Up with the Big Boys

It's a Friday night, Sid's out with a girlfriend re-living the vacation they recently took together, and I'm probably supposed to be attending a students' union alumni Christmas event; instead, it's just after 10, I'm relaxing, listening to Born in the U.S.A. with a Stella Artois in front of my blog after a good 90-minute shinny session with my friend Shimon, who went to school with Sid and has played hockey since he was - as he told me earlier, holding his stick horizontally somewhere between his knee and waist - "this high". Since I started playing last year - all summer long, too - we tried to set up a Friday game (he has friends in Forest Hill or somewhere who rent some ice late at night once a week), and when he called me at work today looking to fill his exam period with something fun, I was only too happy to get out.



As with all unorganized, open shinny games, tonight's got busy about an hour in, with two oversized teams being re-divided into three for the last few games we played, the first team to give up two goals leaving the ice and being replaced. There were eight of us to begin with, and on our last shift, we refused to sub for a new joiner by just saying "we're going home after this shift".



Shimon only got on the ice once last year, and though he showed no signs of rust, he was complaining of sore hands and wrists; I, meanwhile, having laid out on my front side in one play or another that I've already forgotten, had a couple of great chances in front of the goalie - nah, I didn't beat him, though he robbed me from a prone position with his glove hand once - despite missing a shift to take a good 10-minute washroom break...



...Why? I can't say I remember this happening last year, ever, but it was pretty cold tonight: just off the ice, the Weather Network site is actually reporting -10, wind chill to -16, and laying out on the ice tonight, I could've sworn I froze all my plumbing solid. It went away after a while (still couldn't go 'til I got home, if you're actually worried about my health), but yet again I discovered a new hockey experience. Layers upon layers upon layers. You can never wear enough clothing, clearly.

At any rate, we left the game as the group grew larger, 90 minutes of play behind us, and walked off into the night. We got a chance to speak with the night's goalie - he came in to get his gear off not long after we did, saying he got bored stopping bad shots caused by no one passing the puck - and he turned out to be the classic rent-a-goalie: not affiliated with any team or league, but if the phone rings he plays for free, or makes $50, or once in a while a case of beer. He advocated for us to come out Saturday or Sunday morning, when there would be two goalies and none of the "gotta hit a post and put it in the net" BS of tonight at either end.

His criticism struck a strange note: shinny is purely about skill development or maintenance, that is to say just to keep the hands, the legs and the stick going a couple extra nights a week to fend off the rust. The first shinny goalie I'd ever met, and using it to keep the skills up, it turns out that he kind of hates shinny. As the group got bigger tonight, too, there was a little scuffle between a latecomer and one of the guys - incredible player, wearing an 80s-style Leafs jersey with Keon's #14 on it despite probably only remembering it for Dave Andreychuk - who'd been there since we'd shown up, some argument about "going for the puck". Lots of following each other around the rink, chirping, and though it cooled off it looked like we might actually see gloves drop.

As Shimon noted too, on the way home, that it's evident who's played "actual" hockey - i.e. the would-be scrappers? - and who's just a good shinny player. "Yeah," I said, "it's called crossovers." I got a laugh, but his point was actually about one guy we played against tonight who was fast, skilled and really hard to mark: "he's always looking at the puck - if he played real hockey, he'd get so levelled" was Shimon's note. Good to know... I imagine that I'm always looking at the puck (yeah, I've been taught not to), but he made sure to pass on the bit about trying to stickhandle far enough from your body that you can see both the puck and the rest of the ice... though after a while, he said, you just know where it is.

Shimon was impressed, though, he said, which was a huge victory for me: "When did you start playing, again? Two years ago?", he asked, and I had the chance to correct him, stating that it had actually been January... of 2008. Nearly a calendar year. "You've got some skills," he said, telling me that for a new player I'd played quite well; and before we'd left the rink, when I tried to say I was among the weakest players out tonight (and yes, tonight I met the "Christie Pits Hot Shots" banned from last years shinny classes), Shimon stuck with "well, you're somewhere in the middle". He's always been such a nice guy. (Super dudes Neil and Pete told me at the end of last year too how much I'd improved, how they couldn't believe the progression and how from week to week I got better. That's why they're super dudes.)

I tried to sign up to play shinny again this year - thanks to our request, a "Level Two Beginner" was added at Christie Pits for 2008-09 - but when I emailed the instructor, I made the mistake of mentioning my hockey clinic, which led him to suggest that I only play the drop in at Wallace Rink (Dufferin and Dupont). Not that there's anything wrong with that... I just wrote back and said "hey, if you think I've progressed beyond these courses, then I'll take my banishment to Wallace as a compliment!").

As I told my boss this week, I figure I should be ready for the NHL around 45. Hey, never let the dream die. I am really looking forward to playing shinny again this year, with the kind of "grain of salt" approach: no slappers, one-timers, slashing sticks or anything that might go with pads, just a chance to try new things that might not work in a weekly game (should I ever get into a league that does those things!). Even if I have to play it without the same instruction, it should be a blast.

I felt a little shinny rust tonight, though, I have to admit: playing without the equipment, on the rough ice, no helmet or mouthguard to save me should I go down or the puck come up, wind in the hair (or toque), and no expectations that I will apply anything I've learned in my clinics (other than falling less often). Open shinny's a different game in a lot of ways: it draws out the douchebags looking to embarass goof-around artists like myself by dangling through eight or nine of us at a time, and there's no instructor to teach and simultaneously referee. If you fall, they might take the puck from you before asking if you're alright. And yeah, from week to week I'm sure a couple of guys will spend most of the night yapping and sticking each other. At the same time, though, I must admit: I kind of missed freezing my junk off, if having never literally come close to it until tonight, and I might just start playing with these regulars as early as this coming Sunday. On the whole, a shinny group will always be at worst a group of mostly decent guys.

The purpose of sitting down to write this post, though, was to comment on my first clinic of the 2008-09 season. The reason the whole thing's in italics, actually, is that it was going to be a pre-amble to the account of those six weeks. And with yet a separate long-form blog having emerged from it tonight's writing, I will perhaps save that for another time... once I've got the pictures uploaded. It's great to be back.

My First Off-Season

A full six months and then some since this year-end photo was taken at Dufferin Rink. The first season ended with more drills and more drills, my "abilities" coming on just fine as, stricken by the flu, my class at the hockey clinic limped across the finish line somewhere in the middle of April. Shinny ended on a soupy rink (as it must every year), not long after my Chilean friend Leon (who had long wanted to play and, learning he had been accepted to teach in Mexico, knew time was running short) and I fended off somewhere around 60 high-schoolers in our ill-timed one-off shinny session that happened to fall right in the middle of March Break.

The summer featured lots of Jays' games, lots of summer softball, and lots of beer related to both - not to mention, virtually no blogging (though my Simpsons Studies at http://www.hollywood-upstairs-medical-college.blogspot.com/ were updated from time to time... and it should be noted that the most recent entry has been only half-completed for well over a month).

