Must be hockey night...

Beer + 1 can of dog food means my team must be playing. I'm curious about the hefs from Sierra Nevada. The Summer Twilights from Deschutes Brewery in Bend are sublime and seasonal -- I got the last six-pack at my local grocery. My girlfriend said I should horde them for myself, but I thought the hockey Gods would look more favorably on my team if I shared them with my teammates.

Quick background: as co-captain of my team I quietly obsess each week over the kind of beer to bring to my games. It's one thing to disappoint my teammates with my poor and inexcusably bad play. It's quite another to let them down cooler-wise. 

--S.H.

Second stab at photographing hockey

 In order to help my team recently, I declared myself a healthy scratch for a summer league game and took another stab at photographing the exciting sport of adult recreational hockey. Here's the gallery.

I wouldn't call the latest batch epic, but they're better and crisper than my previous attempt. The big difference was that I boosted the ISO to 3200 in order to shoot faster shutter speeds. Most of the shots were taken between 1/500th and 1/1000th shutter speed. Some of the photos still had a lot of noise -- because of the high ISO -- but I also shot in RAW and the RAW editing tool in Photoshop Elements helped pull the noise down to manageable levels.

That was important because I heavily cropped some of the photos to better focus on the action. Shooting through the glass is still a pain in the ass and I need a much, much better telephoto lens than the cheapo one that came with my Nikon D5000 (I drowned that one so now I'm shooing with a D5100). The lens got a soaking in the same kayak accident, which came just six months after the lens survived a sandstorm on the Kelso Dunes of the Mojave National Preserve. Sometimes it focused and sometimes it didn't.

The obvious remedy is to spend $2,000 on a really fast telephoto, but that would cut into the money I need to pay league fees, pickup fees, adult clinic fees and stick time fees each week. While on my smugmug site, feel free to lurk around and look at my NatureBoy photos; I highly encourage you to spend hundreds of your hard-earned dollars on prints. The last couple batches from the Sierra this summer turned out well: Kearsage Pass and Big Pine Lakes.




--S.H.

Hockey read of the day

Apparently some leagues frown upon drinking before and during games (which actually makes sense). Here's the story.

The article is amusing enough but check out the photo: what the hell kind of beer league has a trophy that big and what the hell is the bare-ass dude in the background doing?

Just curious.

--S.H.

Art of the tip-in

Mandatory reading for all aspiring beer-leaguers, via this story in the New York Times today.

In fact, with the playoffs underway, my adult clinic coach ran a tip-in drill just last week, saying in tight playoff games, a tip-in could make the difference.

Of course, it's easier said than done. I think the closest I've come was -- and this is typical -- tipping a shot away from the goal. Which kind of made me the D-bag of the moment.

--S.H.

A few hockey notes

•My team had a game on Wednesday night -- which ended about 10:30 with a GLORIOUS 3-2 win in OT after we tied it with 90 seconds left in regulation. It took about 70 minutes to play the game; a few of us stood around talking about on the sidewalk outside the rink until 1 a.m. or so.

Time to Play Game: 70 minutes. Time to Talk About Game: 150 minutes.

After arriving home shortly after 1 a.m., I then stayed up until 2:30 watching a recording of the Ducks game.

•We were on a power play when one of our opponents tried to clear the puck and instead whipped it over the glass. Unfortunately, no delay of game penalty in our beer league -- I was told it's not part of USA Hockey's rules. It is, as you know, in the NHL rulebook. It would have given us our first 5-on-3 opportunity. Bummer. 

•Speaking of the Ducks -- and the Kings -- it would be nice if one of those teams could get to the second round of the playoffs. After one game in each series, please ignore my speculation about what it would take for both teams to play eachother in the second round.

Hey Kyle Clifford -- courtesy of the Ducks, your face looks like a watermelon after it has been stepped on by an elephant. Maybe you should work on your hockey skills and stop the fighting silliness. 

•In my never-ending quest for the perfect post-hockey beer, I recommend Stone Pale Ale. Not the best, but a good one. I don't think it has a great finish, however. More about my great taste in beer in future posts.

--S.H.

Well said, Terry Murray!

