schneefink

March posting meme, already a bit late: a female hockey player/women's hockey

Personal experiences first: about a year and a half ago, thanks to Hockey RPF fandom, I started playing hockey myself. At the same time as our practice, the main part of the rink is always full with kindergarten children. Sometimes they watch us play, and they always stare at us when we skate through the main rink to get to the locker rooms. At all of us, but especially the girls, and sometimes they call after us: "Hey, Eishockeymädchen!" (ice hockey girl(s)!) Most often it's young girls, sometimes boys too. They ask us if we really play hockey (obviously), if it's fun, if we play in tournaments, if it's difficult. Sometimes I see children stare at me when I carry my gear to and from practice, and sometimes I hear adults telling kids "that's an ice hockey stick. Yes, girls play ice hockey too." It makes me feel like a role model, and it feels awesome.

I'd planned to go to more games of Vienna's excellent women's hockey team, the EHV Sabres, this season, but in the end I only saw two live: at first I was busy with uni and then their season was already almost over. I was at the last championship game last Saturday, Vienna won 4-0 against Salzburg and was clearly the dominant team. Not many people in attendance, but it was fun to watch. Hopefully next season I'll go watch more. It looks like some of the best players may leave - not that I begrudge them finding better jobs, but still, having them in Vienna was a nice luxury. Anna Meixner is fast.

This season was the first one for the first professional women's league in North America, the NWHL. Exciting! They streamed almost all of their games online for free, I watched several and enjoyed it a lot. I rooted for the New York Riveters, initially mostly because of their great foreign players, Janine Weber and Lyudmila Belyakova and Nana Fujimoto. (I recently dreamed I watched a kids' hockey practice with Nana and at the end after some begging I was allowed to skate too and take a shot at her, it was great.) Unfortunately they didn't play that well this season, and were swept by the Pride in the playoffs. It's uncertain how many players will come back, but I hope many of them.

I read a lot less about the CWHL, but at least some things, including that the Calgary Inferno upset Les Canadiennes Montréal in the Clarkson Cup final. From my, very recent and limited, perspective, the CWHL isn't as good at PR as the NWHL, but that could change. I hope that the two leagues push each other to do better and raise the profile of women's hockey together. Unfortunately there seems to be some animosity between the leagues' front offices, I don't know what happened behind the scenes but hopefully that gets resolved soon.

I'm not very interested in women's hockey RPF, also because they aren't that famous so I don't feel as comfortable with it. Maybe that'll change when the media coverage increases, or if I encounter a "storyline" that really grabs me, who knows.

March 2nd. Flowers I already saw this year: crocus, snowdrops, daisies, winter aconites, black eyes, primroses, and more I don't know the names of. I haven't worn my winter coat for weeks, which I regretted yesterday evening when it was freezing cold and it even snowed a bit.

I scored a goal today! My third one this season, and a nice one: after two missed opportunities this game standing in front of the net (one-timers are hard) I finally scored on the third one. The game ended in a tie (but I changed teams at halftime because it was unbalanced, and the team I was on had the worse period both times, whatever.)
Only one more practice this year :( I still can't do good tight turns.

I watched the Pens' 6-0 win against the Coyotes, that was fun. The next day I felt brain-dead, that was less fun, but at least I (almost) don't feel guilty about work I should be doing. I'm a bit worried that the Pens' difficult March schedule will make it harder for them in the playoffs because players can't rest and the Pens always have terrible injury luck, fingers crossed it goes well.

Plans for this weekend: finally try out a recipe from the cupcake recipe book I got for Christmas, I'm looking forward to it.

Merry Christmas/happy holidays/relaxing vacation/whatever is applicable! Yesterday I got amazing food (Mongolian hot pot) at a birthday party, today and tomorrow I'll spend with my family and as is tradition today there'll be white fried sausages and tomorrow carp, yum. And Christmas cookies, of course. And singing :) I decided not to go to the masses my mom and LB are playing in tonight and tomorrow morning, but there'll be many Christmas songs in multiple voices regardless.

I still haven't finished drawing the gift vouchers for my parents and LB... I stayed up until 3am yesterday to finish editing my Yuletide fic ^^ Story comments are great presents. I also bought myself my first own hockey stick the day before yesterday!
We lost 0-3 against green yesterday (but won 2-0 against red, at least.) I had my worst case of "I don't wanna get up for practice" that morning, but in the end I was glad I went. Currently it's not very cold and sunny outside, that helped. Too warm and sunny for December actually - you can't even ski yet where my grandparents live, and that's next to the Alps! - but I'm trying to enjoy it. It's Christmas! It's almost a requirement to take a few days off worrying.

(Speaking of: I called the electricity company on Monday because I was surprised I hadn't gotten a bill yet, only to find out that I didn't have a contract yet and it was apparently pure chance that we still had electricity and heat. Great to hear that in the middle of December! But I sorted it out for now, even though it was a tiring day. Therapy is very helpful, and small successes feel good. I'm going to be awesome in 2016.)