As my last entry can attest, I was already writing three months behind, dragging the depths of memory to set down what drills I had done from week to week, how cold it had gotten outside, how many goals I scored on no one (no offense, Mr. Shooter Tutor), and which body parts challenged my ability or desire to make it to my job the mornings after playing. Even now, I write one month - four sessions - into my second season. This is not starting well. Writing-wise... the hockey is going fine.

* * *

I guess it just sort of happened. At some time since the last snowfall, and before this year's first, I became a hockey player - and somewhere along the way, I fear saying it, it kind of stopped being special. You pack your equipment away at the end of one winter, and before the next time you put it on, you're being called in as a "ringer" to a ball hockey team.

I have never been a ringer in my life. I'm a decent second-baseman, I guess (in softball land... hit a hardball at me and I doubt I'd see it before the concussion), but from summer to summer, my boys of that season fall back on old friends who've since moved to town, and slowly, we've accumulated a life-long first-baseman... shortstop... and two ex-pitchers are soon to join the fold to play third and the outfield. The denials are there (God, they're good friends) but it's only a matter of time: there is a ringer out there who can actually hit and field, and someday he will take my place on the beer-ball team. (But hey, it's beer-ball, the guys that don't want/aren't good enough to play in the higher leagues just stay around and keep losing for the tan, so no real loss there.)

Five or six of the beer-ballers are on the ball hockey team, and the Wheat Sheaf staff can attest that we are indeed the definition of beer-ball-hockey(ers?), stopping there after most games to undo the (surprisingly intense) workout of a 55-minute game. We've got almost as many players on the roster as an NHL team - about 16, and 12 or so make it from week to week - and the subs make it work, but it's tiring nonetheless. I'm loving the experience, and it's a great excuse to see my friends that much more often. But ball hockey - at least, at the rec level - is a strange variant of the game that takes some getting used to.

We are 1 and about 10. I don't even want to look up our record, it stopped being about wins and losses a long time ago. The game is basically penalty-kill and powerplay all the time, as in the tiny gyms, you either have the ball or you're out of position. A fifth "skater" would make a huge difference, if not a huge danger.

I suppose that one thing should first be made clear: it's actually floor hockey. Five-a-side, in school gyms, no roller blades, plastic sticks... like in Grade 4, but they don't make you wear the goggles (some players - not on our team - wear their own along with specifically-crafted-for-floor hockey gloves, if you can believe it). The ref sits out in the hallway (or classically, unlike even your worst gym teacher, on the stage), and the teams call their own fouls. Not penalties, fouls... for brushing up against each other, like in basketball and soccer. (Out-of-bounds shots and the goalie's covering of the ball are treated the same way as in those sports too, with throw-ins and the equivalent of goal kicks or inbounding.)

Wow, do the vets call fouls. Not a game goes by that there's not some minor contact that is immediately met with "watch your stick", "that's a check" or a snapshot whined about as an illegal slapper. The players in this league - with the exception of about two per team, who've been on the ice before - are Gary Bettman's dream team, proponents of the wide-open game who would love to get free throws with their hockey sticks everytime they get nudged... sure a game's supposed to be 21-19... oh, this isn't volleyball?

It comes with its own set of challenges: a soft rubber ball is the projectile of choice, but a hard shot is still a hard shot if it hits you in the pouch. You'll have to take my word on that one, suffice to say I went down Hans Moleman-style and wore a cup from then on in. Stickhandling is better named stickdragging in this one as, short of maybe flipping forehand to backhand once in front of the net, dangling will leave your un-skated feet tripping over your stick.

Funny, I don't remember road hockey being so hard. The time I got hit by the passing car's mirror was, sure (it ended my road hockey career, to my parents' delight, when $60 of summer lawn-mowing earnings went to that repair), but the stickhandling was never a challenge. Wooden stick, tennis ball, fewer players, lots of room, and open air instead of stuffy, boiler-heated buildings approaching the century mark - maybe that made all the difference. Maybe it's all the Skydome draft over the summer that did it to me, who knows?

The off-season's been a blast, though. A great opportunity to get my instincts on side, my timing, my shooting and passing motions, but thanks to last winter, I can say for sure that it's nothing like the game on ice. In fact, my new hockey of choice almost feels easier. More natural.

At some time since the last snowfall, and before this November's first, I guess I became a hockey player.

Next: I'll be putting the sophomore jinx question to the test, kicking off Season 2 of Perry On Ice... does this make me an atom yet?

Week 5: Fools in the rain

The supposedly inevitable has happened. During a span of playing hockey three nights a week, watching the Leafs' improbably renewed playoff drive (or whatever playing just well enough to miss a lottery pick qualifies as) and sort of looking for a new job (though that's no excuse... after all, isn't everyone always sort of looking for a new job?), my updates on the week-to-week observations have dried up.

This unintentional hiatus has been attempting to come to an end for about two weeks now, but upon realizing that in some cases, several weeks had started to blur together, the memory project became more daunting, and this only discouraged me from breaking the drought. Week 5 has stayed pretty fresh, and I thought I had made some notes about Week 6 somewhere, fearing just such an occasion in the style of that guy in Memento. The notes have gone missing, so that strategy's out the window too... and though the week-by-week format may suffer - my apologies if you were getting used to reading this on some semblance of a semi-predictable schedule, it was a coincidence I assure you - it's great to be back.

* * *

It was pretty much evident from the time I headed off to work on the morning of January 29: tonight's shinny game at Christie was in jeopardy. For starters, we were already down our instructor, who had advised us (the week before and by email) that a "hell of a hockey player" would be filling in for him this week. As if this wasn't enough, though, beyond the inbox was the omen most feared in the mid-winter throes of outdoor hockey season: rain.

It's funny, you'd think it'd be the sun. As I write this, even, it's two days after the Jays' season opener in New York was rained out - in passing, tonight's ball game was played in 5°C weather in an open-air stadium - and I'm reminded of signs I saw posted just two weeks ago at Dufferin Mall toward the last weeks of the now-finished season that were counter-intuitive for any sport but the Canadian passion: "Skating cancelled due to sunshine."

You cancel outdoor events due to snow... sleet... hail... lightning... fog... darkness... locusts... but apparently, as January drew to a close, not rain. We probably could've cancelled, or just not shown up - and yet, only a couple of weeks in and we had nearly a full turnout for tonight's class. The temperature, in fact, was warmer than what the Jays played in tonight, reaching a maximum of 8°C at some point during the day (most likely in the early evening, as, according to the only moderately successful explanation I got from a co-worker married to meteorologist, the clouds are trapping moisture and thus driving up the humidity). During the winter, as on those hazy summer days where the CN Tower looks curvier vertically than it does around the edges of its revolving restaurant, humidity peaks around four in the afternoon, with no relief until later at night (if any at all... depends if a thunderstorm blows up, right?).

Thank goodness for the weathernetwork.ca, I guess; not only can I tell you the temperature, but I can also note that 5.8 mm of precipitation fell. And it was all rain. So with the humidity peaking and the rink mostly turned into a swimming pool, the diehards still came out, hungry for a game. The guest instructor for the evening, Ginger, led us through a pretty-good warmup and the soccer-on-skates game, and the latter was enough to get most of us into the water at least once. After the next couple of drills (a skating drill and some length-of-the-rink passing), though, with a good hour remaining in the session, the question we're always waiting for was asked: "Who are we kidding?". She proposed that we just start into a game, and that's how the rest of the night played out.

