would encourage the public skate and just put on the gear to get used to everything and practice some slides. Try finding some cheap gear from Play-It-Again or a similar company. You might be able to find some good deals on gear from different stores since new gear is starting to enter the market. I actually just started 5 months ago at the age of 19. I've had a blast so far. Just keep in mind that you've got to be willing to learn and forget any mistakes that you may make (after you learn from them of course). Have fun and just focus on being square to the puck to begin with!

I'm not sure if my teams last goalie said something to the team about shooting when the tendy's back is turned or about eye contact but the team as a whole is pretty smart with the whole idea. That's a huge surprise to me since it is a beginner's league. They normally do a breakaway style warmup but there's only one guy that will try and deke but he'll normally save that to the end just as a little extra warmup for both of us (he also only does it once). Most of the shots out of this beginner's league do end up being off of fast breaks so the breakaway warmup makes a lot of sense for me. A few slapshots will get thrown in the mix every now and then but they can't really elevate them anyways so it doesn't make much of a difference.

Sweet! That'll be next on my list then. If only I had the money to get more GoPros to cover even more angles, that would be awesome. The chirps would definitely be going against me all night though lol

My thoughts exactly Optimus. I wish I would have realized that the camera angle might have shifted but I guess the past is the past. I'm also going to look at getting the plain wrist/forearm strap to put around the center post. I'll do a bit of experimenting to see which would be the easiest and fastest to take down (we don't get a break between periods in my league, just enough time to skate the length of the ice to switch nets). Of course this wouldn't allow me to see the play developing but I would at least be able to see my movements and how I react to the puck.

Went to some drop-in today to try out the GoPro. There's a huge skill difference between myself and the others present at the drop-in but I feel as if I held my own. There's times that I don't drop down even though I know I should. This makes some of my saves look really, really awkward but I've been slowly weeding this out of my play; a bit more time and it should be completely gone. I need to start focusing on my puckhandling and movement a bit more but I'm slowly coming along. Any critiques on my positioning or what I'm doing in certain situations would be extremely helpful! Towards the beginning of the session a puck glanced off my helmet and caused the mount to fall just slightly so the angle isn't the greatest. I'm also going to see about getting the suction cup mount so I can put the GoPro on the glass instead of my helmet for the next time I can make it to drop-in. Hopefully the link to the video works, I was having a bit of trouble with it but if it doesn't I guess I'll just try again.

Goodluck to you and your wife! Also, think of it like an opportunity to see how mentally tough you are which will of course help you with goaltending! Eating right and exercising can make all the difference on one's health.

I've heard good things about Herbalife shakes and they do taste awesome. After watching my mom and brother go through a couple of different tries at losing weight my biggest piece of advice would be that even though you are trying to lose weight don't forget that a cheat day every now and then could be the difference of continuing the weight loss program for a longer period of time. Too much change all at once normally leads to an abrupt halt of the program. Slow and steady wins the race!

Scratch that last post, just bought one! Walmart has the original Hero's on sale for $95 if anyone is looking to pickone up.

@OptimusReim that sucks man, I hope you have a speedy recovery. I'm on the lookout for a GoPro at the moment so hopefully in a month or so we'll have another with some videos to add.

4 hrs later and the pads are finally done. I still have to do the glove and the blocker but so far so good. It's not absolutely perfect but I'll touch the rest of it up later.

@bunnyman666 I agree with potential rule changes with gear. The stick doesn't do near as much or take up as much room as the rest of the gear. It would be absolutely stupid to shrink the stick. The poke check is most effective when a player's head is down so if the stick is shrunk the most effective thing for a tendy to do is just charge the player on a breakaway when their head is down. Even though I enjoy goals being scored a charging tendy would be pretty entertaining too! Ended up getting the CCM pro's (haven't had a single problem with CCM gear so I figured I'd give them a try before going custom). In pictures they look kind of bulky but in person they aren't that bad (just a little bit of length added to them compared to my Vaughns). They definitely have a softer fall and they actually stay up on my legs without tape. Also picked up the pad wrap so it's time to start on the gear!

Didn't have a bad game last night. Score was a 5-3 loss but for the amount of people that can hardly skate on the team I thought I did pretty well. First goal was a result of no one deciding to go after the opponent behind the net. He had all day to sit there and make me slide from post-to-post. He went back and forth about 3-4 times finally to the point that I lost sight of the puck and he tucked it in on a wrap around. I stopped a few breakaways and also let one in (guy did some fancy stick work and got me leaning too far to one side). Another was off a nice deflection and another was from a feed from behind the net to about a foot in front of me where they banged it in. The last goal was a cross ice feed that I couldn't quite get across to stop. Finally used the poke check a few times though which was a huge help on the breakaways (normally they shoot before they get close enough). This team was one of the worst last season so we're pretty sure a few ringers were called in. Normally I would be frustrated by this during the game and not care afterwards but when you're playing in a beginners league that is literally called Never-Ever the whole point should be for players to be getting better and not someone else winning the game for you. Sure it's nice to win but I would rather get my moneys worth of ice time and lose instead. Having the ice all to myself yesterday morning was a huge help too. The 45 minutes or so that I spent working on slides helped tremendously. All I have to do now is get those muscles up to speed so I'm not practically falling over after a long shift in our zone. We also decided on new jerseys! We're going with the New York Rangers alternates with our own spinoff of the Rangers logo. Our team is called the Rangers so we might as well go all out and fit the bill. I've gotta go to TH anyway tomorrow to get new knee pads (don't buy the Vaughn LT80's, they start off decent but the padding wears out extremely fast) so I'll also be getting some pad wrap so I can channel my inner Lundqvist. Expect some pictures sometime tomorrow or Monday morning!