Duper hung up his skates :((( The best thing for his health, definitely, but I'm still sad. Stupid blood clots.

Today at hockey practice: we were down 0-5, got the equalizer three minutes before the end, and then lost 5-6 on a stupid stretch pass from the other team turned 1-on-2 where I was the one and not fast enough and it sucked. That was the third goal the other team scored because I wasn't fast enough -.- In fairness we had no goalie and only four defenders, two of them were very good for our group and two of us were, well, average, and two of those three goals could have been avoided if other guys on my team had not completely forgotten to cover the other team's forwards, but eh, shit happens. It was my first time on defense in some time and I kind of liked it, feeling responsible for goals against sucks but actually preventing some feels good, and there's less pressure to score goals. (On the other hand, scoring goals is really cool.) I felt slow and easily tired today, maybe this week I'll actually remember to do some leg exercises.
I got a puck shot by our coach on the arm, it still hurts a bit and I'm sure I'll have a nice bruise tomorrow, but that's hockey. When I see how many pucks and sticks professional players get on the body, they must be in pain all the time, ouch.

Today and yesterday I wrote actual words for my thesis. Not many, but hey, words! I'm trying a new carrot&stick system, preliminary results seem promising. Let's see how it goes.

I signed up for hockeyfestivus, because for some reason I'm still optimistic when it comes to signing up for things. (Yuletide matching soon!) Unlike Yuletide, where most women hockey players nominated where from national teams, the CWHL, or college hockey, here several NWHL players are nominated and I actually know several of them. "Know" is an exaggeration, but I know of them and I want to get to know them better. I've been doing some preliminary research, I really wish there were primers already. I didn't know that Kiira Dosdall used to play in Vienna, and hadn't seen the adorable video of when Ashley Johnston's wife proposed to her on the ice. I want a lot of Riveters fic.

(The NWHL players are right on the edge of where I feel comfortable writing RPF. Or maybe more accurately, I'm fine with writing/reading but I'm not comfortable doing "research", it feels uncomfortably close to stalking. Therefore my desire for other people to do that work for me.)

I also want the Riveters to finally win a game. The 1-7 loss against Boston was not fun, at least the last game was better. I watched some of it, but the announcer wasn't good and it took me long minutes to even figure out which team was which.


I accidentally started reading Fullmetal Alchemist fic a few days ago, and then I started watching the anime. I like it so far, especially Ed and Al. The beginning was a bit slow, but by now I enjoy it a lot. Fic spoiled me for some things, which is a shame, but otoh without fic I might have waited much longer to watch it.

( spoilers )

I watched up to episode 17. I'll watch a few more and then switch over to FMA:B, as was recommended to me.

The downside to that is that the reason why I started watching is because I'm procrastinating, isn't it always. I made a little bit of progress, at least, but now I'm in danger of stalling again. I'm thinking of switching to a more food and candy-based motivation system.
(For now. I recently learned all of my wisdom teeth will have to be removed, the first surgery is in two weeks. I'm telling myself it's not a big deal, but I'm not looking forward to it.)


Hockey practice starts again tomorrow! I intentionally signed up for the earlier course at 9am because the ice is better, I'll have to remind myself of that when I have to get up early tomorrow morning. Yes, some people have to get up earlier every day; some people should shut up and let me complain in peace. They know who they are.

I thought about not going to hockey practice today because I was really unmotivated yesterday evening and it was raining this morning. But I went anyway, and it was fantastic. The rain (constant, but fortunately only light) didn't matter at all. We played 4on4 in basically two parallel games via simultaneous shift changes, beginners and advanced. My team won 5-4 :) I still didn't score a goal, though I had two good opportunities (not so good that I was too angry about it later), but I think I did some good things and I helped. We were better with positioning today and also talked more on the ice. I love playing ice hockey :) If the weather doesn't become worse, there are two more practices this semester, if not that was the last one. At least it would be a good one to end on.
And then there are options to play roller hockey or field hockey, but I'll figure that out later.

Yesterday I went to see "Jupiter Ascending" with DD. Neither of us would have gone on our own, but we enjoyed it a lot. Longer post probably coming later. And DD agreed to move in with me in spring!!

I met jae on Sunday, it was great. We had lunch, later cake, and I got a chance to show off my city. (To my surprise I learned that they don't have balls in Canada...) If only I could teleport and visit people all the time!

My university has a new campus, and already twice pieces fell of the front of the shiny new library building. This time they had to close the whole library for days because there's something wrong with the lights. Fortunately I don't need to get books right now but I'm not impressed.

I told myself that if I finish the thesis chapter I'm currently working on today I can watch the Pens-Caps game tonight. It seems a bit unlikely, but I'm feeling motivated and I have chocolate, so maybe.

For the December meme, a question by monksandbones: I would love to hear about you learning to skate, or if you already knew how, about learning to skate in hockey skates!

