marka

Howdy, Our team was holding its own pretty well. I would say that the past couple seasons we've been in the "above average but not dominant" range and this session was similar. Things were shaping up that sometime later this month we'd likely have been going into playoffs with a realistic shot at a championship game rematch against the top team in our division, hoping to be on the other side of the 2 games to 1 defeat we had last season. And now its all cancelled. The rink shuts down in the summer months, and last week they officially pulled the plug on restarting before fall. Mark

Howdy, Also... If this is causing you stress and you want to just have it be done with... I don't think anyone would fault you for deciding that skip SummerJam this year. These are pretty wild and unprecedented days. If the Olympics can be cancelled / postponed a year... 🙂 Mark

Howdy, I really hope that we're all playing hockey before August 1st. And I'm for sure still wanting to come to SummerJam, assuming its going to happen, as long as I'm not putting myself or others at risk. At this point, I think it almost has to be a wait and see attitude though? Particularly for folks in the NYC area. If I were you, I'd put a line in the "date sand" out there (like maybe a week before the earliest "money has to be spent / stuff ordered" date?) and then essentially forget about it and concentrate on home life. Mark

Howdy, Re: how to motivate / encourage a player to engage when their natural instinct is to hang back... Its not hockey these days, but my son (now 13) struggles with this. Its been a consistent thing through all the sports he's played (baseball, hockey, now soccer). It drives me insane. Both as a parent and as frequently as the coach/assistant coach. I think in large part, its just not something you can train / coach out. His head coach on the travel soccer team and I talked about it some and he offered the only thing that's clicked at all... Namely that some of the hanging back is someone's natural instinct for wanting to evaluate and understand something before committing. Some folks are naturally more willing to (metaphorically) say "fuck it, I'll figure it out when I get there" and some less. If someone is on the "less" side, then confidence in their own skills and experience with situations is what they need. As a coach, you can help some with that, but making sure you're taking the time to explain the whys of situations, giving them the tools they need to be confident in their understanding of situations so they don't feel the need to evaluate what's going on as much. And perhaps even just a shared recognition of what's going (for the more self aware player) so that engaging becomes more of a conscious for them until it becomes more habitual. But all that said... for my son particularly this remains a constant negative as regards his playing of sports. Some of this stuff helps some, but I continue to see this as his primary limiting factor. I keep waiting for the aggressiveness switch to flip on, but if it never does and he's just out there running around getting some exercise and never becomes the athlete he could be... Whatever. There's more to life than sports. I think everyone has at least some of this, btw. And, to me, that's why its so important (particularly for younger kids) to be having fun. When you're having fun, you're not worrying about screwing up, you're not worrying about how much you suck, you're not worrying about gaining skills and experience. You're just having fun and after a while, you realize that hey, you're not bad at this and you know what's going on. YMMV. I'm not a real coach or a real sports psychologist. 🙂 Mark

Howdy, Interesting. How come? It sounds like its more than just comfort? Mark

Howdy, I have a love affair with Warrior Covert QRL and QRL Pro gloves. I absolutely love the (tight) way they fit, even more than the QRE's that replaced them (14" QRL's are perfect. 14" QRE's are a little short in the fingers and 15" are a touch too long). I probably have three or four pairs at this point and have auto searches on ebay. 🙂 Mark

Howdy, Did you ever find that green shell you were looking for? I've mostly settled in on what I like at this point, after playing for four years. I still keep an eye out for gloves / pant shells I don't have / are a deal. And I'm a total sucker for socks with sublimated designs. The main thing that reigns me in is that I'm kinda cheap, so I never want to pay retail. Though if Warrior would let me customize gloves with the full QRE flex cuff, I might be in some trouble... 🙂 In terms of sticks, I'm consciously no longer messing with curves / whatever and trying to just give myself consistency. I'm bummed that the P30 never took off as I really really liked it, but being locked into CCM made bargain hunting pretty hard. I decided to just go with the Sakic curve and live with it. New helmet tech also gets my attention. I guess maybe its not so much that I've lost interest as at this point there doesn't seem to be a lot of real innovation and I'm over my initial gear learning curve. Mark

Howdy, Baierl? They're still open for adult league, AFAIK. Which is fucking ludicrous. I'm not going to attribute it to trying to squeeze money vs. trying not to lose a ton of money / make sure they can keep paying their employees. Or even a misguided attempt at providing a place people can go to not go stir crazy. But its all just so "not the right thing to do". Mark