Early in the sessions, Dan had said that we'd do a few drills, then play "a bit of a game," as the only way to learn to play hockey is to play hockey. Into the fifth week, with the stopping just coming together for me, I could feel some development. Ice conditions deteriorated through the whole session, but having already taken my bath during the soccer game, I was able to apply my skills (or luck...?) in such a way that I didn't fall the rest of the night, which made it success in my mind.

What made it much more of a success, of course, is that it was fun. Stupid little kid playing down the street out in the rain though you know your mom is standing on your porch and calling for you to come in while you pretend you don't hear her fun. We all knew we shouldn't have been out there, and as the night went on, the odd night was ended by the Strange Brew-immoratlized "soaker". Neil, for example, hit the ice late in the game, and points for effort, but sopping wet most of the way from toes to head, that look came into his eyes: "Nope, I'm done" was about all I heard from him, and he disappeared with roommate Pete into the night, far from the first to go. It was almost bad luck to not fall, as it meant playing in the rain longer, but it is an experience that will not be forgotten anytime soon.

After all, it invented a new defensive tactic that may make it's way to an outdoor rink near you in a coming transitional weather period. Ben, arguably one of the meeker players who comes out from week to week (which is not a comment on his skill level, he can really skate and has a good set of hands, blond half-'fro and scarf flying behind him in log-driver-song cartoon fashion), gets a breakaway as he often does, with most of the defending team's players looking for a goal in the other end (as they all too often are when Ben pokes one loose and burns down the ice...). The only one of the defenders even close to him, Andrew, could maybe have hooked him down, but not this night: first, it's a respect thing, as even writing two months "into the future" I can confirm no one hooked or slashed all season, but on this night, it would be just mean to put someone in the drink with a wayward stick.

Andrew, however, tried a new strategy: the shower. Basically, he slapped his stick into the ever-growing puddle forming in the slot a few times, shovelling out some minor tsunamis and giving the goal-scorer his reward. Ben skated back, looking slowed down by the weight of the water he was so wet, and in the muted celebration of the goal and a few "nice works," all I could think to follow mine up with was "was it worth it?"

He broke away over not even a quarter of the length of the ice (water, actually), still faster than any of us, and scored a goal while the defenseman resorted to deliberately drenching him. You're damn right it was.

* * *

In one way, I suppose, this game may not have been worth it. Wrapping up that night, I wouldn't make it out for shinny again until a couple of weeks later - answering the regulars' "see you tomorrows" coming out of Christie (referring to the next nights Dufferin game) with a "no, I can't make it, I'll see you guys next week" - I had booked the Stormalongs at Clinton's the next night with some friends from Western (theAdores, www.myspace.com/theadores) and a third band the bar brought in who were really on, On the Verge (www.myspace.com/onthevergeca) - I didn't know what I would sacrifice for this memory.

I came down sick the next week. It was one of the most brutal and unforgiving colds I've ever had, and though temperatures cooled significantly in 24 hours and threatened the Clinton's show with a blizzard (it still went on, and was a success, and the Adores made a four-hour drive from the Falls to be there which was amazing in itself), I skipped the Dufferin game this week, wound up missing both the next week's games with this cold.

But before the cold really hit (it came on during my Tuesday afternoon), there was the Sunday clinic.

Feb. 3 - Superbowl Sunday. Steve's question from the week before was a good one, and we were down to about seven guys for the class. In the dressing rooms we talked about how there'd be more ice-time during the scrimmage, more one-on-one attention and all that great stuff, we were surprised. Same drills, same time allotments, just do them all again... and again... and again.

And again, I found myself sitting some out. That was embarrassing. By this point, I really should've had some stamina. The scrimmage, then, was also a display in the effects of exhaustion, as no line changes meant more responsibility. It was probably the closest I had yet come to throwing up on the ice... or on the bench... or in the locker room afterward.

This week, though (if memory serves... most of this one is probably being blocked from my conscious memory due to my discomfort) I can at least mention that the "Shooter Tutor" made its debut: tired of making us hit the posts during scrimmages to get "goals" (and having countless "goals" just roofed in the net for show by the more advanced guys), the instructors brought out the tarps depicting a goalie, a 4'x6' rectangle with the corners and a hole about 1.5 times the size of the puck cut in the five-hole. A goal felt more like a goal with at least a little resistance, even if outside of shooting practice and into a game, I couldn't score them on a tarp... seemed to be that kind of week, though: I couldn't score in the rain either.

Next: Probably some merging of Weeks 6 through 8... we'll see how the calendar-in-reverse trick works out...

Week 4: Stops and starts

The events described in this post take place in the week between Jan. 20 and 27, the week any regular readers may recall as the week by which this blog was to be in real time. Damn.

As tends to be the trend from week to week, this entry begins by drawing on an event taking place the week before. By Tuesday of this week heading for Christie, I was a regular already, attending my second "game" of the week like it was something I did every week... foretelling the future, perhaps. But right at the beginning of class the week before, and at the end of that first class as well, making the statement that may have put everyone most at ease, Dan told our group to tell him of any particular thing, if there was one, that we wanted to work on.

I'm pretty sure that I didn't say anything about learning to stop on skates - though as those who've played a couple of shifts with me find out pretty quickly, it's hard to hold me responsible for all of my various cursings once I get over the boards - but there was a real mind-reading going on tonight, as Dan introduced the warmup, following up by telling us that we'd be working on stopping due to "a couple of people" who'd said they wanted to work on this aspect of the game.

So maybe I cursed enough for three people. At any rate, the lessons began, and again the open-ended, no-expectation teaching of shinny sunk in faster than the whistling and "coaching" of the Hockey Clinic. No more vague references to snow-plowing or any other terms that mean nothing to a non-skater (or a non-skier...), but an actual lesson in the physics of stopping.

These physics are easier than high school physics was: the lesson we got focused not on the feet and the pushing and the cutting of the ice, but one the upper-body's role. We learned to stop, like a bunch of four-year olds, with both arms out and turning the whole body. What it does is allows you to turn your feet by turning your body, so that you can stop without as much risk of a fall. As we got better, of course, the arms came down, and while I hadn't mastered it yet, I was on my way. Between drills, between shifts or even during lulls in play during the game, I just kept at it, little starts and little stops, carrying a smile the whole way.

The shinny class was the perfect place to learn to stop. The week before, we had tilled the ground doing the "go the direction Dan points" drill, which forces you to go forward or backward, or cross-over (stepping, not striding, in close quarters) to get used to the idea of frequent directional change. And that lesson, combined with a new version of this game then an on-ice version of "Red Light, Green Light" (that's why he called it "The 25-Year Old Novice," I hear you all thinking...!) that put it to the test and brought out more than a few laughs as nearly everyone fell once or twice. It was here that I noticed the difference between the classes most markedly.

