marka

Howdy, First, there's no shame in cutting back. I mean, don't leave folks in the lurch, but don't keep doing stuff if you're not having fun at it either. The question is if you're not having fun because you think you suck or if its just not as fun as it was before to put in the time/energy and you wish you were doing other things. The only help for the 2nd one is to go do those other things and see if you prefer having your time spent there. But for the first one... I get the "not improving" frustration. I started playing a year and half ago and all of the easy to see big steps seem to be done. I was getting a little discouraged. Talked with my wife and other people some and they pointed out various small things that I take for granted now that I couldn't do as well six months ago. They were small enough things that I didn't think of them as "improvements", but once pointed out, I remembered being frustrated by not being able to do that stuff. And so now I look at smaller stuff when I'm looking for encouragement. Like lately I've been working a bit on elevating the puck on in close shots and playing with that in warmup for games, etc. I'm seeing a way that that works now, whereas before I just couldn't ever make it happen. Your "honeymoon period" is a great phrase. To me, the honeymoon period is when you're making huge strides every time out, having fun even if you totally suck, etc. I think that exists in any skill (it certainly does in motorsports, my other big addiction). The trick, for me, of going beyond the honeymoon period is to look for the smaller improvements that you ARE still making and accepting that those improvements still matter. Mark

Howdy, Seems like as good a place as any... Any of you Toronto folks checking this out? http://www.blogto.com/events/hockey-warehouse-clearance-sale/ Mark

Howdy, Not really equipment per se, but I thought some might find it cool... A buddy started doing "found metal item art" Mark

Howdy, Mine has been fine as well, at least in terms of "are my edges wildly off" type of stuff. I would need to have better measuring tools to determine whether this or the "real" edge checkers were more accurate. Obviously at a minimum it will be consistent, which is really the primary thing I cared about since I could reference the local pro shop's name brand tool. I would hope that the person building these has a fixture to afix the reference sticker on that takes into account how the magnet/angle is fixed to the piece. If the magnet / angle wasn't perpendicular to the cross piece, that could make the sticker look crooked, but actually be correct. Or it could be $30 measuring tool QA. :-) Mark

Howdy, I was able to get lace locks from a local shop for reasonable money, and CCM was helpful when I contacted them as well. Never found anything worthwhile online though. That said, I totally agree. I really like lace locks and wish more skates had them. I added them to my Mako M8's and they work ok, but its not as good as my old Ribcors (in terms of the lace locks only), as the mounting point for the lace lock is further out of line with the regular eyelets on those, so that the lock ends up in line with the eyelets. It just works better. I much prefer actual lace locks to fucking around with lacing patterns or whatever. Not sure why it never really caught on. Mark

Howdy, Wow... Scary and happy both! Serious medical stuff for someone you love is crazy. My wife had some serious brain related stuff that started last Sept. Things have since settled down and are back to normal, but for a while there (particularly the first month or so) it was just mentally moving and reacting and constant "what if" with lots of paths leading to bad things. And all through that you're learning way more than you ever wanted to know about various hospitals, medical conditions, etc. Its nuts. I can't imagine also throwing in a wedding! I'm glad that things seem to be moving forward in a good way for you. Hopefully catching it early will mean no issues with a full recovery! Mark

Howdy, Oh man, that one hurts just to see in the gif. :-( Mark

Howdy, Good to see the Pontiac Aztec design team is still getting paid by someone. :-) Just giving you some shit. I've never really cared about a vehicles looks vs. how good it is at its job. Mark

