This week in hockey crimes and misdemeanors

I spent an unlovely week in Ohio and returned just in time for my team's most recent game. It was predictable that almost two weeks off resulted in some hockey plays that didn't quite work out for me personally or my team.

In the world of spin in which we live, these errors could be called "unfortunate events." Attentive readers, however, know that I pull no punches on this blog and I can only say my boners are all my own.

And they ain't pretty. To wit:

The crime: I'm at wing, skating up the right boards in our own end and just before I skate across the blue line, some geezer from the other team steals the puck from me.

The result: The first result is I looked like a total duncecake. The second result is that I prolonged our opponent's offensive possession, although they didn't score. Still, one of their D-men got off a pretty good slapshot that went wide and almost smacked me in the nether-regions. Which, btw, I totally deserved.

The lesson: Don't stare at the puck. The puck has nothing to say to you. It doesn't want to compliment you on your own stick, ask you out after the game or admire that nifty move on the previous shift. The puck is a gob of vulcanized rubber and looks like all the other pucks, to be quite candid.

If I hadn't been looking down, I might have noticed I wasn't playing with myself and that there was a guy wearing a jersey coming at me -- and his jersey wasn't the same color as my jersey. I could have either chipped the puck along the boards or moved to my left -- a smart lateral move because my opponent's momentum was carrying him to the boards. In check hockey, looking down would also have resulted in me getting knocked senseless by an opponent who, quite frankly, would have been doing me a favor because the current wiring doesn't exactly meet code.

The crime: I'm at right wing, other team has the puck. I'm in the slot, one of my D-men smartly sends the pucks around the boards -- against the grain of the play -- and the other team's man on the point promptly beats me to the boards and the puck and even gets a pass off that I fail to block. Again, our opponent's possession is prolonged because you-know-who had a head wedgie, i.e. noggin-stuck-between-the-butt-cheeks. 

The result: We escaped again, but it's kind of hard to play offense when you're always on defense.

The lesson: I actually was in good position initially -- watching the point man on the weak side. My mistake was losing sight of the puck for a moment and not anticipating that our D was going to bang it on the boards to my side -- a logical play for them to make. If I see it coming, I would have gotten a better jump on the race to the boards/puck. I may not have beaten my man, but at the least I could have tied him up and prevented the pass back toward the middle of the ice, i.e. the danger zone where good offensive chances reside.

A simple breakout even an idiot like me can understand

Part of cracking the mystery of team play of hockey -- especially for beginners -- is understanding a few basic plays. You can see the difference in pickup games at my rink between the newbies who tend to be puck-chasers and the guys/girls who know the basic language of the sport.

So I've been trying to learn a lot of the basics. Can't say that I often execute them during games, when my brain is usually in advanced stages of vapor lock. But every once in a while I do recognize a situation and try to at least do the right thing, even if I completely bungle everything.

In the meantime, I'll try to post more of these kind of plays. I like the one above because it's simple, yet also has the right wing (my usual position) swing to the left side of the ice once the center -- with puck -- heads up the boards. The idea is for the right wing to be a passing option, which could be fruitful if the D drifts to the right side, paying too much attention to the center.

Actually, my team kind of does this already, but we keep it even more simple. Our basic plan is for the puck carrier to enter the zone and try to get a shot. The second guys heads to the crease, the third guy into the slot. When we hustle, it's not a bad plan -- we've picked up goals off rebounds.

But I like the above because it introduces the concept of passing (what? passing the puck? that's allowed?) and a little deception perhaps.

--S.H.

Drills and more drills

I went into my Wednesday night clinic hoping to work on some team-oriented drills -- in particular, the basic breakout and anything involving positioning in the offensive zone. You know, the whole "there's no I in team" thing.

Actually, there is. If, for example, you treat the puck like it's a giant suppository and can't do anything useful with it, things become a lot of harder for your team. Because when you suck -- and I know a thing or two about this -- there are times you may as well be playing for the other team. You're just going to give the puck away, almost always at the most inopportune times.

Well, our coaches didn't feel like doing the team thing. They've seen us play and I think in their mind it was time to amp up some of the individual skills all hockey players need to create time and space -- always, always in short supply -- to make an intelligent pass or earn a quality shot.

And so began 60 minutes of sweating our asses off, aided in part by the semi-tropical weather that seems to settle inside the old Pasadena rink this time of year. It took precisely four minutes for my earholes to fill with sweat, something that usually happens when I'm close to redlining.

For those who just can't read enough about hockey drills -- in other words, you're shy about looking at porn on your work computer -- I'll run through our session below. For the reset who want to stop reading here, I'll just say this: use every opportunity you can to get on the ice with a puck and practice 180 and 360 degree turns and sudden stops and changes in direction. Do it over and over and try to do it faster and faster.

Hockey Crimes and Misdemeanors, part 1,028,357

Well, my lovely red hockey jersey remains unwashed for the ninth consecutive week. I vowed I wouldn't wash it until my team won and we still haven't pulled off that feat -- we're 0-8-1 after blowing a 3 to 1 lead on Sunday and losing 5 to 3.

Yeah, that one was a real ball-tugger, especially because as usual I feel like it's all my fault. Which brings us to this week's edition of Hockey Crimes and Misdmeanors, in which I recount various shortcomings and the often disastrous outcome that resulted from my (choose one) inept/uninspired/mindless play of the otherwise exciting game of ice hockey.

The above pic is from the game preceding mine on Sunday. I was doodling around with my expensive new digital camera and, on further reflection, should have stuck with shooting pics rather than pucks. To wit:

The crime: I'm at left wing. The puck is in our defensive zone and I'm guarding the point, or at least trying to. Someone on my team gets a stick on the puck and it scoots all the way across the neutral zone and starts to slow just across the blue line. In a rare instance of heads-up play, I skate-skate-skate and manage to reach the puck first while someone chases me. Under pressure -- the guy behind me gets his stick on my stick -- I get a shot off square at the goalie.

The result: The puck never leaves the ice and the goalie, who has skated 10 feet in front of his net, makes a relatively easy stop. The whistle blows and I leave the ice greatly shamed for not scoring or getting off a better shot. If I was a Samurai, I'd probably have to request a beheading or sword-to-the-stomach on the bench.