I was doing some light grazing this morning on the cliches and quotes that dominate LAKingsInsider.com, when I came across this gem from Kings coach Terry Murray on his team's 6 to 1 drubbing at the hands of San Jose on Monday:

MURRAY: “We weren’t in positions. Whether it was on the checking part of the game, without possession, or if we had possession we were not in the proper lanes. Our centermen were not there, our wingers were not in position, our defensemen were looking up and they’re almost seeing the seat of the pants. There’s no way to get the puck up the ice, unless they get their feet going and get to the red line themselves. It got a little bit better in the second half of the game, but early, my goodness, structurally we were really broken down.”

This sounds like some of the guys on my team -- including me -- when we pick apart our latest defeat or narrow victory. It's refreshing to see we're not the only ones to fuck up the breakout, which has often been the bane of our existence.

I particularly like the "seat of the pants" part. That's one of our common mistakes: the centers and/or wings don't put themselves in good position to take a pass. Oftentimes that means coming back toward the D instead of skating to the other team's blue line and waiting for a long stretch pass that will never arrive.

Here's a website with animations of a variety of breakouts. Some of them are probably beyond the abilities of a novice or beginner's team -- but they seem worth learning and trying. 

--S.H.

A few random Monday notes on hockey and whatever

•Local NHL fans: it still looks possible the Kings and Ducks can come in fourth and fifth in the Western Conference and then play each other in the first round of the playoffs. If the Kings can somehow wrestle the Pacific Division title from the Sharks, then there's a chance they finish third and would play the Ducks if the Ducks finished seventh. Got all that?

•My lil' beer league team won 11 to 4 yesterday against a team that was missing some guys. In our first 10 games as a team last year -- when most of us were in our first-ever hockey league -- we scored only 15 goals. So to see 11 in a game was strange. And kind of nice.

•I actually heard an NPR reporter today report that it usually frightens passengers when the skin of an airplane rips off in mid-flight. Really? You think?

•I'm looking forward to going to bed tonight with Tina Fey. I've just got to figure out which socks to wear.*

--S.H.

*Fey's new book "Bossypants" comes out tonight. I plan to go to stick time, then come home and watch Kings-Sharks (after Domesticated Partner watches her fill of HGTV) and then hitting the sack with Tina and a glass of whiskey. Sounds almost perfect.

My guide to captaining a lower division beer league hockey team

I'm on the verge of celebrating my one-year anniversary of being captain of a lower division ice hockey team in Pasadena.

That encompasses three 12-week seasons at our local rink here in Pasadena, CA, and it's utterly amazing to me that I've survived this long. In the past year, I've gone from having no clue about what I'm doing to having mostly no clue about what I'm doing.


Me being me -- that is, having quite low expectations -- I am pleased with this progress.

Especially since personally I am coming off the single worst season ever played by a recreational league hockey player in the history of man/woman-kind. Here's how one popular blog posting about beer league personalities characterized the role I play on a team:

The Organizer – This guy is absolutely brutal but since nobody else could be bothered to do all the paperwork and collect the money he gets to play. Is frustrating to play with because they can barely skate let alone take a pass but nobody gets mad at him cuz he’s a really nice guy. Is often heard in the dressing room saying ‘Sorry guys, that one was my fault’ and if he’s lucky somebody will chip in something like ‘No worries Donny, it’s a team effort.’ What everybody is really thinking is ‘Hey Donny, my grandmother is a better player than you and yes you are right, that was your fault.’ If you are lucky the Organizer is usually smart enough to take himself off the ice in critical situations.  

Yep, that's me! Nonetheless, I have learned a few things, so here are a few tips to those putting together a beginner's or lower division team:

•Build around defense. A good defense coupled with a decent goalie will more often than not give you a chance to win games or at least keep games close. Sure, you can put all your talent on offense -- but what happens when they come up against a good D and goalie and get shut down? You're going to get spanked harder than Tiger Woods in a Texas whorehouse. Defense isn't sexy. Most guys would rather play on O and score, allowing them to pleasure themselves while admiring their statistics online. My tip: find guys who see value in D and want to play it and make them the foundation of your team.

•Get two or three guys who have played rec league hockey before. Just because you can get everyone to show up for a game doesn't mean you know jack shit about actual hockey strategy. I'd go after guys who are maybe a little older who don't want to play in the more advanced divisions and have a little hockey wisdom -- the ability to put a 12 to 0 loss to an all-girls team in correct perspective. In other words, get a couple of Yodas that have been skating for 700 years or so.