Howdy, Its the St. Paddy's Day jersey! Mark

Howdy, My son got to play an exhibition game at Quicken Loans arena yesterday. :-) He plays goalie and is just starting out despite being "old" at 10. The group he plays with is a local house league and this kinda came up outta the blue. He's been pretty ambivalent about hockey in general, and quit a different house team at the beginning of this past season, then didn't play at all for a few months. He just recently decided he'd like to go up and play with this local more laid back group. Anyway, I figured he wouldn't want to go to the exhibition game and would prefer the more low key approach. His only other 'real' game was a 0-16 or so complete drubbing that really hurt his confidence / enjoyment of the sport, back when he was part of the previous house league. Anyway, he finds out about the game and of course I was totally wrong and he really wants to go. We work out with the house league organizer that he'd go and be the backup goalie, just riding the pine. As the game gets closer, my son is more and more interested in playing, but gets that he's the backup. Anyway, yesterday to our complete surprise the organizer had decided to have both goalies (the other was a fill in from the local Squirt travel team) play! We knew none of this until we see our son skating out to start the 2nd period in net. I was a freaking wreck. The score at that point was 2-1, IIRC. Anyway, over the course of the 2nd period he got scored on 3 times. Two were fairly soft goals, but he didn't have much chance on the 3rd. We also scored some, and the 2nd period ends with the score tied at 4/4. I'm breathing a HUGE sign of relief at this point, because the other goalie is headed back out. :-) My son played ok... I think the best he ever has, but is obviously way behind either our other goalie or the other team's net minder. Still, he positioned himself better than I've seen before and was a little faster to try and cover the puck. Still not going down onto the ice soon enough to try and block shots with his pads, but for sure an incremental improvement over where he's been. Anyway, the other goalie starts the 3rd period and I relax and watch the game since my son is done. He's standing up at the boards, watching what's going on, and more into the game than I'd have ever expected too, which is awesome. Then he's skating out with about 5 minutes left in the game! With 30 seconds left on a penalty kill! What! Turns out the organizer had decided to split the goalie time equally between the two... Score was still 4/4. Game on the line. The kids had played WAY better than I'd expected, plus the other team wasn't as strong as I'd feared. But seeing my son the fairly new goalie, who's had a history of lukewarm interest, headed out to close out the game currently in a 4/4 tie... Damn. Nervous does not begin to describe it. :-) Anyway, the kids are playing well and they're controlling the puck pretty well. But then here comes the break away and my son the newb is the only thing between the puck and the net. He positions himself reasonably well and there's a good shot and wham! the puck goes off his mask and back behind the net. Save! I think he had another poke check save as well in there. Game ends, tied 4/4. My son had fun and is (rightfully) proud of how he did and his improvements. There's plenty for him to improve on, but this was his best performance on the ice ever. And I didn't have a heart attack. :-) Mark

Howdy, Cool. I just wasn't sure you were aware this was a NOS item that whoever the ebay seller is apparently purchased as part of a lot, vs. something they were producing now. [Edit: That's an assumption, of course... But after I won the auction for one of them (for $6) plus a few others (unrelated) I offered to pay another $6 for the other identical modsquad jersey he had listed that got no bids if he'd ship it for free in the package. Instead, he threw it in for literally nothing. It didn't seem like he was really trying to make money by producing new items, which is why I figured he got them as part of some big package deal.] PM me with whatever the profit is on these and I can paypal you some $$. [edit again: Or let me know if you'd rather do something else. I like the jerseys though. Pens/Bruins colors. :-)] Mark

Howdy, FWIW, maybe not... These apparently came from a closeout / "NOS" supply. My guess is that they were made back then and never sold? Dunno. I paid $12 shipped for both of them... http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=modsquad+hockey+jersey&_in_kw=1&_ex_kw=&_sacat=0&LH_Complete=1&_udlo=&_udhi=&_ftrt=901&_ftrv=1&_sabdlo=&_sabdhi=&_samilow=&_samihi=&_sadis=15&_stpos=44514&_sargn=-1%26saslc%3D1&_salic=1&_sop=12&_dmd=1&_ipg=50 Mark