On Sundays, most drills involve some form of skating a length of the ice. You do it crossing over, or backwards, or normally; with or without a puck; around an obstacle, doing a circle, turning around or cutting diagonally across the ice; usually shooting in some way at the end. However you stretch it, it's like a swimming race, everyone in lanes and going for broke to the end... where, naturally, you have to stop. Already self-conscious about how slowly I was skating and how much I was holding up the drills, I'd go as fast as I could just to get out of the way, and either fall, turn a circle or (as gently as possible, but still) "thunder" into the boards.

And I think it was for this reason that I hadn't figured out stopping yet: of course you won't learn to stop if you try doing it at full speed right away. It's like learning to catch baseballs by just getting them thrown at your head long enough: you'll never get it (though my uncle Rick maintains to this day that it worked for him). And even if you do, you're developing reflex, and not technique (or so runs my theory). Learning to stop, in baby steps, was fun.

The game this week took on a more familiar tone, and as in the first week, the sticks went into the pile in the centre of the rink, were divided into two groups and one took on the hi-vis vests. Still playing the stay-at-home defenceman-like role, I got a little more action in this time, touching the puck a little more and getting in front of the net more often. No paydirt yet.

As had happened the first week, too, Dan went home and left whoever stayed to play until the lights went off. I lasted about a half an hour the first week, when winded I had to call it a night. Tonight, however, we got down to four of us playing, just two on two by the time the lights went down, around 11:30 as expected. There hadn't been any snow this week, so the player's benches were clean, giving us all somewhere to change our skates (last week, as we found out, though you're free to stay as late as you want, the building is locked after the class... so in addition to the tufts of snow the puck kicked up, there were some wet behinds on the way home no doubt).

Tonight was different, though. I stayed until the lights went off, and for me, it all led up to one moment. Lights off and sitting on the bench, about as tired as I could reasonably get - for the last hour, keep in mind, there were no line changes - the first thing I did was reach for my skates, still giving me growing pains, and start to take them off. And when the first one was unlaced, I had the good fortune to look up.

Christie is a big enough park that you can get some really dark spots, particularly at the bottom of the hill backing on to the baseball diamond where the other Toronto Maple Leafs - the ones who win games - play. Compared to nights in the country, with skies on a clear night showing thousands of countless stars through the infinite blackness that, it's never dark in the city. In a clear, open space in the country - a large back yard at a country home or the middle of a field - when you look up at the sky, you can see how it's still lighter closer to the horizon, even though there are no lit up buildings for miles, and how it is still not pitch black, but the darkest, richest indigo you've ever seen in the centre of the sky looking straight up, which can only make you wonder how anyone ever doubted that the Earth was round.

Of course, without darkness, there can be no light, and vice versa; the snow-covered ground was far off, on the other side of the rink and at the bottom of the hill where it couldn't be seen, and it was a pretty overcast night, making it at least seem darker than most nights in the city. The only light to speak of, aside from the inevitable yellowy glow of the buildings beyond the subway station and the Baskin Robins at Christie and Bloor, was coming from the rink, and indeed its all relative. The rink - ice and boards - and the steam from my skates and helmet all seemed to suck up the smallest shreds of available light and reflect it back, bright and glowing, blinding and stark against the night. Seeing this contrast, I froze like the ice itself and softly let out my breath: in addition to the light, it was quiet. The sounds of the game already long gone, the scene fell silent, and an intense peace flowed through me. So this was how people can come to live for a game.

* * *

Having conquered Christie for a second straight week, learning some more names while unfortunately (temporarily) forgetting others, I followed the herd to Dufferin Grove Park the following night, clearly a junkie by this point. Successive nights? Crazy. I'm writing this after doing so in mid-Week 8, and not to blow the rest of the story but the tank tonight is empty.

The first thing to note about the Dufferin session was the sheer number of people. By the time we broke into teams, we'd amassed three groups of six... on each team. So each team was rolling the equivalent of a full unit of skaters minus goalies, three straight "extra-attacker" units facing off.

Before getting into this game, though, the drills were compressed. Sixty minutes instead of 90, and 36 players instead of (max.) 24 on the Christie nights (a number that declined from week to week, seeming to peak again at 22 on the final night of the season), as it would be impossible to run more involved drills with this larger group. We did the laps like always, then grabbed a partner for passing practice.

My partner had on what appeared to be a St. Mike's sweater - not a jersey, a sweater, in a touch reserved for the outdoor game - with a big white M on a field of blue.

"What's your name?" I ask.

"Adam."

"I'm Dan."

"Ah, shit, you guys are all over this! EVERYBODY here is named Dan!"

I have yet to meet any Dan's beyond that comment, though, so maybe he jinxed it. Or maybe I just don't know anyone at Dufferin... could go either way...

At any rate, the drills totalled 15-20 minutes in all, and between them all, whistle to whistle, I'd practice the stopping I'd learned. When I was comfortable, we had a drill that involved going the length of the ice, and so, I pulled out a "Sunday stop."

And I blew it. I barrelled right into the boards, bracing myself with my right wrist and coming to a halt the hard way, nearly taking out Jason with me.

My first injury. Sweet.

Before long, we were into the scrimmage. This one got intense in a hurry: short shifts, faster skaters, less respect for the two rules of shinny:

1. No body contact.

2. Keep the puck on the ice.

The third rule, of course, is try to be careful, go a little easier where necessary, and remember that not everyone is at the same level. Tonight was not that kind of night, as the sticks were higher and collisions more frequent. Mostly accidental, it would appear, though some players left a little doubt in my mind. There was one guy who scored a hat trick eventually, but his McCabe-esque flying ass got a little dangerous after a while.

Suffice to say it was a different crowd at Dufferin. A little more ethnically diverse than the area around Christie (that is to say there are more groups than WASPs and Koreans, though as with the hockey school, pretty much everyone who comes out is a European desceded Canadian), it was actually the age diversity was more surprising. Of particular interest this night was the seeming septagnearian, Darryl.

Darryl came to play in a blinding yellow coat, mittens (brown, the kind with the sort of vinyl-like outside) and a bike helmet, wearing skates that must've been older than my infamous size 11s. Thing is, though he looked kind of comical, he was kind of good... taught, clearly, by Dan in prior classes, maybe once a serious player, but he moved alright, and was always in the right place... becoming a nuisance to me, of course, and colliding with me on more than one occasion.

Tonight was a night where I was able to attack with a little more confidence, go in a little harder to the net and slap at the loose ones. And there were a lot of loose ones, as the number of players and varying level of skill on the ice (real extremes of new player and shinny vet - if not hotshot material - compared to the gradually-growing-together Christie class) led to a lot of bunching up. There was a lot more fire on the ice tonight, and it was a fun enough game.

Of course, being only an hour-long session, with 36 players ice-time was a bit limited. So when the lights went off - leaving, unfortunately, only the yellow lights from inside the rink building to light the ice, and not the moon or anything remotely poetic - all hell broke loose. The pucks from previous drills all still in the nets, they were drudged out and used in various passing or shooting practices, one-on-ones, or stick-handling training, while everyone who didn't have a puck was doing laps or working on backwards skating. Pandemonium, making it hard for me to make my contribution: trying to take up about 15 feet of ice on which to go forward and stop, then go back and stop. And it was working; left-foot-first working much better than the other one, of course, but I wouldn't be the only player out there who could only stop well one way... four weeks - three real classes, and three shinny classes - and I could finally (and shakily) stop. I figured I should quit there, so I of course thanked Dan and went home.