Hockey pic of the day

Photo by geezerhockey, via their SmugMug page 

A defensman in a geezer league game in Bethlehem, PA, tries to move a player right out the backdoor. See where the goalie is -- guarding the other post, meaning this O guy can't be allowed to enjoy this piece of real estate.

--S.H.

Pasadena spring league still needs a few players

The lower/intermediate division at the Pasadena rink starts spring play on April 10.

The league is trying to expand from four to six teams and I hear one of the new teams still needs a few players. If you're interested, contact the rink at hockey@skatepasadena.com or call 626-578-0800.

There are only two divisions at the Pasadena rink -- lower and upper. The lower is being renamed intermediate to reflect the fact that most of the people playing in it have some hockey experience. If ringers are kept at bay, it's a good league for advanced beginners (some scrimmage and/or pickup experience), intermediates and older players.

It's a 12-game season with games on Sunday afternoons and evenings with an occasional Wednesday night game. The rink is only 150 feet long -- 50 feet shorter than an NHL rink -- and there are no showers. A full-size rink next door to the current facility is scheduled to open in September.

--S.H.

Notes from the beer leagues

As I've written before, this blog isn't the place for me to delve too deeply into issues concerning my team -- in particular the play of individuals. So I like to write around it and speak generally.

So, generally speaking, a few random thoughts about my team's 4 to 3 loss yesterday in our league semifinals (note: there are only four teams in the league, so everyone qualifies for the playoffs):

•Our opponents had some fast, younger guys with a good first step -- and they deployed them well. It felt like whoever had the puck for our team was often surrounded by a triangle of opponents and that they had even less time than usual to make a good decision.

•It still feels to me that the best way to mitigate for a speedier opponent is to know good positioning inside and out. If there are two or three guys covering whoever has the puck, that leaves two or three opponents covering our other four guys. On the really good teams, players know where everyone should be on the ice so they can pass the puck when they get in trouble or cornered or whatnot. Half my team is fairly new to the game and positioning hasn't become second nature -- like it needs to be.

•The sweetest play of the game for my team was when one of our third-line wingers picked up the puck in the neutral zone, got in trouble and then dumped it into the other team's zone. In a footrace, he out-hustled an opponent to the boards, got the puck back, and wrapped around the post and was able to just nudge the puck in for a goal. It wasn't the prettiest of plays and the other team's goalie came within an inch of stopping it -- but in this case hustle was rewarded.

•As for me, I've been tempted to write another edition of "hockey crimes and misdemeanors," and I probably soon will. But I really don't know what to say; I feel like my individual mistakes have become one big mistake. While I feel like a few of my hockey skills have improved in recent months, you wouldn't know it from this past three-month season. Outside of a few good shifts here and there, I basically did nothing and was a non-factor. At game speed, what limited skills I have are falling apart.

I'm not really sure what to do about it. Well, I know a few things I'd like to do about it -- like grab my stick and bash the crap out of this laptop/a wall/anything that might break. Joking aside, it feels like it's time to reevaluate how to learn to play the game.

--S.H.

Hockey helmet-cam

I've seen dudes skiing with helmet-cams so I did a search on YouTube and -- surprise, surprise -- there were a bunch of dudes who used helmet-cams to record their beer league games.

Of the ones that I watched, I liked this one the best, probably because the dude with the camera is actually involved in scoring a goal -- something I haven't witnessed from inside my helmet in a while. Not to unload my baggage on you on a Sunday morning, just sayin'...

The little cameras actually look fairly affordable -- here's a search I did on Amazon. If I was going to buy one, I'd probably buy two because you just know that an elbow/puck/boards/the ice is going to demolish the first one.

--S.H.

Tryouts for Pasadena spring league next week

Just a heads up: the current lower division league at the Pasadena rink is is trying to expand from four teams to six for the spring season that begins April 10 and runs through mid-July.

Tryouts for both the rink's upper and lower division leagues are Wednesday night, March 30, at 9 p.m. Here's the website.

It should hopefully be the final season on the 150-foot rink at the current facility; the fall season should be played on a new NHL-size rink to be built next door to the current facility on the Pasadena Convention Center grounds.

The lower division is basically for beginner through intermediate skilled players and it's coed, although there are only a handful of women in the league currently. It's not really a novice league -- although some novices with some get-go may like it -- and is best suited these days for someone with a little hockey experience, although you certainly don't have to be very good (I'm not). 

