Fitting

It seems when you have the right size skates it can make a bit of a difference!

I have been using borrowed equipment all season and just started thinking that maybe my skates were a bit big. Turns out I was right. A whole size too big! The most noticeable difference is in how my feet feel, they're not sloshing around in my skates, trying to find something to hold onto the whole practice so they felt pretty good today.

I went alone (well, with Hannah) to go pick out skates at the one place we have in town that sells hockey gear. I tried on every pair possible. I really wanted the cool grey ones, but the padding at the ankle was very uncomfortable. I ended up with a low end pair, only because they were the most comfortable ones. I'd really like to try on a $500 pair just to see what the difference is, but they didn't have any here. No, I wouldn't spend $500 on skates. Well, not this year. Maybe if I had been playing for several years and went to a lot of tournaments. Anyway, the kids had lessons last night, on a whim I took my new skates to see if I could get them sharpened. It worked out, that's how I got to use them today.

On to today's practice. Coach J was in charge today, we did a lot of puck-handling drills. We dropped our gloves on the ice (not to fight) and skated around them in figure eights while pushing the puck around. It was good stuff. I can use that one during S&P when I go again. He had us do figure eights around the gloves and then skate forward between the gloves, and backward on the outside of the glove to get practice changing directions. Ha! I worked on that Wednesday. It felt good to know what the hell I was doing.

Puck handling drills are complicated for me because we are told "keep your head up" and its hard to do when we're doing these drills. But, the guys that are good have their heads up and see the puck coming their way and can feel when it hits their stick, plus then they have a line on who is open. Funny, now that I think of it, in our scrimmage-y thing we did today I was totally focused on looking at the puck instead of down the ice at my partner. Interesting. Something (more) to work on.

I am sure I will have more to say later. Hannah is home sick, that leaves me around the house and the computer ALL. DAY. LONG.