IPv6Freely's Never-Ending Season

[Goonsquad 209]

First time i noticed the curling dots. Does that help or hurt your positioning?

[IPv6Freely 2092]

38 minutes ago, Goonsquad said:

First time i noticed the curling dots. Does that help or hurt your positioning?

I actually don’t even notice them! 

[IPv6Freely 2092]

First time ever playing in a tournament, playing for my former rookie league team. First game of the weekend was 4-2. Not many shots against so the video is pretty short.

 

[Goonsquad 209]

That shot off the face off is a tough one to stop. 

 

[IPv6Freely 2092]

I don't mind, as long as it doesn't go in.

Now, I have had a puck go off my face into the net... that one sucked. 

[IPv6Freely 2092]

1 hour ago, Goonsquad said:

That shot off the face off is a tough one to stop. 

 

 

[caveman27 208]

On 5/4/2019 at 2:08 AM, IPv6Freely said:

First time ever playing in a tournament, playing for my former rookie league team. First game of the weekend was 4-2. Not many shots against so the video is pretty short.

 

That other team had an interesting mix of guys who are novice skaters (45 and 33) to guys launching hard slapshots from the blue line. 

[IPv6Freely 2092]

First time on the ice in two months, and only the second time since I quit my league team. This was... bad. I was slow, and exhausted, and way out of shape (the weight is coming back on quickly these days). Winterfest is going to be ugly. I also had a really really bad bruise on my right knee that made it really painful to butterfly. I can't believe how slow this is, both me and the play in general (granted its a pick-up where the average age is probably late 50s). Oh boy.

EDIT: Oh, I was also trying a Bauer 2X glove. Wasn't a fan. The break angle was the only thing close that I've found retail that I've liked, but otherwise it felt kind of off. I could probably get used to it if I had to, but I think I'm going to stick to Passau.

 

[psulion22 402]

At least you got a lot of action, and it wasn't a bunch of ringers.  Not a whole lot of defense, but it's pickup and no one was going all out either.  Sometimes it's just nice to have these kinds of sessions to get the gear on and make some saves without having to worry about the score or the other team's johnny-try-hard.  I actually played in my rink's beginner league this last season.  The director needed goalies, I had pads that I wasn't using, so I figured it would help us both out.  The level of play was well below my skill level (and the director put me on the worst team as a result).  But, surprisingly, I had a lot of fun.  In the whole season, I only allowed one goal from beyond the faceoff dots.  But I saw a ton of shots from in close and at that distance it doesn't matter how skilled the player is, you still have to make an effort to save them.  The team was fun and everyone tried their hardest.  It's a league run by the rink that has a draft each season, so there are no ringers or the perpetual arms race that happens in other leagues.  Plus, it was nice to be the reason we won any game and have to other teams talk about how good you were.  I felt like Henrik Lundqvist.  lol

[IPv6Freely 2092]

1 hour ago, psulion22 said:

At least you got a lot of action, and it wasn't a bunch of ringers.  Not a whole lot of defense, but it's pickup and no one was going all out either.  Sometimes it's just nice to have these kinds of sessions to get the gear on and make some saves without having to worry about the score or the other team's johnny-try-hard.  I actually played in my rink's beginner league this last season.  The director needed goalies, I had pads that I wasn't using, so I figured it would help us both out.  The level of play was well below my skill level (and the director put me on the worst team as a result).  But, surprisingly, I had a lot of fun.  In the whole season, I only allowed one goal from beyond the faceoff dots.  But I saw a ton of shots from in close and at that distance it doesn't matter how skilled the player is, you still have to make an effort to save them.  The team was fun and everyone tried their hardest.  It's a league run by the rink that has a draft each season, so there are no ringers or the perpetual arms race that happens in other leagues.  Plus, it was nice to be the reason we won any game and have to other teams talk about how good you were.  I felt like Henrik Lundqvist.  lol

Yeah it was nice, and this is a good group. They've been playing together for literally decades and this is an invite-only group so they weed out the idiots pretty fast. As an example, they had a guy who was actually a regular and I broke TWO of his sticks by accident while skating out in league play (I dunno man, get stronger sticks? They shouldn't be breaking that easy...) and I guess he decided his revenge would be to fire slap shots at me. Didn't matter where in the zone he was, he'd load up and let it go. Did it more than once while basically standing on the goal line. Made me laugh a bit... if you want revenge, why not try to score rather than hit my pads? LOL. Anyway, they got rid of him after the second week of that. 

I kind of wish the skill level was actually a bit higher. This particular pickup is always two lines that are two different skill levels (hence the annoying siren you hear for line changes - they force line changes every 2 minutes just to ensure you don't get a mixing up of the skill levels). The lower level...whatever. The upper level used to be much more skilled on both offence and defence. It was like playing in a real game. It's really dropped off over the last year or so. Now the play is really... well, slow. And scrambly. I'm almost more tired from trying to find the puck when its bouncing all over the place in front of the net than I would be from a structured game with more difficult shots.

And I totally know where you're coming from. I wanted more ice time a couple years ago back when I first started playing goal, so I joined a rookie league as a goalie. It was BRUTAL. Some of the guys on the first day of the four weeks of skills clinics they do first were like "I have no idea how to actually put this stuff on". Thats how beginner they were. (As an aside, it still blows my mind that they managed to find ~30-40 adults all wanting to learn to play hockey, all at the same time, in San Diego of all places!)