Howdy, No real update for a while, so I figured I'd post up my curve dalliances. In the first year, I tried a few things. Sakic / W03 / whatever to start with, then a W01/PM9. Ended up with a W88 / P40, which I mostly liked. Then I read something about the E28 and kinda wanted to try a toe curve, so I got one. I liked it. It felt like I could control the puck better on the toe of my stick during stick handling (particularly to the forehand side) and wrist shots felt better / quicker. I eventually also figured out to rotate the stick forward before taking slap shots and that seemed to really help too. But my backhand passes / shots & catching passes on the backhand were awful. If I didn't have the puck in exactly the right place on the heel of the stick on a pass / shot I had no power at all. It also seemed like when I had to reach even a little to catch a hard pass out in front of me coming from the forehand side, the puck would bump the stick up / get through. Someone here also posted something about how it was annoying that kids were reading about E28 curves and those being popular and that meant lots of kids starting with that curve and how that wasn't good. Not a lot of details as to why, but I figure I'm basically a 47 year old 2nd year Mite at this point so... Meanwhile, I'd sold off a bunch of gear that I'd accumulated in my first year (let's just say that I clearly belong on a gear whore site...). So I didn't have any other curves. But I decided to check and it turned out the guy I sold most of the gear to still had the True MC (A4.5 intermediate) I'd sold him and was willing to sell it back to me. So I did that. I noticed an instant improvement on backhand anything... Shot, pass, puck reception... All of it was better. And I didn't notice any particular difference in stick handling. Maybe the issues I thought the E28 curve helped with were mostly resolved by me just getting a little better at it generally? I haven't decided on shot differences yet... I think I'm still way more influenced by factors like "how much did you just fuck that up?" vs. "this curve is better than that curve". Not sure about receiving hard passes in front of me yet either. It seems a little better, but maybe I've just gotten better at it? Or I'm concentrating on it more? So yeah. Woo? I dunno. I'm tempted to ask and see if you expert type people out there think the W88/P40/P88/MC curve is better for beginners vs. the E28/MC4 curve, but I have no confidence that I'll actually listen to the answers if I get some new weird bug up my ass about curves... Maybe a Sakic curve would be perfect!!!!!! :-) Mark

Howdy, Doing my typical "cruise ebay looking for cheap interesting hockey jerseys" and came across a couple that I bet folks here know the story behind... http://www.ebay.com/itm/MEDIUM-ModSquad-Online-Report-Black-Gold-2-Throwback-Minor-League-Hockey-Jersey-/132118062236?hash=item1ec2d9a49c:g:-SoAAOSwzaJX-URq Mark @JR Boucicaut, what's the scoop on when these were made?

Howdy, Jesus. That's awful. Condolences to all involved there. Mark

Howdy, Last week I passed the "I've changed my work password 100 times" threshold. :-) Mark

Howdy, So, the "outside edge single foot hockey stop" thing is an example I can directly relate to. I can't do that. I've been working at it for a little while now. I've been skating / playing on the average 4-ish days a week for a year. I would be very, VERY surprised if this is an issue of strength, vs. one of technique. Strength / endurance might affect the 5th stop in a row, but I can't imagine that its an issue for the first one. I'm not saying that some leg / ankle / whatever strength isn't required to skate. Clearly it is. What I am saying is that I think that's maybe 5% of the puzzle at absolute best and its relatively easy for anyone to get the necessary strength to make the various skating moves work in a non-endurance / repetitive scenario. Mark

Howdy, Yeah, I need to a dryland area setup at home. I've been slacking on some projects that have to get done to get area in the garage free'd up for that. One of the other main areas I've been working on lately though is positioning... I.e. getting to where I'm going to need to be. That seems to be coming from games vs. anything else really. Plus games are fun, so I'm not going to be giving them up any time soon, even if I might add some hours of dryland practice to my weeks. :-) Mark