Before signing up for the hockey beginners' class ER and I sent an email to the trainer and asked what level of skating proficiency is required. He said we should be able to stop. So we signed up, and then went skating together to practice stopping. I learned pretty quickly, it's similar to skiing, though I still mostly only use one foot instead of both. So that was the most important part, and I was ready to start the class.

We went ice skating in primary school a few times, and every second winter or so the river 10 minutes from our house freezes over and we go skating there. I knew how to stop eventually, and nobody cared that it sometimes took me a while to slow down.

After signing up for the class I had to get new skates because the old ones weren't suited for hockey. It's important that the laces are tight, and usually I have to tighten them further at least three times when I suit up. (After the first time I had blisters on my fingers.) I'm not sure mine are ideally sharpened for hockey, I keep telling myself I should ask the trainer but forget.

One thing that's immediately different when skating for hockey is the equipment. You're suddenly twice as large! And well-protected. My least favorite piece of equipment is my helmet because it always feels either too tight or too loose. My favorite pieces are the chest protector, the huge gloves, and the pants. Especially the chest protector makes me feel a bit like a gladiator. And the gloves are fantastic because the padding on the back is very thick and my hands feel huge and safe, but I can still use them pretty well, and I get out of them easily when I want to.

Hockey skating is different from how I'd skated before: before I stayed upright because that was easiest. For hockey you need to be lower so you have better balance. It also helps you accelerate, as I found out. It's even more important to have the weight forwards rather than backwards because when you fall forwards you're well protected, but less so on your back.

Usually in class we do 15 minutes warm-up, just skating however we want (because the trainer is usually late.) Then we do exercises, either skating or puck control. Skating exercises we've done include getting done on one knee and up again and how to do a tight curve without losing speed - I'm still having trouble with that one because I don't lean into it enough.

We haven't done skating backwards yet but I've tried a bit on my own. It's fun, and I'm getting better at it: the biggest problem so far is knowing where to go, I often get so nervous that I'm skating into someone that I turn around too far and then almost lose my balance.

I also found out that puck control is very difficult and that Pavel Datsyuk and Patrick Kane really must be wizards. The trainer told us to keep our heads up and not to look at the puck, that makes everything even harder. By now I can (most times) skate the length of the rink without losing the puck, which is good progress!
The only thing that I found easier than it looks is moving the puck with my skates. I always thought it looked very impressive, but it's not that hard because I have a better feeling for where my skates are than for where my stick is.

I finally fell down for the first time two weeks ago. It hurt only for about ten seconds, and now I'm less afraid to skate at other people when we play, which is good. Even though most of them probably weigh 20 kilos more than me.

What worries me at the moment is that since about two weeks ago my knees are hurting a bit. It started after a practice where I fell a bit uncomfortably, but it feels more like runner's knee than an injury. I'm putting ice on it and if it's not getting better I'll visit the doctor, but only after this week's training (it didn't hurt during practice last week.) I hope I won't have to stop skating for very long!
(And right now it would be more difficult to go see a doctor because I don't have health insurance. If there are no problems this will be fixed at the end of next week, but it's not a good feeling.)

I played hockey today! It was fantastic.

I signed up for a beginner's hockey course at the university sports institute this year (they have cheap sports classes for students, it's great.) Last week was optional practice for people who wanted to start early, but I didn't feel up to it and ER, who signed up with me, and I went skating instead. Good idea, I hadn't been in a while.

And today was the first actual practice! I didn't know what to expect, but it was even better than I imagined. We were about 25 people, 7 girls, we got our own dressing room - not only is it heated, which was unnecessary in today's sunny weather but will be fantastic in winter, but it also means that we have a lot of space. There are even clean showers.

First: put on the equipment. Fortunately L. and D. had been at practice last week so they could give us tips (like "don't put on the upper body armor first because it's much harder to bend down and tie your skates," and "don't forget to bring a water bottle.") It felt like we were suddenly twice as big! Then we got our jerseys (yellow) and sticks.

Beginning of practice: skating. Wow is that tiring.
Then we got pucks and were supposed to skate around with a puck on our stick, that was extremely hard. The passing exercise was a bit easier.

And then the trainer organized us into teams, told us to form lines, and then to start playing. That was quick! (We had only one goalie who switched teams in the middle.) No idea how to do anything, basically, but it was so much fun. Some of us are beginners who've never played hockey before, while others clearly have and that was very apparent, but that didn't really matter. I got tired very easily, I have to try and become stronger :)

I had so much fun.

Beforehand and afterwards we chatted a bit, mainly in the dressing room so with the other girls (three are called Lena, btw) and now four of us have already planned to go to a live game in two weeks. And D. is also an NHL fan so we, and L. and ER too, are planning to watch an NHL afternoon game together. (D. is also a Pens fan so we agreed that it was weird to see the trainer come it with a Flyers cap *g*)

I'm very tired now, but mostly the good kind of tired. I'm already looking forward to next week.