* * *

Sunday came, and with Sid house-sitting for her mom - on Gladstone, just around the corner from Dufferin Grove - the morning skate was mandatory. Dufferin Grove's two ice pads are beautiful by day, well maintained and bustling, mostly with families doing laps of both rinks through the open doors joining the two for the occasion. The building is full of moms and dads tying laces and getting hot chocolate, and kids refusing to wear snowsuits and tracking water everywhere just like they're supposed to.

So Sid and I make the short walk down there, and of course she summarily embarrassed me. Not on purpose, of course...

When we first got together, in January of '05, I spent a little time with her during slack week at her mom's house. That was the last time before Wednesday's pickup game that I'd been to the Dufferin rink, and on that occasion, I remember telling her all the while that I wasn't a good skater... of course, she disagreed, and while I might've been a little steadier or faster than her, I was behind in one crucial area: she could stop.

Her dad taught her when she was really little; never one of the girls to get figure skates by default, she's been on hockey skates all of her life, and that day two years ago was largely spent with her trying to teach me to stop. The way she remembers it, I almost had it down... that's not really how I remember it, but we'd best leave it at that.

So Sunday, beaming with pride after my week of stopping practice, I had to show her: and her and her hand-me-down Bauer Challengers - maybe older than my old Chargers, and possibly their namesake space shuttle too - had only one response: no, you're doing it wrong.

The way I'd been taught, in addition to turning the body, involved a weight transfer. While I'd thought I'd heard front foot, she maintained back foot... my stops were slow and tenuous (though successful), and hers were effortless, two-footed turns that had an aggressive grace in them somehow. (And the odd nice snow-show, for bonus points.)

We argued (not in a bad way) about the stopping pretty much the whole time we were there, and I guess it must've been clear to one couple doing the obligatory hand-holding laps, who told me on the way by that I was "doing great." Proof that Sid had it right - they could tell she was the teacher and I the student. While I wasn't back to square one, I did have a lot to feel out with this stopping thing yet.

Nevertheless, a morning skate is something I wished I'd squeezed in before every class on Sundays, as this nights went really well. But there was a lot of new material to bring there: two "games" during the week, some success stopping, and my positive attitude of Week 3 fame.

So naturally, the first drill of this class was the most ridiculously hard thing we'd done yet: transitioning from forward skating to backward skating without losing any momentum. I tried it once or twice, and as per usual, wound up in the remedial class with Rocky. I didn't feel terrible, though: Michael was trying it too, and really working to keep up, falling hard most of the time. Having accepted my limits, I did learn it at a slow speed, again being stronger pivoting backward with the non-dominant foot.

Of course, my lack of balance did put me in a spot... doing the forward-to-backward turn, I started to fall, and flailing, got my stick out and caught my balance by slapping it on the ice.

"Don't get frustrated, now..." Rocky started. So much for displaying a positive outlook, I thought. It proved again what a poison negativity can be, though, as even Rocky could tell I was prone to it... I tried explaining it, but did it in the shortest way possible: smiled and gave a "nope, no problem, just lost my balance," and tried it again. It was an amazing feeling that I think I could really get used to.

As for turning back to forward from backward, that seemed hard until I stopped thinking about it. Basically, you just turn... you do it fast, you make a little snow, and you're off... piece of cake. We did a subsequent drill involving three players passing, taking shots, then the lead man becoming the defenceman for a two-on-one (or something like that... I think I remember it right, but I still don't think I understood it at the time). When my turn for defence came up, I was just hightailing it back and turning to backwards, poorly taking a few strides and getting burned.

This continual defeat wasn't a defeat, though: just doing it, then doing it again, was the victory. Ah, the power of positive thinking. It sounds Sisyphean, but you can come to enjoy it; I was ready for it, at least, and I had my game face on à la Ned Flanders: a great big smile. After all, I did spend a week working up to getting tuned like this.

Week 3: Isn't there an easier level? (Part 2: No!)

The joy of shinny discovered and well behind me, Sunday came quickly, and for the first time, I managed to eat a planned pre-game meal - I finally got my pasta. I was there earlier than ever, about 40 minutes before the start of class, but was still not the first one in the room. There were already two players there, actually. It wasn't the first time I'd seen this, but they were at least half-dressed (bottom half and a T-shirt) in their gear for a long time before putting the rest on. We all have our rituals, I suppose, and I didn't ask. In only the third week, I still felt like it might not be the best idea to admit to noticing the way other players get dressed.

Some small talk circled around the Leafs and other various bits, and slowly, the dressing room came to life if a still one, as more of the players arrived. It's funny - there are two dressing rooms allocated to us, nos. 3 and 4, but in these first three weeks, at least nine of the twelve guys in the class have made no. 3 their regular room. I guess there's something to be said for camaraderie, even if it's mostly spent in silence. My contribution tonight was noting that it was the first week where it hadn't been raining on my walk over - tonight was a particularly cold one - and sharing a funny anecdote I remembered from Gretzky's autobiography... .

A few adjustments were made based on what I'd seen around me, first and foremost being the equipment tape. In addition to going around the shin pads under the sock, I did the over the sock thing this time, above and below the knee and felt the immediate difference. I will never be going back... the tape above the knee especially seemed to keep it all together.

The ritual-building seemed to continue tonight. I stretched while the zamboni cleared the ice - yes, I got there early enough to see that happen this time - and the anticipation started to build. This is what it feels like to be ready to take the ice, to fill that clean sheet. The ice cleared, I'm one of the first ones out; I take my spare stick and water bottle to the bench right away, like I've done it a thousand times before, and start on a couple of laps. The first whistle goes, and we form up around the centre circle. Stretching calves, hamstrings, thighs, glutes, groins, lower backs, shoulders, imitating the instructor in a form of silent choreography. Not a word until coming out of the circle, when the dreaded words come out: "ok, make three lines at that end of the ice."

Lined up, it was time for the skating drills, and tonight's were really hard for me. Crossover Hell might be more appropriate. Basically, the skating drills are simply to go around the centre circles and defensive zone circles, holding the circle by crossing over. I was still without the assertiveness to stop, so you can imagine how the crossovers went. There was a lot of slow turning and slowing the line down, and as had happened the weeks before, I deliberately went to the back of the line to not impede anyone. These guys were flying tonight.

Add to the fact that I was still breaking in the new skates, and you get a sense of how the drill wound up: I was on the bench loosening my skates before it was over trying to ease the pain... and the next skating drill naturally required firmer ankles - tight turns involving crossovers - and ended with the instructor telling me that my ankles were bending inward, and that I needed to tighten my skates... all the preparation in the world couldn't help me tonight. I think that maybe it just wasn't my night.