Howdy, I wrote this up for a group of friends from college, and though it fit here too. To make it make more sense... I live in Youngstown, OH near Pittsburgh, PA. Cranberry and Beaver County are suburbs of Pittsburgh, between Pittsburgh and Youngstown. Boardman is a suburb of Youngstown, a couple miles from where we live. Laura == my wife, Dominic == my son. :-) ----------------------------------------------------- So, a bit over a year into this "Let's play hockey for real" thing. Jan 2016 was my first Adult Skills class. One of my goals this time last year was to be on a league team. I've certainly accomplished that... I'm currently on three teams. One is the Scrubstitutes, playing in Cranberry at Baierl Ice Complex on a D1 team (about halfway in skill... They have B, C, D1, D2, and E from most to least skilled. E is full on beginner. B is "probably played Juniors or real college"-ish). Another is 'Yellow', a D level team (same approach as Baierl, except there's no division in D) that plays at Brady's run in Beaver County. Its a core group of friends/coworkers from the Air National Guard base in Pittsburgh, plus fill in folks like me. The last is Valley Insurance, a B level team (only A and B, B is the lesser skilled group) that plays close to home in Boardman Ohio. I also play in a regular old guy pickup group run by a guy named Debiec when I can, plus take an Adult Skills class (that same one I started with) with Laura. Debiec was the first group I started playing with, back in Feb/March of last year. Its a really good group of older (average age is 50+, I'm pretty sure) guys. Skill level is fairly mixed and its pickup where there's no refs, no score, etc. and if you're lesser skilled there's a reasonable chance the other guy who's way better than you will hang back a bit and give you a chance, but they still expect you to try hard, do as well as you can, etc. Teams aren't totally fixed, but they're fairly consistent with only a couple guys that switch from White to Dark and most folks staying one or the other. The best guys here are both skilled and fast, but they need to hang back and "play down" to fit in with the group so you don't run into that as much. On the lower end, you have folks where I was when I started or even slightly lower. These days I seem to fit in decently well here. I'm probably slightly below average in skill... Good enough that people don't hang back when they play me and my teammates expect me to do the right thing, bad enough that I'm in no danger of being asked to play down some. :-) I really enjoy playing with these guys mostly from the social aspect, since I know them more, plus its local. On the negative side, no refs means no faceoffs and faceoffs are fun, plus no scoreboard means you don't have that amped up "close game" thing as much. Valley Insurance is my newest league team, just started four games ago or so. Skill level here is also very mixed, ranging from a guy that just about can't skate (literally) to some of the upper level (but not "has to play down a lot") guys from Debiec. This is mostly because there are only two levels locally since Youngstown doesn't have the hockey population base that Pittsburgh does, so either you're good enough for "A" or you're not. On this team I would say I'm solidly average / perhaps a bit better than average. Our team is also undefeated at four games into the season, though all of the games were within a goal or two and have been good games. This leauge also has a 'real' score keeper with a clock that stops (everyone else I play with has a running clock), some record of player stats, etc. Been having fun here too. I talked a local friend into playing on the team, plus know some of the other guys from Debiec, run into them locally at stick 'n puck or whatever, etc. Justin, the local friend above, is the guy who took the Adult Skills class with me at RMU last January. Next on the skill level and "physical closeness" level is the Yellow team at Brady. Skill here is a pretty good match for me and I'm solidly average again, perhaps just a bit below average. Upper end of the skills isn't really higher than the B league in Youngstown, but you don't have the guys that can't skate / are just starting out, so the range of skill is compressed. This is my 2nd session with them. Another good group (I've really yet to run into anyone in adult hockey that I don't like). Last game our regular center was out and they asked me to play center (usually I play winger) and had some nice comments on how my game has improved, so that was a good ego boost. However, our team is mostly in the basement in league standings, so small blessings or whatever. Lately we tend to not win the close games, which is frustrating. Top skill level is the team I played with last night. "Yellow" again (all three league teams I play on happen to have yellow jerseys!), in the D1 group at Baierl. In this group, I'm the worst player. Skill level