Play Hard

I did it. I went to stick & puck (from now on referred to as S&P). It was hard. It would have been so much harder if I hadn't called Coach T and asked her to go with me. Did you hear that, Universe? I asked for help. Did you hear that Rainey? She said yes. She was awesome. And yes, my skates do need to be sharpened, she noticed right away and said something, so they will be sharpened and returned on Friday morning.

Back to practice. Wow! Its different working one-on-one with someone. I've never been "coached" like that before. We spent quite a bit of time cracking each other up, but a large portion of time was fundamentals. Stopping. Skating backwards. Changing from front to back, and back to front while staying in motion. And a little defensive/offensive skating. We talked tournament, she is going to put me in at left wing (shew! I know what to do in that position) but then she mentioned something about going for the goal and I was like "WAIT! I'm supposed to go for goals? I don't look for an open person? I don't want that responsibility. No, wing isn't alright for me!" Too bad. That's what she is going to play me. EEEEKK! That's an excited, but scared EEEKK! What if I miss? Shit, what if I make it??!! (Shut up, you, it could happen. Yeah, and monkeys might fly out my ...)

Anyway, she helped a ton. I was doing fancy stops. There is no such thing, but that's what I do, kind of like the National Anthem on Sunday. You make it too fancy you're gonna land on your butt. So she helped me stop straighter, neater. More "HEY. YOU WANT A PIECE OF ME!"-er.

Changing directions. Turns out I am pretty good, only I was losing momentum, so she showed me how to push off at the end of my turn so I keep going. I practiced front to back and back to front on both sides. Left foot leading, right foot leading.

Offensive and defensive. We were just skating close together, she would try to reach around with the stick and take the puck. I was afraid she was gonna fall and get hurt since she didn't suit up, so that didn't last very long. It reminded me of last week's practice; when I was skating at someone they didn't scare me at all, but when someone came toward me and got within a couple feet of me, all of a sudden I freaked out, that's when I crashed into the boards. Next time we will work on that more I think.

Backwards skating. I can do it, I'm not doing it wrong, but I have no puck control. How do you skate backwards and pull the puck toward you? OH! Use one hand. I get it. It is drilled into us to always have two hands on the stick. It's a good plan and we should all learn that way, but there is a time and a place for one hand. Skating backwards with the puck is one of them I guess. I think that will help at our next practice.

She was awesome. I stayed for awhile after she left, but my legs were tired, I started to feel really wobbly. Another friend of mine came to the public skate afterward, but we didn't make it very long.

Only two weeks until the tournament. I am definitely going to get in as much skating as I can! Her coaching was so good today, I hope we can get together again. If we can't tho, I feel like I could go to the S&P alone and the boys won't scare me too much. Did I mention we were the only two girls? We were. Which means if she wasn't there, I would have been the only girl. I could not have handled it today. I could handle it now. I'm not sure if I would scrimmage with them or not. But I wouldn't feel like ... embarrassed or uneasy or ... afraid.