Faceplant!

I'm only posting this so that one day my already feeble brain recalls exactly how stupid I can be. I've got a nice big bruise on my cheek this morning, which I wish I could claim was the result of a hockey incident. Not quite....

I have a game yesterday and I get there plenty early to catch the end of the public skate session. I've had a tight groin of late -- yeah, I know, TMI -- and I was hoping to loosen up.

I skate for 15 minutes or so and practicing my frontward-to-backward transitions when I catch an edge on a rut left from bratty little figure skater. I usually just land on my ass, but this time I don't quite manage to get an arm to brace myself and land instead face first on the ice.

At that point, I could hear the bells-a-ringing. Of course, I wasn't wearing my helmet. I was in sweats and a T-shirt -- this was only public skate.

It gets better. I shake it off, we play our game. The groin gets stretched out pretty good a couple times -- but I'm able to still skate (or what passes for skating in my vivid imagination). We go to overtime, I take the first shift at right wing and the only thing I'm thinking is 'let's-not-blow-the-play-as-the-result-of-one-my-frequent-defensive-fuckups.'

Seriously, I've seen practice cones put better moves on guys than I do when on D.

So when one of their guys is taking it down the boards in our end and the puck comes loose, I'm all over it. The puck simply can't be allowed to come off the boards. I get there and the last thing I remember is running into one of my own D-man hard. And again I'm on the ice, the groin and hip now completely outta whack and the church bells again ringing....

In other words, as I type this I've got an ice bag down my pants, which certainly has a pacifying effect, if you know what I mean.

As for the game, well, we lost in OT. So that kind of added to the day's suckiness, although everyone put in a good effort. It was just one of those games when the puck proved once again what a cruel little motherfucker it can be and we learned once again that in hockey there's always, always, always room for improvement.