Anyway, those games were rough. Just like the pickup, they were super scrambly. Just garbage goals all over the place. Off three sets of skates, right over to their *defenceman* who is beside the crease for some reason, and he'd swing three times until it went in. It became kind of a running joke. The hard shots were easy saves. The easy shots went in. I loved playing with those guys but I think that was some of the least amount of fun I'd ever had as a goalie because it was beyond frustrating. It was more than made up for though by making some new friends (the only team I ever played on where guys actually go for beer and wings after every game). Most of those guys are now playing in my normal division that I just quit a couple months ago. Other teams bring down their D3 or D4 buddies, or guys they went to college with. We brought up guys from rookie league because we liked them. So even on the RARE occasion we managed to get more than 6 or 7 skaters, they were all former rookie league guys and while many of them had a decent skill set, they don't have the experience to do something like cycle the puck, so we'd get stomped every time.

So, this is where I'm at. Playing pickup every couple months and thats it. It kinda sucks. But I also don't really miss the hour drive just to get absolutely destroyed week after week. We lost 7-6, 10-2, 4-1, 3-2, 7-1, and 12-5 (and won one game 3-2 in a shootout) before I pulled the plug on that team. The league ditched their D4 division for low attendance (only had two teams) so those guys either moved on to the over-35 league, or down to D5. Now we have 7 of the top 10 goal scorers are new players. Guess which team DIDN'T get any of the D4 guys? Just one guess 🙂

But, more of that should have really gone into my "hockey feels like a chore" thread.  Whatever.

[IPv6Freely 2092]

Well, this sucks.

 

[marka 526]

Howdy,

Wow.  Just a super weird shot landing in exactly the wrong place?  Or did your glove fail or something?

Mark

[Giltis 116]

Did you feel it immediately? Or somethings you felt as the game went on?

[IPv6Freely 2092]

5 hours ago, marka said:

Howdy,

Wow.  Just a super weird shot landing in exactly the wrong place?  Or did your glove fail or something?

Mark

Just a fluke spot it hit just wrong. My glove was at a really awkward angle too. It’s also an inherent “weakness” in the way my glove was designed which is NORMALLY the biggest thing I like about it. Not going to fault the glove... If you had a line drive in baseball hit you right on the thumb, you’re not going to blame the glove padding for that either. 

4 hours ago, Giltis said:

Did you feel it immediately? Or somethings you felt as the game went on?

Oh yeah I knew I was in trouble immediately. That’s why I stayed down as long as I did after. 10 mins into a 90 min skate... brutal! Had a couple shots I would have saved any other time. It definitely did get worse as the skate went on as well. Went straight to urgent care after. 

[BenBreeg 493]

Yeah, I used to be a catcher and am double jointed in my glove hand thumb.  Every once in a while I would catch it wrong or get a foul tip and my thumb would really get beat up, not fun at all.

[215BroadStBullies610 435]

On 9/27/2020 at 11:25 AM, IPv6Freely said:

Well, this sucks

 

 Eh. That wasn't even that impressive of a shot haha. Unfortunately, the shot was extremely accurate...

[IPv6Freely 2092]

On 10/8/2020 at 6:52 PM, 215BroadStBullies610 said:

 Eh. That wasn't even that impressive of a shot haha. Unfortunately, the shot was extremely accurate...

No kidding! The glove angle killed me on it. If the puck hit me there with the glove at a normal angle, it just skims the thumb area and goes into the pocket (or at worst, bounces out). But with me trying to catch a puck aimed at my rib area the whole glove gets rotated to the left so the puck hits that area square and bends the whole thing back. Not helped is the break angle of this glove, which 99.9999% of the time is my favorite thing about it. Hard to explain, but long story short, this glove has significantly more thumb movement inside it than most.

[215BroadStBullies610 435]

Thanks for dumbing it down for this non-goalie hockey player haha. Get better soon!

[IPv6Freely 2092]

Well, returned my AS3 Pro goalie skates without having ever gotten to wear them. Or even bake/sharpen for that matter. i would have already wasted over half my 90 days with the broken thumb, and I just found out leagues are starting up again here which means the Sunday pickups are ending, so I'm once again left without somewhere to play. The other rink near me (2 sheets) just shut down permanently and is being demolished.

If I haven't found somewhere to at least semi-regularly play in the next 6 months, I'm selling my gear.

[beedee 227]

Did you find a place to play?

[IPv6Freely 2092]

32 minutes ago, beedee said:

Did you find a place to play?

We actually moved to Washington in the summer. I ended up starting my own team because they didn't have any goalie spots. Theres actually a bigger, better league in Seattle but thats too far to drive so I'm stuck playing in Tacoma. But at least I'm playing regularly again! 

[beedee 227]

That’s cool man, congrats on the move. My wife and I have been thinking of moving the F out of SoCal sooner than later as well. 

[IPv6Freely 2092]

23 minutes ago, beedee said:

That’s cool man, congrats on the move. My wife and I have been thinking of moving the F out of SoCal sooner than later as well. 

I actually want to move back 😞 I asked for a trip to San Diego for my birthday.