As all of the above is going on, keep in mind that I'm still trying to learn to stop on my skates, so that I can stop crashing into the boards at the end of every length we do. I've been told a few times to "snow plow", and asked if I've ever been skiing - no, though I've always wanted to go... there's another blog... - and these tidbits aren't helping me at all. Rocky just keeps scraping his skates on the ice and telling me: "I need you to get used to this motion; take your skates and cut into the ice." It's harder than it looks, though; unlike walking, where you get your power just from naturally bouncing off of the Earth, with skating everything is a push. And there are muscles that I just don't know how to use. Push down? It's kind of like not falling when standing in the bus during a sudden stop, only you have to cut into the floor beneath you...

The rhythm of the class was starting to sink in too, though, to the point where the big arena clock is your best friend and worst enemy: there is always a skating drill series, a "with-puck" drill series, and a scrimmage, breaking the hour into a three-pack of roughly 20-minute long sessions... I guess that's my Bowflex workout done for the week, right?

Skating hell endured, the second drill tonight, for the first time, is passing. Get a partner and skate around these obstacles, passing the puck all the while. This I could get with, though my problem was just that I was slower than my partner. Significantly. It's strange being the worst one in the class - no one says anything, but it's evident; maybe I'm paranoid, but I can feel the looks at this point. It's like being the kid in gym class that gets picked last for anything, it's no fun. The passing exercise goes ok, though, even if in slow-motion for my pairing, and we were again into the scrimmage.

Even by the start of the scrimmage I was still fighting with my skates, and wow did these puppies hurt. I really milked the stay-at-home defenceman schtick tonight, and got through alright, getting a couple of touches from the "point" and "high slot", and effectively just turning and skating hell-bent back toward my own net as fast as possible everytime one of my linemates coughed up the puck. And on my way off the ice, all I can think to say when I come up to the instructor is a half-hearted "Should I even come back next week?"

It was kind of the culmination of a couple of days of complaining at home. I didn't understand that the shinny class could teach me so much more in one night than three weeks of hockey school could. Or, that it could be more fun - I didn't want to lose faith, but Sid did inform me that the classes are paid in two halves, so if I didn't want to go back, I didn't have to...

That wasn't the case at all. My mother tells me, actually, that when I was learning to walk, I was trying to run before I had really succeeded in walking. Some things never change, it would appear. I want to be good at everything right away, which may be why I never successfully learned to play any musical instrument or developed a trade, either...

"Oh yeah, of course," Steve answered, almost laughing that I'd even said it. In retrospect, maybe it was kind of ridiculous, but that was indeed a new low in confidence for me. I was starting to think that maybe I was more of a novice than even the novices that were on the ice before us and before the zamboni tonight (yep, I was even that early), and I had an instant, horrific vision of one day being schooled in the future on an outdoor rink somewhere by my five-year old son, or worse, in front of his whole team and all the parents at the annual father-son game or some such function.

I dragged myself to the dressing room, and made an observation on how everything hadn't really worked out tonight to Ken and the three or four of us in my corner. I also had to ask "was it just me, or was the ice really bad tonight?" The first thing everyone around me confirmed was that yes, it was, and that the skating drills had made the worst of the situation, as we put a lot of ruts in the most travelled parts of the ice. But apparently, according to Ken, Bolton has some of the hardest and least forgiving ice in Toronto. Maybe this is why I can't stop flashes through my mind. Conversation turns back to the session itself, though, and I again make some observation about my low skill level, and a nearly exasperated player (Michael, I now know his name to be) says "I think you'll find that one day, it'll all just click."

But it was Ken who said the most important thing on this night: "But are you still having fun?" It was a tough question to answer. Of course, I said that I was, and I do believe that I was.

His question weighed heavily on me as I walked home, though. And wow, was it ever cold that night. It wasn't so much what he said, but how he said it. The question came from the guy who had mentioned that he plays, more than anything else, because it's more fun than going to the gym and "pulling this or pushing that around", and when he asked me if I was having fun, it was clear: this was the most important question he could have asked me, himself, or maybe anyone in the room, and it felt like life or death to me. How could I not be having fun? I felt selfish, petty and like I was a real bring-down to be around. It was shaming, actually; it felt like a patented Mark Messier attitude adjustment.

This is exactly what I've wanted for my entire life that I can remember, and somehow, I'm not having fun? No, it just didn't add up. I was making it no fun.

I now understood the observation made in an earlier session, about how this was the place to learn, where there was no pressure. The only one putting pressure on me was me, trying to keep up to guys who'd been at this for months, or years, or in some cases, a lifetime aside from a break somewhere in the middle.

By the time I got home, though I shared my frustration with Sid, I told her of the epiphany I'd had. I only had to believe that I could learn this game to succeed - and suddenly, burned out and frustrated, I just did. Just like that. I came right out with it: "I need a positive attitude." Somehow, right away, I had one. I still can't explain it, but I wish I'd had it in the dressing room. Then again, I guess that's what these attitude adjustments are for. Though one day, it may yet "all just click" skill-wise, there was some significant clicking that happened on this night, and I think it went way, way beyond hockey.

And suddenly, I couldn't wait for next week.

Week 3: Isn't there an easier level? (Part 1: Yes!)

The title of this entry reflects my most common breathless question during my Sunday-night classes; that or "I thought this was a beginner's class!". The impression I had going into the class was that we would at the very least be divided up into two group, and "beginner" and an "intermediate", which would be in line with the class's title... "Beginner/Intermediate". (Lord help me if there is an advanced.) Apparently this split in the class existed in September, but as the skill level tends to plateau after a couple of weeks, it really isn't worth it by January.

But hard as the sessions are, I was starting to feel like I was getting into things a little more, getting to at least know a few faces and to try to remember a couple of tactics learned over the first two weeks. The hardest part - as one of my classmates observed in passing - is that it's really hard to progress much doing these classes only once a week. It turns out, actually, that everyone else in the class is playing weekly games in various leagues; the most common reason for signing up, to a man, seems to be "I was just tired of getting my ass kicked all over the place." This is a group of guys dedicated to improving their performance, week in and week out - something truly commendable in a beer league or the "weekly pick-up" type of atmosphere around most non-professional hockey players of this age.

I had kind of come to this conclusion, too: I needed more ice-time to get any better at anything, or to even just get better on my feet. Again, Sid was one step ahead of me, and told me of the shinny sessions at Dufferin Grove Park. Public outdoor rinks with shinny sessions seemed a little odd to me: I mean, no matter what's going on out on the ice, eventually the same 12 guys - many of them AAA Midget or OHL should've-beens that smoked too much pot in high school or something - show up and commandeer the ice for an exclusive, you'd-better-be-as-good-as-us-or-enjoy-losing shinny session.

On the contrary, as part of the many public-funded (or this winter, MasterCard-funded) recreational activities in Toronto, the program at Dufferin Grove is an open drop-in session ("Beginner Shinny for Adults"). As is the second one that was added a mere couple of weeks after the Dufferin Grove one at Wallace Rink, just up Dufferin St. near Dupont. The third session to be added was a sign-up only one at the rink at Christie Pits... less than 10-minutes' walk from my house.

So I emailed the instructor - Dan Watson, the second in the string of Dans telling me that I really should've done this earlier - and was signed up for the class the coming Tuesday (Jan 15).