Currently at the rink for the public skate to test out the new skates. There's absolutely no one here so they let me put on all my gear and skate around a bit and mess around in the crease. I really like the skates although the break in is pretty bad like reviews said it was. I'll have 2 different skates in them today so they should be good by the end of next week!

I agree with bunnyman. Some really, really bad bounces were also happening against you. The one that starts the video off really catches my eye. You have 3 players on your team lazily gliding back. You take care of the first shot but between the boards that give a huge rebound right back up to the slot and the lazy back checking it would be a hard shot for almost anyone to save. Your 3 teammates actually slide to your left and farther back on the ice; no matter where the puck was rebounded to off of the boards it would have went straight to one of the opponents. Plus, half the guys on the other team are placing the puck perfectly right underneath the crossbar. On the second goal it probably would have helped if your defense would have boxed out the crease for you. I know it's pickup so defense isn't a huge emphasis for the skaters but these are all things to look at. Putting too much blame on others isn't always a good thing but in this case it might be. I would hope that in actual games your defense isn't playing like that in front of you so a few extra goals shouldn't be a huge surprise. Breakaways especially, we aren't perfect people and I for sure can only stop so many. The whole point of the defensemen is to help break the puck out of the zone and to DEFEND. I saw a whole lot of leading rushes or joining the rush and no help being given to you.

Keep working on whatever skills you are working on! When I bought all of my gear the goalie expert in-store gave me some advice that may help you. He told me that I would start off strong and have some really good games. As I focus on working on certain skills, goals would start pouring in and I would wonder what the heck is going on. This happens to every goalie no matter the age or level they are playing. He said to stick with it and everything will start to even out once you start to get all of the skills down. We start off so good because we stay within a comfort bubble and don't try other skills. When we start to move around and learn to anticipate it leads to mistakes but through practice we fix those mistakes; you just have to get through that learning curve first!

Didn't have a bad game last night but it wasn't the greatest either. The game ended in a 3-3 tie. Got caught off my angle once and the other 2 goals resulted from me trying to kick the puck to the corner to find out that no one decided to pick up the wide open opponent just waiting to bang in the rebound. Before the game started one of our worst players decided that he was all of a sudden a goalie expert and attempted to tell me that I needed to challenge the shooter more. This guy is one of about half of the team that does not back check and can't even keep up skating wise in a 'Never-Ever' League. He hasn't even played for half the time that I have in net! To say the very least that didn't go over very well with me. I'm hoping to go to a couple of public skates this week with my gear on and just practice my slides so I can attempt to stop the wide open players that are getting to my rebounds. One-on-one lessons will have to wait another week because I haven't received my work schedule yet.

Did some more searching and I'm in luck! There's a small program not too far away that does 1-on-1 lessons for only $65. Now all I need is to get my new work schedule so I can start scheduling some lessons.

I'm from the Ann Arbor area in Michigan so hockey is a VERY popular sport. Depending on what clinic you go to and where it's located it can cost up to a couple thousand dollars. Obviously I don't want to pay that and I'd rather do single lessons so I could weigh out the pros and cons of just renting ice time compared to that. At the end of this week I'll probably start emailing a few instructors that I have in mind to find out pricing and availability. It does help that since I am a college student and I'm getting out before high schoolers I might be able to get some good availability during the week when no one would be at the rink.