The idea of the tryouts is to determine if players should be in the upper or lower division and to try to place them on one of the teams. I'm captain of one of the teams and as leagues go, it's fun and pretty mellow. If you're on the fence, at least come out and skate in the tryout.

--S.H.

A few quick hit hockey thoughts before retiring for the evening

•I stuck around for pickup at the Pasadena rink on Monday night. There's always some very good players but there was one dude who I hadn't seen before that was literally skating circles around almost everyone. With that kind of speed and stick handling, I've spent most of today trying to figure out why he was playing pickup on a Monday night at the crappy Pasadena rink. I mean if he's not good enough to play minor league hockey, how good must those guys be?

•My lower division team clinched at least a .500 regular season record in our third season this past Sunday. We went 0-9-1 last spring (and 1-1 in playoffs), 6-3-1 in the fall (1-1 playoffs) and are now 5-4. It's mostly the same bunch of playes that suffered through the winless season although there have been a few key upgrades. We're usually competitive each week, although still perfectly capable of getting our ass kicked at any time. :)

•Listening to the NHL debate over what to do about head shots is kind of vomitous. The easy answer: get rid of them and crack down on fighting. The NHL has made some fixes this past week, but I think the NHL is loathe to do anything substantial that might suggest to the ticket-buying public that violence in games will be dampened.

The smartest thing I've read is this blog post about "finishing the check." I didn't know this, but you don't necessarily have to have possession of the puck in order to be checked in the NHL -- if you were the last guy to touch it, you are in many cases eligible to be checked. That is, creamed, rubbed out, demolished, etc. This blogger opines that maybe that's not such a great idea -- if, that is, the idea is to keep players' brains intact.

--S.H.

Great hockey pics of pond hockey championships

The New York Times has a very short feature on the recent Pond Hockey National Championships held in Wisconsin. Click here to see a truly awesome pic of the event. The above photo is from Flickr and was taken by Kent Landerholm.

Here's an idea for the smart marketing people in California mountain towns: find a lake near a road and hold a state-oriented event. A lot of the guys on my beer league team -- including me -- have never had a chance to play outdoors and would be willing to travel many miles and spend many dollars to do so.

I'm talking to you, Mammoth Lakes. I'm pretty sure that Twin Lakes along Lake Mary Road freezes in the winter. I know I've seen pics of people playing hockey there. If not there, hold a tournament at your financially beleaguered outdoor rink in town -- the scenery is still pretty great and I bet you can get enough teams to pay a decent enough entry free to cover your nut.

--S.H.

There's always next year...

It took me a few days to even want to write about this, but my team lost our league championship game this past Sunday by a score of 3 to 0. Beer, tequila, chicken wings and sleeplessness followed.

I won't even bother to mention how the slight altercation at the end when I thought -- erroneously I've been told -- that someone from the other team threw his gloves in my face, leading me to blow a fuse. I then skated alone into the other team's celebration to call the other player an impolite name and then a lot of shoving and yelling and silliness ensued.

That's hockey for you. As my hockey buddy often says, a beautiful sport played by idiots. Like me. 

It was, as expected, a physical and chippy game and the difference was that the best player for our opponents did what good players do -- made a couple of great plays resulting in two goals. We couldn't take advantage of some power plays and we had a goal waved off by the refs, who ruled the puck didn't entirely cross the goal line. I thought it did, but it wasn't the difference in the game.

I knew going in that the game could go either way. So losing wasn't entirely a surprise. And I think my team's feelings about the game were mixed -- pleased that we were good enough to get to a championship game, disappointed we're not yet good enough to win one, surprised perhaps how much the game meant to everyone.

I've been racking my brain trying to decide what we could have done different -- I'll get into some of my personal mistakes in my regular hockey crimes and misdemeanors post tomorrow. If I can pinpoint any one reason it was that our opponents did a very good job of holding the point, giving them second and third scoring chances and denying us the chance to play offense.

My advice to any beer leaguers out there: of the zillion things that your team should be working on, I would first and foremost practice the basic breakout over and over and over again until everyone is comfortable they can do it successfully on a frequent basis.

In the meantime, winter league starts early next month. So there isn't that much time to feel too badly.

--S.H.

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.