This first session was radically different. Immediately, playing under the lights on an outdoor rink, it brought back the Saturday night double-headers (minus the tall-boy cans in the snowbanks adjacent to the rink). This was bare-bones hockey: the only things to bring were skates, a stick, gloves and a helmet (though knee and elbow pads were suggested in the event of falls). When I got there, I discovered a rag-tag bunch of mostly young people, almost evenly divided between male and female and many of them already decent on their skates. In contrast to the hockey clinic, the first things were introductions: walking in, I met Ben and another regular player whose name I have temprorarily forgotten; coming out of the session I met Andrew, and I've now gotten to know Neil and Pete and Gabriel and Sara(h) - who spells while playing hockey? - and the faces are almost more familiar from week to week outdoors than they are in Bill Bolton.

Shinny turned out to be much more basic instruction, in truth, more like what I thought the hockey clinic would be. The first thing we learned was the stance: back straight, knees bent, head up, stick on the ice - crucial information that, aside from the "knees bent" part mentioned to me in my backwards skating tutorial, hadn't been made known to me at the clinic. The first night was simple - so simple, actually, that we put our sticks down for almost half of the 90-minute class, learning the principles of crossing over (just walking on our skates this way), forward and backwards, and being sent in each direction by whistle blasts while standing, all 24 of us in loose, military-style ranks making a sort of square.

We then applied these lessons by breaking into two groups, each with two teams of six, and playing soccer on skates for a while, just to get used to moving in accordance with the puck (rubber ball). We then moved on to a little bit of stickhandling, and some basic passing, which (already!) prepared us for our game: six aside, each team with two shifts an one side wearing lovely City of Toronto provided high-visibility vests. This game was exciting, even if it moved a little slower. The ice was worse, a little snow-covered, and the temperature much colder than the indoor rink usually is (or maybe that's just the equipment...), and the competition level was higher but less intense. Everyone here came to play, but there was no real inward pressure: no one making up for a life without hockey, or for the knee injury at 17 that cost them their shot. We were basically just kids - of all ages, though the class is only for those over 18 - playing on the pond, and it was a blast.

The class runs until 10:30, but the lights stay on until 11:30 at Christie, meaning that the same couple of "hot shots" banned in the beginner leagues' rules - I'm serious, this is what they are called in the rules posted online - that were kicked off the ice before we started were still hanging around to play after we finished. Obsessive, maybe, but they seemed like nice guys. Dan announced at 10:30 that our session was over, that he had to go home but "you know, the lights aren't going to go out for a while...", and about 12 of us played another hour.

This was the ice-time I'd been needing. Granted, it still might not teach me the nuances or the science of the game that the higher-level instruction will inevitably teach me, it was place free of embarassment, where I could fall down all I wanted (though I only did once this class), where I could break my skates in, and where everyone just came out to play around. No money invested, no alternate projects; no one here is trying to build up for their trophy one like the students at the clinic... in fact, I think I'm the only one with any other kind of hockey on the go, using this to build up to the clinic to build up to my beer league debut. And all for free, just down the street. I knew before my skates were tightened that night that I'd be back until the snow melted. And seeing just as much steam coming off my socks and out of my helmet afterwards was just as rewarding.

This was my Timbits hockey.

Addition to week 2

Before beginning the installment for Week 3, there's a moment from last week's that was omitted in my account that I wanted to add. It will be added to that installment, but instead of requiring anyone reading to go through the whole thing and find it, I'll just add it here:

In the Sportchek while I was trying on the new skates, while asking him the million questions, Leo's answers kept coming back to comfort, and how I liked my skates to feel on my feet. He asked about what kind of game I played, my position and more, and I had to level with him: "Truth is, I just started. I've never played before this year."

"Really?" His stare defined incredulous. "And you're Canadian?" I kind of laughed... "yeah."

"Huh. I've played since I was eight, and I'm Chinese." Just another fantastic piece of Canadiana, I suppose...

Goodbye to some old friends (into Week 2)

Aside from the problems detailed in my last piece, not to mention my fear of rubber-poisoning induced vomiting related to breaking a new mouthguard in my first class, I encountered a bit of a problem that first night: my feet. Now I hadn't been in skates since around this time last year, so a little discomfort should be expected... but skating this time around, and actually demanding something of my old Bauer Chargers, I knew something was seriously wrong.

Among the other things I had intended to do before the first class but didn't accomplish was to sharpen my skates. I honestly don't know when I last sharpened those blades - there's a chance that it happened in 2003 sometime, when I had access to a sharpener (working at Canadian Tire and all) and was a regular attendee of the Victoria Park Saturday Double-Headers, but I can't confirm that this far on down the road. Using my skates once a winter (if that) since then, I hadn't sharpened them since, so I was also expecting somewhat of a "performance issue." Generally blaming pilot error for my skating difficulties, though, and never really pushing these skates, I would never have thought of upgrading. These are hockey skates, they should be fine for hockey... right? I mentioned the pain in my feet to my instructor partway through the first session, who took one look at my skates and said "Well, I don't know how easy it is for you to get to Play It Again Sports, but..."

Maybe they would've been fine if I'd sharpened them. Then again, maybe not: these were no ordinary skates.

Growing up with a bigger-than-usual extended family without an excessive (or even comfortable...) amount of money, I have never been a stranger to hand-me-downs. In fact, these size 11 Chargers replaced a pair of size 9s I inherited from Jeremy, who hit his growth spurt a good two years before I did, around Grade 7 somewhere. Out on my Grand-dad's pond the old 9s got so tight they were cutting my circulation off in my feet, and last time I did get out skating in them, around the age of 14, I guess, I came in to the house in some serious pain, my feet nearly blue from two hours in temperatures low enough to keep the pond's surface frozen several times over. It was at this time that my Grandfather gave me the skates I was wearing last year.

It's not just skates I've had forever. In fact, there a lot of things you don't take care of when you put your limited income in your adolescent and student years to use; for example, my soccer equipment in my closet features cleats that have fit since Grade 9, as have the shin pads and socks that go along with them, and as I write this, I'm wearing a T-shirt from an AC/DC concert I attended... in 2000. These skates, I guess, are no different: it was only during my first class that I really sat down (on the bench in excruciating pain!) and thought about how long I'd had them. Over ten years, anyway.

But that afternoon years ago, in my Grand-dad's basement where I was putting my skates beside the woodstove to dry out, the next pair I was to own were hanging on a coat hook near the woodpile. The skates were my Grand-dad's, but he had abandoned them a few years ago; he'd gotten them from my Uncle Fred's friend Carl, who had left them orphaned in that basement a couple of years before that, a winter or two before undergoing the knee surgery that, to my knowledge, has prevented him from skating ever since. I had made one little modification over the years of note to these old things, sprucing them up with a pair of NHL Coolest Game on Earth holographic "authentic merchandise" stickers on the heels... one that I can trace back to my acquisition of NHL Faceoff '99 for the original Playstation, and the other one added for balance to the other skate a good two years later from some product I still don't remember buying.

But there I was, in my first class, and the coach looked at the skates and just said frankly "wow, those are old." I don't know that he knew the half of it: I was on twenty-year old skates - in my first time on skates all winter, and was trying to keep up with a hockey class that was four months in by this point and being whipped back into shape after the holiday layoff. I still think that this first session was a sort of initial assessment, to see who in the class needed help with what. While I could've just made a sign reading "everything" and saved myself the embarassment, I'm sure the vintage gear may also have clued him in. Apparently, I had no ankle support, and it may be that these old friends had seen their best days a long time ago.