Last night ended up in a 6-3 loss. The games against this team with my old team were normally pretty close but we would usually always come out on top so I'm not quite sure why I went in thinking that we were going to win this game. Two of the goals were breakaways where my defense either decided to pinch or just turned the puck over in the middle of the ice. One goal was a 2-1 and my defenseman decided to cover the shot instead of the pass despite me pointing to the pass and yelling for him to take it (oh well). Two more went in from bad defense in the slot. For whatever reason no one wanted to play defense and tie up peoples sticks. It didn't help that my brother was filling in for us and had never played an actual game before. Being my brother he definitely got some side comments that I normally wouldn't give to teammates and afterwards I felt like a bit of an ass for doing it, but it did cost us those 2 goals. The last was just horrible positioning from me. I did reverse VH but for whatever reason I didn't hug the post very well from the waist up and the puck fluttered right between my blocker and the post. I think my movement is coming along but I really need to get some practice by myself and maybe a couple of friends to really work on my slides. This next week is finals week for me and then all I'll have to worry about is work. I did some looking around and found ice for sale in the middle of the day on weekdays for $99. I'm about to jump on that pretty dang quick but I also want to try some lessons. First I need to find a camp or someone that does lessons for beginners. All I can find in my area at the moment is higher level camps. I'm not afraid to show up and by far be the worst person there but I know I wouldn't be able to keep up and the instructors would have to explain stuff to me so many times that it would take away from the experience of others that may actually be able to go a long way through those camps. I definitely don't want to take away from their learning experience and be a hinderance. Plus those camps are fricken expensive! I wouldn't want my time and money to be wasted at one because some beginner showed up and took away half of my time. I think I'm going to email some of these instructors and see if they would do 1-on-1.

I guess one good day leads to a bad one. Had a game last night for the team that I skate out for. Our goalie that is notorious for not being able to make games didn't even give us a heads up that he wasn't going to be coming. Luckily we were able to pick someone up from a different team but now I'm going to have to start taking both of my bags with me just to make sure that we do have someone in net. I honestly have no clue what this guy is thinking. When I'm in net I make sure that I'll be there and I'll choose to play in net over skating out just because goalies are harder to find. At this point it looks like I might have to be in net for 2 teams this season and for sure in the future. This guy has definitely lost his welcome with us. I guess things happen for a reason though, more ice time in net for me

Had my fifth game in net last night, but this time I'm officially the full time goalie. My normal team that I play out with moved up a level so almost everyone on this lower team is new. Didn't really know what to expect from them but they played decent in front of me. I called out plays and directions a lot more than I normally would and they did give up a lot of odd man rushes but everything worked out. Stopped 3 different breakaways and I felt more calm and composed in the net. The one breakaway I was really surprised that I was able to get. It was actually a 2 on 0 with about 20 seconds left in the period and we were trying to protect a 1-0 lead. I don't know if the guy didn't realize he had a teammate right next to him because he decided to take it on his own. I dropped a bit too early and he tried to go high blocker side. I had a good enough angle though to catch the shot on my arm right as the buzzer went off. I'm getting more and more confident and I'm trying to focus on sliding across the crease. My angles and depth seem to be decent enough but I do give up some bad rebounds at time. One last night led to a goal against but if I can learn how to slide and move around more fluid the rebounds shouldn't be a huge problem.

Yea goalies are free in this league. Payments were due about 4 weeks ago and we had no problem with our goalie showing up at that point. I completely understand that it is a holiday time and work does get in the way sometimes but to miss almost the whole second half of the season is a bit much. Whether a goalie pays or not they've made a commitment to be part of the team and they should try to be there as often as they can like everyone else. This next season should be really interesting though. Our team is splitting in half so the stronger players can move up a league since we are dominating the other teams. I'm gonna end up being on both teams: playing in net in the lower tier and playing as a forward in the upper. I don't mind filling in in net when something comes up but there's no way I'm going to pay for it this next season if it becomes a habit.

Had games on back to back nights this weekend and for the 3rd week in a row our goalie couldn't make the games. Last night we ended up losing 2-0 but I got absolutely no help from my D, and as the case with Optimus' drop in, that obviously doesn't work too well. I was waiting for a reply all day today from our tendy of whether or not he was gonna show up to find out 2 1/2 hrs before game time that he wasn't going to be able to. Normally that wouldn't be that bad but I live about 45 mins away from the rink so I tend to leave about 1 1/4 hrs early to make sure I have plenty of time. Showed up to the rink to find out that the other team had no subs and they're already the bottom team in the league. We'll usually beat them 5-1 or something close to that. I think i faced 5 shots, and not very good ones at that all night. By the end of the second I had skated over to our bench and told my team to take it easy on them and give them a few chances since we were already up 4-0. I had 2 defensemen out of 12 players that were actually trying to give the other team a chance. Another guy was attempting to complete a hat trick and the rest of the forwards were playing like they were trying to win the Stanley Cup. We won 9-0 and I couldn't be more embarrassed by that win. Not to mention that this is the team that I play as a forward in so getting put in net for the second half of the season after I've already paid my dues for doesn't exactly sit well with me. Especially when I'm only facing 5 shots a game. I love playing in net but not when I literally skate around the net or practice doing push offs while play is going on because I'm so bored. My 2 D-men that were trying to let the other team get some shots apologized to me at the end of the game but 2 guys can only help the other team when they're dead tired and my forwards don't understand that you don't win any special trophy or award in this league. To put it lightly I'm just a tad bit pissed at my team from that one. If I would have known the other team had no bench I would have brought my gear to skate out. I basically showed up tonight to warm up my team and that was it. Complete waste of time, league dues, and gas money.