is still fairly compressed like with the D league at Brady, but the range is slid upwards. This is my first session with them and I'm not sure if I'll be asked back or not. I'm not awful in comparison to the group (there's another one or two guys that are similar to me, though I'd rate myself as slightly worse), but I'm clearly the "most likely guy on our team to turn the fucking puck over or miss play something". Its both nice to be in a "stretch" group like this and demoralizing at the same time. Our team seems to be solidly in the mix in terms of the other teams in the league... If we have a good game we'll likely win and if we aren't clicking we'll likely lose. Last night was a 3/3 tie that we won in an overtime shootout. The Adult skills class has been fun. I did that for two or three sessions when I started, like I mentioned. Then they stopped offering it over the summer break and I was doing other stuff. I started back up again this Jan, with a year under my belt. I did it again with a weird mix of "I want to show how much better I am than I was" coupled with "I want more hockey practice, vs. games". The class is a full hour away at the RMU Island Sports Complex at Nevile Island, plus its probably the most expensive thing I do in terms of "cost to be out there". But I like the instruction and "I can try things and not worry about failing" part of it. They split the group into Novice and Veteran. Novice is REALLY novice, with everyone able to skate forward and probably hockey stop at least a little one way, but that's about it as a floor. Veteran has more skill, but still you're talking "veteran beginners" vs. "guys that used to play in high school" or whatever. Going to my first one of this year, I was really ready to show just how much I'd learned and while I was obviously better, I also still sucked. :-) Still, there's no question I've gone from "average in the novice group" to "solidly above average in the veteran group". For the 2nd session of the RMU class, Laura is taking it with me. So the three of us head down there on Sunday nights, Laura and I go out and take the class, and Dominic hangs out on the bleachers playing games or watching Youtube or whatever. Its like roll reversal for the normal way stuff is done. :-) Laura has been having fun with it. She's been in the novice group and doing ok I think. Getting better at skating, etc. She was surprised to discover that she likes the puck handling / passing / shooting "hockey skills" part as much or more than the "power skating" part. The only downside for her is that (like nearly all Adult Hockey) its at 8pm and we don't get home until 10:30pm or 11pm or so. That's late for both her and Dominic, particularly on a school night, and it bothers her. Because of that, we don't stay for the scrimmage that happens for the last 40 minutes or so of class which is really too bad, because it would be a good way for her to see if she liked playing in a game. But that would mean getting home more like 11:30pm and she just refuses. Speaking of Dominic... We started off this season with him playing in a house league at Brady. He REALLY wanted to play in goal, so we got him setup, he did a week long goalie camp over the summer, etc. He wanted me to help coach, so I got certified and inspected and all that and was helping out. The house league is lower level than travel hockey, but its still kids that have been playing a while in some cases, still serious, etc. It never clicked with Dominic. You could see that he wasn't having that much fun. He played one "real" game, a scrimmage against another local group, and they got shellacked, something like 14 to 0. Dominic played goal the whole time and kept trying, but that game was NOT good for him. He probably let in 7 or so goals he really should have stopped, but the others were because the other team was just flat out better and the game was 80% of the time or more in our defensive zone. A month or maybe a bit more in and he was complaining about going to practice, saying he wished he wasn't playing, etc. We'd gone through something like this with baseball, and because he made a commitment to the team we made him stick it out (and then did it again the next year, after he decided to sign up and try it again, a decision that still baffles Laura and I). The result of the baseball thing is that now he HATES baseball and I seriously doubt he'll ever want to even throw a ball around. I didn't want that same thing with skating / hockey, but also didn't want it to be a "no big deal, just quit" thing either. So I came up with the idea of him spending the same time he spent playing hockey on "Dad School". I.e. he'd need to do six hours of whatever schoolwork-y stuff I picked every week. I offered him that choice and with almost no hesitation, he jumped at it. Fast forward that a few months, and Dad School was going reasonably well. Not much complaining about needing to do it, its let