What did this mean, then? Simply, that it was time to look into buying some new skates. Well, new-to-me... unless...

Sid and my friends having sprung for all my equipment and the cost of the class, and towards the end of the week (approaching my second class), with my most recent paycheck having gone in the day before, I started looking to Boxing Week sales, thinking I might as well get a new pair at an affordable price. Yes, they were still going on. I'm not a big Boxing Week shopper, but a sale that extends to January 14? That's like three Boxing Weeks. As I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, though, I set my eyes on a $59.99 pair of Missions in the Sportchek flyer and set out that Saturday afternoon.

To prove that this blog is not sponsored by Sportchek, I will first note that the Eaton Centre location was well out-of-stock of this model of skate, and the $99.99 Missions. They did have some $99.99 CCM Tacks left, which I tried on and probably could've left with. Basic black, functional, fairly comfortable. Due to the the limited number of sizes and models available, Leo the sales associate brought me out another pair in my size, an Easton Synergy 1100. A blatant upsell, sure, but the Tacks were 11s and, in accordance with the old rule of thumb stating skate size should be a full size down from shoe size - I'm a 10.5 or 11 in that department - technically the wrong size anyway. Maybe skate sizes were smaller 20 years ago, but the Tacks were pretty roomy compared to the 11s that I brought with me to sharpen.

I was thinking, by bringing the Chargers along, that I would sharpen them as well, for use on the outdoor rinks so as not to compromise the new skates. Leo of course told me that so long as you're on ice, it really doesn't matter if it's indoors or out. So midway through, I decided that the Chargers would be retiring today. The second pair he showed me, double the price, was of course better in every way. A more snug fit, firmer boot and lots of other features that I couldn't quite explain why I liked, though they were selling me on the skate. Fast.

I asked a million questions through which Leo was very patient, and I learned a few tricks about tying my skates in the process: going around the backs of the ankles with the laces is not recommended; when you first put them on, put your toes right to the tip of the skate's toe and tighten the bottom laces; then move up to the laces approaching the ankle, but not without banging the skate on the floor a couple of times to get your foot right to the back of the boot and free up that much more lace to pull them tight with. I don't know that my skates had been this tight since my dad held my first pair of hard-boot Microns - again, hand-me-downs, this time from my cousins the Hodgsons (Rob or Danny, possibly both... handing-me-down seems to run in immediate families too) - between his legs and tied them for me.

I kind of started to wonder again: if they'd been sharpened, and if I'd been educated on how to tie them properly, maybe my Chargers were fine... I could do a lot with $200, after all... no. I had to replace them, no getting sentimental. It was almost like shooting Ol' Yeller. The new skates fit so well, though, that it completely blows the comparison; I mean, the Coateses didn't have an opportunity to buy Lassie as a puppy before taking him out back for the last time...

I think it was just time. One of the things Sid showed me after giving me my gift was the Facebook group she'd started to get everyone on board with her idea, and it was right there in her appeal to my friends: one thing he's been talking about for ages is the thought of taking a powerskating class or getting good enough to join a rec league here but i don't think he would ever think it was right to spoil himself that much... I hesitated, I tried to call her and get her opinion (damn I'm cheap... and insecure, too, it would appear...), but when I got no response, I looked at my phone: "No service," I said to Leo. "I guess I'd better take them."

Talk about feeling like a pro. The first thing was to take the skates into the shop and bake them: not only is your first sharpening free, but so is the moulding. Now I thought this was something that only the pros did, but apparently cooking and moulding the skates reduces the length of time require to break them in. Cool. I spent 15 minutes barefoot in hot skates - not super-hot, but hot enough to make one sweat from the feet more than one would care to in a public place -and after nearly an hour in the store and nearly quadruple what I'd meant to spend, I left with my new skates in their box, tied tightly like a new ball glove to soften them up, and my still-dull chargers over my shoulder with their laces tied together. I wasn't supposed to use the skates for 24 hours, and I didn't.

* * *

Sunday evening came, and again, I found myself rushing to the rink. Family Christmas schedules were finally coordinated on Sid's dad's side of her family, so we spent the late afternoon snacking and drinking Caesars (ok, I only had one...) before I snuck away early to make my session.

I made it to the rink with a little more time this week, and was able to get dressed and out to the ice in time for the warm-up. In the room before heading out, though, the silver and orange of these skates drew a couple of looks and some questions right away from the other players. I don't know how it would've been so obvious that I had brand new skates... or maybe there is a secret judgement-by-equipment going on after all... but on they went, tied the new way (not too tightly this first time out, though, as I was also warned by Leo), and I was into the second night of my fledgling career.

I spoke in the last entry of how not writing right after a session can be good, as it gives you time to reflect. It can be bad too, especially when we're talking about trying to remember which drills were done on which night now that five sessions have blurred together. Tonight, however, the main instructor - Steve, whose name I only now know and still didn't at the time - was away, leaving Rocky and a younger assistant to fill in, and the class for the night was focused on two things: crossovers and skating backwards.

We started with backwards, which wound up being all I learned that night. And to be honest, I didn't really learn it at all. If you've ever had some one teach you how to golf, you might be able to relate. When someone is teaching you to golf, you get a ton of instructions: keep your head down; look at the ball; feet shoulder width apart; knees slightly bent; lock your left [non-dominant] arm (etc.). Then, you still have to swing once you're properly contorted.

Similarly, skating backwards is like trying to sit on a chair that isn't actually there, and the whole "C-cut" thing was new to me. Basically, it's a combination of wiggling your butt so that you can turn you feet outward then inward, making a "C" shape with each foot and effectively paddling your boat backwards. The important thing, the new assistant told me (by this time, of course, he had taken me aside, out of the lineups doing lengths of the ice at high speeds, backwards) was that I stay on my heels, and not come up on my toes. The weight has to stay back.

Easier said than done. I've developed bad form over the years of not skating well, and I always lean forward when I skate. But worse than this was the pain in my feet - again. A different place, though: not in the ankles from having no support, but rather, in the sides of my feet, from pushing outward with muscles I would otherwise never use. I worked on the backwards skating until I could barely stand (missing the introduction to cross-overs entirely!) and finally conceded to a break.

We did some more stick-handling drills afterwards, going around pylons in a new pattern - which I again was ok with - and scrimmaged again, but the only result I really remember now is the growing pains in the new skates. "How are the skates?" and "Do your feet hurt?" were the two best questions that came from all around in the dressing room afterwards, to which I could barely more than nod. Then a few of the guys on the other side of the room started talking about it: "yeah, these ones here have taken about six months now..." was one remark, and Ken, the nice older guy who has come to sit across from me said something about how it was a completely unnatural motion that takes time to learn, and that I shouldn't worry - encouraging, for sure.

Tonight, though, I knew one thing: I hadn't felt so good taking skates off since that afternoon on the pond when the old size 9s came off. But this time, I felt better than ever putting them on.