Howdy, Same general area as BenBreeg. One of the rinks I ref and play at closed. Two others nearby that I don't currently go to are closed. One's still open (the one he mentions). Another is so poorly run that I would expect they haven't yet heard about the Corona Virus. I think the one BenBreeg mentioned as still being open is a matter of hours until they make the right decision and close, but ?? Either way, I won't be there. My real question is if stuff like the Toronto Draft Tournament at the end of May is going to happen. Mark

Howdy, Not that big a surprise. Mine is a tight squeeze for CXN holder steel (new, Step). It fits, but there's no extra room. Mark

Howdy, Yeah, typically all the out-of-towners end up at the same hotel and usually Friday's get together is there. Not a 'requirement' to stay there or anything, but it makes it easier. JR negotiates a block of rooms rate. IIRC I think NJ is $200/night? I'm guessing you could probably find a buddy to share a room with but ?? I usually have my family with me and I'm one of those folks that likes to escape off to be by themselves at times so I've never tried to get a roomie. 🙂 Mark

Howdy, Yep, exactly this. Anyone know the details for these? Mark

Howdy, Usually a dinner/get together the night before and the night of the game, generally later in the evenings for both (at least for an old man like me). I would say at these events the ice time / manufacturer demo / whatever is roughly half of the experience for me, with the other half being those get togethers or other activities (like if you've got family with you and do the tourist thing or something). "Worth it" is kinda a personal thing. Its worth it to me. Mark

Howdy, Whoa! So routine tests led to them finding that vs. any type of episode/symptoms? That sounds actually fairly lucky if so? Any restrictions on activities or anything? Mark

Howdy, Still jealous of all that empty ice. 🙂 Mark

Howdy, Yep, should be good. 🙂 Assuming we're not all sick. 😕 Mark

Howdy, Sorry to read about your son's head injury! Hopefully no long term effects. I really wish that manufacturers would prioritize protection over looks/weight/gimmicks and then back that up with published testing results. The poor VT testing results and this anecdotal report have certainly put an end to any interest I had in the new True lid, despite my interest in the MIPS system. Mark

Howdy, I'm still just amazed that someone has the same stick they want to use four years later. 🙂 Mark

Howdy, Yeah, those answers feel right to me (not that I have the hockey history that most here do). But I'm not finding that stuff in the rulebook. This rule is about the puck going out of play: https://www.usahockeyrulebook.com/page/show/1084689-rule-631-puck-out-of-bounds-or-unplayable And this is about hand passes: https://www.usahockeyrulebook.com/page/show/1084666-rule-618-handling-puck-with-hands The handpass rule specifically says "directly to a teammate"... Nothing about the other team getting possession or whatever. It seems like if a deflection out of play counts as a 'last play' (and I can certainly see that), it ought to count if its a deflection off a goaltender's pads too, right? And therefore that wouldn't be a handpass? I'm asking because I frequently struggle to find the "of course" answers to weird situations like this in the actual black and white rule book. Which I'm pretty sure is more an indication that I don't know how to read the book, more than anything else. And which I'd like to get better at, because I hate not knowing the underlying rules in those weird situations. Mark

Howdy, So, sorta morphing this into my "ask weird rules questions" thread... Does a deflection count as a "play"? I ask for two situations... 1) a shot is taken from the neutral zone, with all offensive players on-sides. It deflects off a defenseman in the offensive zone, going out of play. Face off location is supposed to be determined by the last play, but I'm not sure if the shot is the last play or the deflection is. 2) offensive player in the offensive zone bats the puck with his hand. Puck deflects off the goalie's pads, to another offensive player. Hand pass or not? If you REALLY want to help me out, you could specify which USA hockey rule applies with your answer. 🙂 Mark

Howdy, I think everyone is going to have different patterns for usage. And what works for you is going to depend on what steel, what hollow, how sensitive you are, etc. etc. For me (regular Step steel, 3/4 Fire hollow), I don't notice a difference in the way my skates feel for say the first 6 to 8 hours or so on the ice. Lately what I've been doing is making 3 passes every 6 to 10 hours or so. I'm not religious about it. If I haven't sharpened for a while and I have a game, I'll probably throw them on there. If I'm just reffing, I probably won't. Mark

Howdy, I bet Sean would give you lessons after the morning skate on Thursday... Mark

Howdy, Is it possible to ban users from specific threads? Mark

Howdy, Well, I guess when Sparx stops selling overseas, we'll know why. Mark

Howdy, From the little I've seen, used rings sell pretty quick, at least on ebay. I casually keep an eye out for a deal on weird ones like a 3/8", just in case I have crazy friend that wants to try it or something, but I very rarely see used rings get listed on ebay and they always seem to sell fairly quickly for not enough off of "new from Sparx" for me to want to deal with a rando. Which is all a long way to say... I bet if you list it here it'd sell pretty quick. 🙂 Mark