This week in hockey crimes and misdemeanors

The league I play in doesn't do much in the way of stat tracking -- hell, the Pasadena's rink didn't even work for yesterday's set of games. But I've often occasionally about my plus-minus rating, although I'm probably happier not knowing it. My hope is that I've gotten to the point where I can achieve a zero rating -- nothing too good or bad happens when I'm on the ice!

And what that in mind, the latest batch of hockey mistakes that keeps me awake at night:

The Crime: Yesterday's game. I'm at right wing. My team's up 3 to 1 or 4 to 1 with maybe less than five minutes to go (thank you, non-working scoreboard!) and I'm working the puck up the boards in the other team's zone. I manage to get down to the corner before the other team's D-man steals the puck and takes off around the net, with me chasing him. I reach out with my stick and...

The Result:...allegedly trip him, according to the late whistle from the referee. I actually think it was more of a hook than a trip, but who am I to quibble about details. In any event, we're protecting a lead late in the game and now I've put the other team on the power play. All the way down at the other end of the ice I can hear my goalie call out to me "Steve!" as in "Steve, what the f--k were you thinking?" Excellent question! We almost surrendered a goal on the power play, but my goalie was able to sit on the puck an inch before it crossed the goal line. I'm sure he was silently thanking me for that puck suppository.

The Lesson: What was I thinking? The answer is, of course, I wasn't thinking. I was playing hockey, which attentive readers know shrinks one's brain matter to one percent of normal capacity. I was in "get the f--k away from my puck" mode and probably the only thing that was gonna stop me was a taser to the testicles. That said, the lesson here is think. Although many hockey teams -- including mine -- have pretty good penalty kills, a penalty kill still cripples a team's offensive chances and few teams are good enough to sacrifice quality shots on goal. So if you're reading this, don't revel in your PIMs. Vow to reduce them.

Straight outta Newfoundland--a good look at backward skating and playing D

One of the guys on my team found this video. Putting aside the humor -- oh Canada! -- it's actually pretty useful advice.

And don't poo-poo this if you're under the assumption that you're strictly a beer league forward. Maybe. But sooner or later, your D-men are gonna miss a game and someone on offense is gonna have to play back. It's either draw straws or drop your nuts and volunteer because your backward skating isn't totally sucky.*

Here's a short 40-second video also well worth watching for P.K. Suban's quick footwork. Don't try it unless you've stuffed a couple extra pieces of foam to shielf the ol' tailpipe.

--S.H.

*btw, I'm one of those beer league forwards who never volunteers to play defense. Even if only five guys show up for my next game, I like the odds that at least two of them will be better at D than me.

Hockey crimes and misdemeanors

It's that special time again -- when I look back at my last couple of games and shudder in horror at some of the many boneheaded mistakes I made. To wit:


THE CRIME: Nine guys show up for our game. As captain, I put four on defense and five on offense. The D rotation is easy -- two guys on the ice, two off. We treat O like it's a pickup game. A guy/girl comes off, someone on the bench takes their position. Sounds easy...

THE RESULT: Except it's not. It's confusing. From shift to shift, we're in different and sometimes unfamiliar positions on offense. And we get tired. And we lost by three goals to a team with just seven players.

THE LESSON: We should have gone with three on D and six on O. The general rule of thumb in hockey is that D-men can withstand more minutes on the ice anyway and this would have resulted in a better organized offense.

THE CRIME: In aforementioned game, I end up playing center on some shifts. The center is usually one of the better players on the team. I am not one of the better players on the team. And, by the way, I had never actually taken a faceoff in a real game and on three or four occasions I find myself taking a faceoff. Hey, here's a fun hockey fact: faceoffs are really important!

THE RESULT: My memory is a little sketchy, but I do recall basically not touching the puck on my first two faceoffs. On the third or fourth one, I actually won -- in all likelihood because of divine intervention of the Hockey Gods. Or, more likely, because the other team was even more shorthanded than we were and didn't have the services of its regular center.

THE LESSON: If you're on a hockey team, practice faceoffs -- because sooner or later it's gonna be you in the middle of the circle and you want to at least look like you know what you're doing. In other words, don't be like me and hold the stick wrong (and don't assume you're friendly referee is going to show you the right way because he feels sorry for middle-aged men learning the exciting sport of ice hockey). And maybe it would even be a good idea to watch the following video, which has some good pointers.