us work on some stuff like having my dad (former highschool math teacher) work on math with him, I used it to get him reading some books I liked as a kid (Harper Hall trilogy), etc. Meanwhile the local guy who put together the Youngstown league added a local kids program Also, since I'd been in this for a year and I'm me, I had a bunch of hockey gear I no longer used that I wanted to sell. When I put that stuff up for sale, I included a bunch of Dominic's gear, including all his goalie gear. Dominic wasn't too happy about me selling his gear. I sold some of it (the smaller of two sets of leg pads, the old catch glove he started with, goalie pants, goalie cup, etc.) He really didn't like that, and I think it started him thinking about using it more. Add to that the new local group and suddenly he wanted to try that again. :-) So now we've cut Dad School back to three hours a week along with a weekly kids skills class Saturday morning. They play cross ice on one half of the ice while a bunch of us local adult players do a stick/puck/pickup thing on the other half. He's gone twice now and seems to be liking it so far. We've talked about him (probably with me and Laura) also doing a skating class on Wednesday nights and if that happens, that'll eliminate all of the Dad School requirements. That's clearly a motivating factor for him, but this is still a step back towards interest, which makes me happy. This time around, I'm going to try and make sure he demonstrates/proves more interest before we jump into a more serious program. Anyway, back to me... I sorta described my state of the world above, but didn't talk about improvement much... I seem to be transitioning at least some from "any time I'm out there, I have a good time" to "I have to do well or I'm pissed". I'm not sure that's entirely a good thing, but I also get pretty jazzed when I feel like I contribute to a hard fought win, etc. Playing with the D1 group can be / frequently is demoralizing but equally I think I likely learn more there. Sometimes I wish I was also still playing with an E league group, so that I didn't feel like I suck all the time. Objectively, I'm certainly better than I was, but I'm wondering how much of that was getting through the step part of the learning curve in the first few months and now I'm on a shallow incline / flat area. When I think about where I was a year ago, I'm better in every way. But when I think about where I was 3 months ago or 6 months ago... Less sure I'm significantly better. One of my weaknesses is stick handling... I'm just not that great at controlling the puck under pressure. I also occasionally feel flat footed / stuck and unable to quickly put myself in the right place on the ice. I do think my situational awareness has gotten a little better lately, but this is also still a place I struggle, since a lot of it is "control the puck more unconsciously, so that you have more mental capacity to see what's happening around you and make a good play". That's especially noticeable with the D1 league because there's less time before someone is on you, but it exists in every group. My goals when I started were to have fun, get in shape, and get better. Certainly those are being met at this point. But me being me, I'm not happy unless I'm the best guy out there in whatever I think of as a "good" league... Since so far "good league" seems to mean "one where I'm one of the worst players", that's certainly setting myself up for failure. :-) Its clear that given starting hockey at age 46 I will likely never have the same skills as another guy that's my age but has been playing his whole life. But its unclear if with work I can get close enough that its good enough for me. So far, I'm seeing improvement and I want to keep trying. ---------------------------------- Mark

Howdy, 7dm2 or the original? Either way, that should be a nice upgrade. :-) What're you you using lens-wise? I've been thinking I should dust off the photo gear and see how I could do. I expect getting exposures right is a challenge with so much white & the fast motion... Mark

Howdy, That's really no better than the other guy that can't let it go. Some people are assholes. Ignore them. Mark (and yeah, sometimes I break my own rule too. :-)

Howdy, WTF. NHL.TV isn't streaming the all star skills competition or game. At least NBC is apparently broadcasting the game, but still... WTF? Mark

Howdy, Yeah, I've done the normal reset your location stuff. Also confirmed that the NHL.tv app worked without the Yonder DNS servers in place. No dice. Only thing I haven't tried is doing it from a PC instead of my xbox one. Mark

Howdy, Grrrr. NHL.TV and Yonder appear to be annoyed with each other. I really wanted to watch some hockey tonight, not play network engineer. :-( Blackouts suck. Mark

Howdy, I liked the 1st season. Hopefully someone will post up how to watch it from the US / they'll release it to Netflix or whatever. Mark